Military spending

Record global military spending undermines human security

The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) released its annual assessment of global military spending this week, and the results are stunning. In the leadup to the COVID-19 crisis – the most significant threat to humankind and human security in decades – the governments of the world were busy investing in the sort of defense that is of almost no practical value in shielding us from this pandemic.

Global military spending peaked at over $1.9 trillion last year, the highest level in five decades. Spending by the United States has been the driver of this massive expenditure, accounting for 38 percent of the total — over two-and-a-half times what China spends and over ten times what Russia spends.

In short, the SIPRI report throws into sharp relief the inadequacies of Washington’s notion of security — thousands of Americans are dead, and our massive military budget did little to protect them. Meanwhile, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the World Health Organization, which are on the front lines of the effort to blunt the results of this pandemic and prevent future outbreaks, receive roughly $8 billion per year in U.S. government resources, a tiny fraction of the more than $700 billion lavished on the Pentagon. That’s a total of less than 2 percent of U.S. defense spending for both agencies combined. Looked at in another way, the $35 billion the Pentagon spends on nuclear weapons each year could pay for 300,000 ICU beds, 35,000 ventilators, 150,000 nurses and 75,000 emergency room doctors.