Militarism, Opinion (Food for Thought), Pacifism and Nonviolence

Has all that spending made us happy and did it bring us peace?

This is an opinion website which usually talks about violence from the outset. There is another article about the cost of war, including in human lives, here.

The UK is one of the world’s highest military spenders – currently ranked 6th in the world – spending £60billion+ every year. The core MoD budget is planned to reach £73.5billion per year by 2028/29 (compare this to around £39-40 billion in 2016). Over the last decade, the UK has spent over half a trillion pounds (£500-£550billion) on defence.

The total UK defence spend is reported as £298billion over the next four years (2026-2030). Within that, £48billion is reportedly earmarked specifically for land systems, non-nuclear naval ships and weapons/munitions, and a further £63.6 billion going to the “nuclear enterprise” such as submarines, warheads etc. Keep in mind, some of this is reportedly reallocated money, with some suggestions it will be coming from transport and energy. This is ironic, when our dependency on fuel (a potential source of conflict and certainly leverage by other countries), could be alleviated by investing in renewable energy …

Compare that for a moment to new investment in the NHS (£21billion – over 10 years), or even money promised to “halve” male violence against women and girls (£1billion – over three years), the latter thought to be just repackaged money from existing funding streams, and not promised as continual investment.

Year on year, the amount of military spending in the UK has increased, as it inevitably does in other countries; some would argue this is proof of “the arms race”, and that increased military capacity doesnt reduce threat, it just makes others spend more on it. Nevertheless, the UN report “The Security We Need” says “if current trends persist, global military spending could reach $4.7 to $6.6 trillion by 2035.” As an FYI, ending global hunger by 2030 would cost around $93billion annually.

If you want to bring this back to home territory, and put it into context, if we are talking about priorities, caring for or “protecting” citizens and their wellbeing, it’s also worth noting that the UK is currently:

  • 29th on the World Happiness Index, down from 21st-23rd in previous years
  • 39th in the Global Peace Index – a notable deterioration from the previous year (30th).
  • 5th most surveilled country in the world, with more than 600 cameras for every 10,000 people
  • one of the counties with the highest imprisonment rates in Western Europe
  • 20th – out of 21 countries – (fallen from 14th over a decade), for healthy life expectancy, now only ranking above the United States.

Militarism encourages men to choose power over peace and status over connection – domination in the name of “protection”. But when we talk about security and safety – particularly given rising rates of homelessness, the cost of living and prevalence of male violence against women – the question has to be “safety and security for whom”?

And maybe this is the real question: who benefits from all this spending? Because all the data above seems to suggests it’s not the people trying to just go about the daily lives. So if the men with the power to stop wars choose violence, just as we know the men who harm women do, we have to ask what’s in it for them?

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