The Economy of Global Demilitarization
By Michael Boyajian
With the real or imagined threat posed by hostile nations and terrorism so prevalent in the American mindset it is hard to convince many of the need to reduce the nation’s military spending in order to super charge the economy. However, if you were to reduce all the world’s military expenditures than nothing is lost because those with the advantage still have the advantage yet valuable monies are freed up for more productive economic pursuits.
What percentage should the reduction be? Well, 10% would be optimal but let’s look at just a 5% reduction in world military spending. Wikipedia reports that the U.S. military budget alone is $607 billion followed by China at $85 billion. The U.S. expenditures account for 42% of the world’s total military spending of $1464 billion or if you will $1.4 trillion which is worth comparing to the U.S. GDP of $14 trillion. It should also be noted that the U.S. military budget accounts for 4% of its GDP.
Imagine the flood of capital into the world’s economy if you reduce expenditures by 5%. Savings would be $73 billion. A 10% reduction would result in $146 billion in savings. The U.S. percentage of military to GDP would be reduced considerably. One can barely imagine the effect on a militarized third world country under this formulation.
Flush with monies the world’s nations could now raise armies of doctors rather than armies of soldiers. Revenues would flow into healthcare, education, a green economy, infrastructure and an over all improvement of quality of life. At just 5% you seem to be reaching some sort of utopian plateau, imagine the heights that can be reached with a 10% reduction.
Some would say well the terrorists would never agree to reduce their attack spending. Well terrorists are best handled at this time, without considering new innovative approaches, by intelligence operations as opposed to military force. But even if you disagree with the intelligence approach to the threat military force can be maintained through a system of burden shifting world military allocations to the battle against terror which would make up for any American reduction in the fight. This would be included in the overall demilitarization agreement.
The military reduction treaty would be brokered by the United Nations which would be given oversight and inspection powers by member nations. This power would extend to all the world’s nations.
So there you have it a world stuck in the status quo mired in military spending and lack luster economic performance or a world of vast prosperity where all humanity reaches its full potential free from fear and violence.
End.