The Urgent Need to Move the Money!

During the upcoming summit of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in The Hague on 24-25 June, NATO’s 32 member states are expected to increase their overall military spending target to 5 per cent of their Gross Domestic Product (GDP). The 5 per cent target is a huge increase from the previous 2 per cent NATO states had agreed on. At a recent event organised by Chatham House, NATO’s Secretary-General Mark Rutte said it’s not up to him to decide how countries pay the bill. He argued, for example, that the United Kingdom could opt not to meet the new target and still have National Health Service and other public services but warned, “you better learn to speak Russian.”

The call for NATO’s increased military expenditure comes at a time when the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) shows the world’s military expenditure has already reached $2718 billion —the highest global level ever recorded. Compared to 2023, military expenditure increased 9.4 per cent in 2024, making it the highest year-on-year rise since the end of the Cold War. States that previously were able to afford to have both high military expenditure and high social spending, as was the case for many NATO countries, are now struggling with strained public finances while trying to keep up with the extreme levels of spiraling armament efforts.

The context for this rising spending is bleak and violent. Nuclear-armed states are engaged in wars, including Russia’s aggression and full-scale invasion of Ukraine; escalating tensions and overt conflict between India and Pakistan; Isreal’s genocide against Palestinians and bombings of Lebanon, Iran, Syria and Yemen, which is supported by several Western states. Meanwhile, international law is under attack, with violations ongoing of the Genocide Conventions, Arms Trade Treaty, international humanitarian law, international human rights law and the UN Charter. Some states are indicating their intention to or consideration of withdrawing from international treaties such as the Mine Ban Treaty, and most recently Iran considering leaving the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty amid Israel’s attacks.  In this context, increased global military spending is asking to pouring gasoline on fire rather than “stabilising” “geopolitical security” through mythical “deterrence” strategies, as so many states claim.

Military Expenditure vs. Social Justice

In 2024, world military expenditure increased for the tenth consecutive year. That means we’ve seen an increase every year since UN member states committed to increase their efforts to address socioeconomic injustice by adopting the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in 2015. This spending directly  undermines the achievement of the SDGs. 

Since its foundation in 1915, WILPF has opposed arms racing and highlighted the devastating impact of military expenditure on peace and planet, explaining how it undercuts or impedes development, not least by diverting funds from health, wellbeing, infrastructure, food and water supplies, among others. WILPF has highlighted how military activities often threaten human health through the toxic legacy of weapon production, leading to environmental contamination. For example, how explosive remnants of war make land dangerous to farm or live on, which hampers achievement of socioeconomic rights and limits access to education, food security and safe housing. These weapons can therefore delay return and reconstruction processes.

Last year, the UN Secretary-General concluded that only 17 per cent of the SDG targets were on track to be achieved. Half the targets showed minimal or moderate progress, and the progress for over a third of the targets has stalled or regressed. With only five years left to achieve the SDGs, it is urgent to reverse this trend.

Debunk the Myths

Military expenditure can be seen as the practical application of the philosophy of militarism. That philosophy rests on the idea that power and domination is ensured through the willingness and capacity to use force and violence. As WILPF members Ray Acheson and Madeleine Rees have described, the thinking behind militarised security “not only undermines disarmament and reductions in military spending, but also perpetuates a social acceptance of human beings intentionally put in harm’s way, viewed within an abstract calculus of casualty figures.” Often this is done to justify ever-increasing war profiteering.

Military expenditure facilitates gender-based violence and sexual violence in conflict, destabilises communities, exacerbates power imbalances, and reinforces already existing patriarchal structures. The gendered impacts of military spending can also be seen in the way that decreasing social spending often has a negative impact on gender equality, as social spending largely benefits women and marginalised groups who are disproportionally reliant on social programmes.

In WILPF’s first resolution in 1915, the organisation identified “the private profits accruing from the great armament factories” as “a powerful hindrance to the abolition of war.” The discussion on military expenditure is often filled with myths that hinder abolition of war. Researcher Susan Jackson illustrateshow producers of large conventional weapons systems “sell” the idea of national security as military security, framing the military as a “good, natural, and necessary” part of society. This assumption legitimises national security, defined as military security, and makes it difficult to question the military and its role in national security.

In season two of WILPF’s podcast Think & Resist: Conversations about Feminism and Peace we explore the gendered aspects of military expenditure and debunk some of these common myths together with Taylor Barnes (Inkstick), Adem Elveren (Fitchburg State University), Malin Nilsson (WILPF Sweden) and Nan Tian (SIPRI). For example, while a common myth often used to legitimise military expenditure is that the military-industrial complex creates and retains jobs, contributing to economic growth, studies have shown that the weapon industry creates fewer jobs per dollar than the median manufacturing industry.

Tools and Efforts to Reverse the Trend

In the Pact for the Future, adopted by the UN General Assembly in September 2024, member states requested the UN Secretary-General to provide an analysis on the impact of the global increase in military expenditure on the SDGs. WILPF contributed with a submission to the report, which will be launched in the fall. In our submission, we provided a list of sources and recommendations on what can be done to reverse this trend. For example, WILPF:

• • Called to reform the UN decision-making processes, starting with abolishing the veto in the UN Security Council;

• • Urged states to identify and prevent organisational structures that facilitates potential impact of military and weapon contractors on politicians and legislators and highlighted the need for establishing anti-corruption measures and policies to avoid so-called “revolving doors;”

• • Addressed the need to expose and critique the private interests of profit and power that are behind mainstream arguments in favour of militarism and military spending and pay attention to the political economy underpinning militarism;

• • Urged states to work towards shifting military economies to civilian economies, including by investing in social and gender equality and justice, human rights, and environmental regeneration and sustainability; and

• • Stressed the need to move away from militarised security to human security and debunk the myths of military expenditure being a driver of economic growth, as well as military spending as a source of “security.”

You will find our submission, the podcast and other resources related to military expenditure on WILPF’s website, where we have gathered previous work and useful sources. As our 110 years old history shows, there is a lot that can be done to reverse the trend of military expenditure.

This week, WILPF members will follow this tradition by taking the streets in The Hague to urge states to stop the military expenditure and #movethemoney.