Divert. Transform. Sustain. Degrow

CONTEXT

Military spending reflects, indeed reinforces, power in all its forms.

Military spending positively correlates to military greenhouse gas emissions – the more you spend on big ticket weaponry, the more the emissions. Cut spending = cut emissions.

Military spending is inextricably locked into the arms industry. To all intents and purposes, they are as one.

To tackle this issue, we need to keep sight of the bigger foreign and defence policy picture (as we do with the economy): we want global co-operation, rooted in our shared humanity, as we now face this era of global boiling – we reject climate goals and climate finance being put second to military objectives.

Military emissions and military spending

The global militaries are estimated to be responsible for 5.5% of global GHG emissions.
To give context to this, 1.4bn people of the 54 countries on the African continent are responsible for 3.5% – 4%.
By 2030 – when we are meant to have cut emissions by 45% – the big military spenders of the world will have allocated approximately $13 trillion more to their utterly fossil fuel-reliant militaries.
- Military spending has increased 20% in past 10 years. This is before wars in Ukraine and Gaza.
- In 2020, public climate finance was estimated to be $321bn, less than one sixth of the $1981bn sum spent by global militaries in the same year.
- Since 2015, the G7 and other industrialised countries have committed to spend $100bn a year under UNFCCC to support climate action in developing countries. The pledge was never fulfilled. One-year’s global military spend would fund climate finance for 20 years.
- The $2 trillion global lifetime cost of the F-35 fighter jets could have funded UN disaster risk reduction for the next 4,000 years; or global biodiversity conservation at $100bn p/a for the next 20 years or WHO funding at $2bn p/a for the next 1,000 years.

Paradigm shift needed

The role and the responsibility of the big heavily fossil fuel reliant militaries in the climate change frame means mandating them to give full and transparent reporting of their emissions.

Civil society needs to fully understanding that military emissions are enabled by those nations with high military spending. It means recognising that cuts to military emissions can only happen by cuts to military spending. It means understanding that cuts to military spending can be win-win for climate and climate finance.

When the Soviet Union collapsed – peacefully – thanks to one man, Michael Gorbachev – he took the decision to cut back the military. Soviet military spending fell and guess what, so did the USA’s.

We reached the lowest post-war level of military spending in the mid 1990s.

We need the trillions spent on war machines – such as we are seeing Gaza and Ukraine – redirected. In this way, humanity will receive the peace dividend and climate dividend it so deserves and needs.

THE FIVE PERCENT PROPOSAL

This proposal offers a practical, ambitious, equitable roadmap designed to achieve substantial cuts to global military spending and thus delivering a green peace dividend.

It aims to (i) get back to that post-cold war ‘Gorbachev’ era of military spending of $1 trillion p/a from the current excessive $2 trillion p/a. (ii) and from there, implementation of a formula that is linked to ongoing reductions to military spending enabling degrowth to take place in the military economy.

The 5% Formula: In detail

The 5% Formula is a TWO-PART mechanism to achieve major, year-on-year cuts to global military spending over 10 years and beyond. It is a long-term, sustainable campaign, with a top-line demand that works for civil society groups in every country where there is a perceived value in challenging policies concerning military spending. In the long term, its effect will be to degrow the ‘military economy’.

The first decade calls on the top 20 spenders (who account for 85% of $2.2 trillion annual global military spending) to cut their military spending by 5% each year for decade. This would see annual global military spending cut by 40% after the first decade, back to the early naughties spending levels, the lowest since the ‘Global War on Terror’ started (‘lowest’ still being far too high and the 2-nd part of the 5% Formula ensures degrowing military spending even further).

5% annual and absolute cuts to national military budgets: This is equivalent to a compound 40% cut for each nation’s respective annual military spending after 10 years (see the Table on the right for illustration). These cuts are expected to deliver an estimated $880 billion in total to be redirected.

SUM CAPTURED: $880 billion

After the first 10 years, we call upon all nations to adopt the 5% threshold rule as a route to sustainably degrow the global military economy, such that every country degrows their military spending in a way that is faster and deeper than their overall economy.

All nations adhere to a ‘5% threshold rule’, where military spending degrowth (% change) in a given year is determined by previous year’s economic growth (measured as % increase in gross domestic product or GDP), less 5 percentage points (5%).[1]

The 5% threshold rule in practise means that every country will degrow their military spending faster and deeper than their wider economy, as illustrated in the examples on the right table. Most economies grow less than 3% annually; this effectively translates as 2% degrowth to their annual military spending. These savings are then divided equally to fund both domestic and international needs.

[1] The 5% threshold rule:
Annual percentage change in military spending ≤ (Percentage change in yearly GDP – 5%).
Annual economic growth is the % difference between any two consecutive years’ GDP: we expect most economies will grow far less than 5% on average for the foreseeable future.

See More

Make Arms Industry Polluters Pay – Excess Profits Tax on the Arms Industry, https://transformdefence.org/excessprofitstax/

Don’t Buy Don’t’ Sell https://transformdefence.org/publication/you-say-dont-buyi-say-dont-sell-lets-call-the-arms-trade-off/

Degrow the Military https://transformdefence.org/publication/degrow-the-military-economy/

GLOBAL MILITARY SPENDING MUST BE CHALLENGED, REDUCED AND REDIRECTED

In the face of climate breakdown we need to move to the concept of ‘sustainable human safety’. It is therefore essential that we advocate the logic and the economic benefits of degrowing the oversized, poor-value-for–money and not-fit-for-purpose ‘military economy’.
Consequently, the time has come to halt arms industry profiteering in peace and war. The nations which spend the most on their militaries are those which award the most lucrative contracts to the arms industry. As a result, those companies benefit hugely from guaranteed, inflated, long-term revenue from governmental services/equipment contracts.
End the hypocrisy. Approximately 80% of global arms sales are made by the Permanent 5 members of the security council (USA, UK, Russia, China, France) plus Germany – the same nations charged with keeping the peace of the world. All this while the majority of their arms sales go to the global south. This has myriad consequences for development across the global south. It is reflected in the carnage of Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Palestine and other developing nations where profits are made from conflict while societies are destroyed. Selling arms with one hand and delivering aid with the other, is governmental hypocrisy.
It is hugely wasteful of resources: Many of the world’s poorest countries and fastest growing economies (both measured in terms of GDP per capita) spend much more on their military than either on education or on health; excessive military spending impedes economic development (SDG 8) and significantly impacts on the efforts to reducing poverty (SDG 1) and hunger (SDG 2) and improving health (SDG 3) and education (SDG 4).
We must amplify the UN Disarmament for Development agenda. UN Secretary General Guterres has rightly called for ‘Operationally linking disarmament with many SDGs’.
Global military emissions are significant. They are estimated (not including conflict-related emissions) to be responsible for up to 5.5% of global greenhouse gas emissions, more than shipping and civilian aviation combined. To give context to this, 1.4bn people of the 54 countries on the African continent are responsible for 3.9%. And still, we do not have exact figures because military emissions reporting to UN processes remains severely inadequate and voluntary.
Military spending positively correlates with military emissions. Higher military spending means more big ticket gas-guzzling military equipment and weaponry, which in turn lead to larger military emissions and increasing likelihood of conflicts. Fossil fuels are the lifeblood of all modern militaries since it is essential not just for personnel and estate but also for equipment and operations. Fossil fuels themselves have also been a major driver for conflict in many parts of the world. And the increasing role of military planning linked to climate refugee flows from global south to north is now an accepted part of the climate-change ‘security’ narrative across the military.
Nuclear weapons are often misguidedly overlooked by wider civil society yet they comprise a huge element of military spending; are the ultimate un-useable lethal weapon sucking money from domestic needs; and they are also increasingly are part of the developing world agenda.

The time come for us to call for a progressive transformation of foreign and defence policy through the lens of climate emergency, one fit for the 21^stcentury and the generations to come

“What we urgently need now is a rethinking of the entire concept of security. Even after the end of the Cold War, it has been envisioned mostly in military terms. Over the past few years, all we’ve been hearing is talk about weapons, missiles and airstrikes… The overriding goal must be human security: providing food, water and a clean environment and caring for people’s health. To achieve it, we need to develop strategies, make preparations, plan and create reserves. But all efforts will fail if governments continue to waste money by fueling the arms race… I’ll never tire of repeating: we need to demilitarize world affairs, international politics and political thinking.”

Former President of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev, April 15, 2020, TIME