Global conflicts: rising military spending, deeper debt

Despite this sizable lead, Senate Republican leaders recently called for a massive increase in defense spending from about 3 percent of gross domestic product this year to 5 percent over the next five to seven years, starting with a $55 billion (€51 billion) boost in fiscal year 2025 alone to address delayed maintenance and boost industrial and technological production for military purposes. Trump’s Republican Party platform echoes calls for major new investments in the U.S. defense industrial base, including the construction of an Iron Dome missile defense screen that is entirely “made in America” and an increase in soldiers and sailors to defend the southern border against illegal migrants and drug traffickers. Meanwhile, congressional caps limited President Biden’s request for a defense spending increase to just 1 percent for the next fiscal year. In any case, with both parties pledging not to cut Social Security or Medicare, deficits are likely to widen further.

In short, the US and its allies are responding to a more hostile and unpredictable world by increasing their own military spending and sinking deeper into debt. Yet this choice raises another, more difficult question: Will these new investments in weapons really address the insecurity people feel in their daily lives? What other human security needs, in the broadest sense, will go unmet as governments divert scarce revenues to more military spending?

There is no easy answer to this dilemma. Our coffers are already overwhelmed by the costs of pandemic recovery, rising debt service costs, and climate change adaptation. For example, projected U.S. federal budget deficits are projected to balloon from $1 trillion in fiscal year 2019 to $1.9 trillion (6.7 percent of GDP) in 2024 and $2.9 trillion (6.9 percent of GDP) in 2034. Americans, like many others around the world, are feeling the pinch of higher prices and are worried about their retirement security, as experts warn that Social Security is headed for insolvency by 2033. Migrants bear a particularly heavy burden, seeking shelter from multiple threats and generating new costs and benefits for host communities. All these demands fuel populist calls for austerity and exclusion, as evidenced by Trump’s “America First” policies and border walls.

In this dangerous new dynamic, we are losing sight of the ambitious goals set in 2015 when the world’s nations set out a comprehensive strategy to halve global poverty, provide good food, improve health outcomes, and deliver clean water and air, known as the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). These critical elements of healthy, safe lives for people and the planet are as important to building peace and preventing conflict as advanced fighter jets and so-called precision bombs.

Yet the international community is woefully behind in achieving these collective goals. On average, only 16 percent of SDG targets are on track to be met by the 2030 target date, while the remaining 84 percent show limited or reversal of progress. According to the latest authoritative data on global human development trends, the recovery from the pandemic is highly uneven, with lower-income countries falling further behind. As UNDP Administrator Achim Steiner said: “We are seeing defense budgets being increased year after year, while development budgets, the currency to help poorer countries invest in cooperation, are being cut. This is a recipe for a much darker future.”

The current trajectories of increased defense spending, rising debt, and declining human development are clearly unsustainable. People everywhere want to live in peace with their neighbors, not just to survive, but to fulfill their best potential for themselves and their families. Governments have an ongoing responsibility to ensure that our streets are safe and enemies are deterred from attacking them. But not at such a high price that our dwindling incomes are diverted to more and more advanced tanks and ships—and away from investing in our schools, hospitals, decent jobs, and healthy environment. We urgently need to rethink the basic principles of what makes a good and safe society and reallocate our resources accordingly—or risk much greater conflict in the future.