{"id":53919,"date":"2025-09-12T20:39:55","date_gmt":"2025-09-12T15:09:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/?p=53919"},"modified":"2025-09-15T12:32:05","modified_gmt":"2025-09-15T07:02:05","slug":"opportunity-cost-of-excessive-militarisation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/current-affairs\/12-09-2025\/opportunity-cost-of-excessive-militarisation","title":{"rendered":"Opportunity Cost of Excessive Militarisation"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>Syllabus: GS3\/ Defence<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Context<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>With Military expenditures <strong>reaching $2.7 trillion in 2024<\/strong>, the UN warns that a small fraction could eradicate extreme poverty, hunger, and finance climate adaptation in developing countries, highlighting the opportunity cost of excessive militarisation.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Global trend in Militarization<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Concentration of Power:<\/strong> The top five spenders <strong>(US, China, Russia, India, Germany)<\/strong> together account for nearly<strong> 60% <\/strong>of total global military expenditure, reflecting a highly asymmetrical global security order.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>The 9 nuclear-armed countries<\/strong> (US, Russia, UK, France, China, India, Pakistan, North Korea, Israel) possess approximately 12,241 warheads as of January 2025.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Regional Militarisation:<\/strong>\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Europe<\/strong> witnessed the sharpest increase, <strong>17% in 2024,<\/strong> due to the Ukraine conflict, making it the fastest-growing region in terms of military expenditure.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Asia-Pacific <\/strong>is witnessing a prolonged arms build-up, especially driven by US-China rivalry in the Indo-Pacific and India\u2019s rising security commitments.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>The Middle East<\/strong> remains one of the world\u2019s highest per-capita spenders on defence due to protracted conflicts.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Opportunity cost of Militarisation<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Developmental Trade-Offs:<\/strong> The UNDP estimates that 4% of global defence budgets could eradicate hunger by <strong>2030<\/strong>, and 10% could provide universal primary education and healthcare.\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Redirecting 15% <\/strong>of military expenditure (<strong>about $387 billion<\/strong>) could fully <strong>fund climate adaptation costs<\/strong> in vulnerable nations.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Arms Race and Insecurity:<\/strong> High spending by major powers (US, China, Russia, India, Germany) fuels regional rivalries and global mistrust.\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Militarisation often creates a <strong>\u201csecurity dilemma\u201d<\/strong> where one nation\u2019s defence build-up triggers counter-spending by rivals, leading to spiralling expenditures without real peace.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Humanitarian and Ethical Concerns: <\/strong>Funds diverted to arms mean continued poverty, hunger, and lack of basic services for millions.\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Militarisation sustains conflicts and proxy wars, increasing displacement and humanitarian crises.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Environmental Costs:<\/strong> The global military-industrial complex contributes nearly 5% of global carbon emissions, higher than civil aviation.\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Rich countries spend about 30 times more on defence than on climate finance for developing nations. This undermines collective climate security.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Impact of Ongoing Armed Conflicts<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/current-affairs\/08-12-2021\/russia-ukraine-conflict\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/current-affairs\/08-12-2021\/russia-ukraine-conflict\">Ukraine-Russia Conflict:<\/a> <\/strong>The <strong>2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine<\/strong> led to the emission of <strong>175 million tonnes of CO\u2082<\/strong>, primarily from military operations and subsequent reconstruction efforts.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Gaza Reconstruction:<\/strong> Rebuilding Gaza post-conflict is projected to release approximately <strong>60 million tonnes of CO\u2082 equivalent<\/strong>, comparable to the annual emissions of countries like <strong>Portugal or Sweden.<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Way Ahead<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Rebalance Budgets toward People: <\/strong>Governments could earmark the <strong>peace dividend<\/strong> from arms cuts for universal schooling, universal healthcare, renewable energy and disaster preparedness.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>High-income countries should redouble their commitments to <strong>Official Development Assistance (ODA) <\/strong>and climate funds. The UN report emphasizes that development is the first line of defense against conflict<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Prioritize Diplomacy:<\/strong> Invest in dialogue, mediation, preventive diplomacy.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Source: <\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.downtoearth.org.in\/economy\/a-fraction-of-2024-global-military-spending-could-end-extreme-poverty-hunger-finance-climate-adaptation-in-developing-co\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>DTE<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<h3><strong>Context<\/strong><\/h3>\n<li class=\"ms-5\">With Military expenditures reaching $2.7 trillion in 2024, the UN warns that a small fraction could eradicate extreme poverty, hunger, and finance climate adaptation in developing countries, highlighting the opportunity cost of excessive militarisation.<\/li>\n<p><\/p>\n<h3><strong>Global trend in Militarization<\/strong><\/h3>\n<li class=\"ms-5\">Concentration of Power: The top five spenders (US, China, Russia, India, Germany) together account for nearly 60% of total global military expenditure, reflecting a highly asymmetrical global security order.<\/li>\n<li class=\"ms-5\">The 9 nuclear-armed countries (US, Russia, UK, France, China, India, Pakistan, North Korea, Israel) possess approximately 12,241 warheads as of January 2025.<\/li>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/current-affairs\/12-09-2025\/opportunity-cost-of-excessive-militarisation\" class=\"btn btn-primary btn-sm float-end\">Read\u00a0More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-53919","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-affairs"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53919","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53919"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53919\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":54000,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53919\/revisions\/54000"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53919"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53919"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53919"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}