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Global Day of Action on Military Spending

April 12 is the es el Global Day of Action on Military Spending. The date was originally proposed by the International Peace Bureau (IPB). with the aim of promoting a common awareness of the problems occasioned by military expenses, suggesting that intead such monies should be used to promote human development

Thematic
According tho the IPB, whole libraries have been written about the use of weapons in armed conflict. Far less has been said about their effects on sustainable development, which is crucial from a human security perspective.

The IPB contrasts the hight levels of military spending (estimated by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute in 2010 as being US $1.531 billions at worldwide level) against, by instance, the failure to fulfill the pledges of the Millennium Development Goals suggesting that, in general: “Research on the causes of violent conﬂicts shows a myriad of factors, but does not indicate that building bigger armies is the key to keeping a county safe from warfare. In fact, funds spent on weapons may drain resources from social, political, and economic development that may address root causes of conﬂict.”

These negative effects include no just the direct ones of money and resources being spent on weapons systems instead of being used for human development but also the associated costs of negative health consequences of research, development, testing and even the safe decomisioning of such weapons, specially nuclear, biological and chemical ones. .

As it is obvious, the greater the military expenditure, the less that is left to expend in other aspects, both at communal but also at individual level, such as building and mantaining infrastructure, education and health.

In the words of Dwight D. Eisenhower: “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed”