Saying NO to militarism and war

Join us in saying NO to militarism and war; and YES to the kind of world you want to live in. For more information about Saying NO to militarism and war, scan down this page.

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Global military spending this year will amount to $3,591,324 every minute of every day. And every minute of every day twenty two children under the age of five will die from mainly preventable causes including a lack of adequate food, clean water, and access to basic medicines. Whose priorities are these?

The cost of militarism and war around the world is totally unacceptable. We have chosen 17 October to illustrate this point. It is the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty, as well as the last day of the World March of Women (demanding an end to poverty and violence against women). A decrease in military spending together with the political will to work for positive change would have a major impact on the eradication of poverty.

Every dollar that is spent by the military, is a dollar taken from taxpayers. It is a dollar which could be used to promote life, not death. Less than nineteen days of global military expenditure is all it would take to meet the additional cost of providing access to adequate food, clean water and safe sewers, basic health care, reproductive health care for women, and basic education for everyone around the world.

Unfortunately, financial impoverishment is not the only cost of militarism and war. In war, the other costs are obvious: physical and psychological injury, loss of life and human potential, destruction and toxic pollution of the environment, and the lethal legacy of weapons (such as landmines, unexploded bombs and shells, depleted uranium ammunition) which go on killing for years after a war has ended.

In peacetime military forces consume vast amounts of non-renewable resources, both fuel and the metals which are used to make weapons and machines for the sole purpose of blowing them up. Scientific knowledge and some of our best human resources are wasted on researching and developing new ways to kill and maim. The physical environment is destroyed by military training, and toxic wastes from weapons production and the operation of military equipment and machinery. Every stage of the production of nuclear weapons causes sickness and death as well as radioactive contamination of the environment: from uranium mining, re-processing of radioactive materials, manufacturing of the nuclear warheads, to the ultimate insanity - nuclear bomb testing. Most uranium mining and all nuclear weapons testing has taken place on land stolen from indigenous or minority peoples - their homelands and food gathering areas have been turned into radioactive wastelands.

Militarisation always results in an increase in the overall level of violence, prostitution, social dislocation, the destruction of local economies, and poverty in whichever society it occurs. Militarism, the way of thinking which says ‘might is right’, actively prevents the exploration of peaceful means of resolving conflict. The resources put into peaceful resolution of conflict are a miniscule fraction of those put into armed forces around the world.

Women are disproportionately harmed by militarism and war. In war, women are raped and forced into sexual slavery as a deliberate tactic; ‘domestic’ violence increases dramatically in war zones. Around 80% of all refugees are women, and their children, fleeing armed conflict. In peacetime, women are disproportionately affected by the loss of social services as resources are diverted to armed forces.

The human spirit and enjoyment of life is damaged by militarism and the unhealthy belief that violence can ever solve anything, as Dora Russell so aptly said "it murders the generous impulses of the heart".

Military preparedness does not enhance human security in any way. Instead, it endangers us all.

This is an extract from the Saying NO to militarism and war fact sheet. You can read the rest of it here: