Can militarization deliver a safer world?
Opinion
In a recent speech, Prime Minister Mark Carney said, 'Rising great powers are now in strategic competition with America. A new imperialism threatens. Middle powers compete for interests and attention, knowing that if they are not at the table, they will be on the menu.'
We hear this dog-eat-dog sentiment shared quite often now, most notably from U.S. President Donald Trump, and it is often used as a justification for Western countries to spend more on their military.
I would argue that the world has not spiked in terms of violence, and I would also argue that we cannot forget that an important context of violence is inequality and poverty. Focusing on militarization diverts our attention and creates conditions that will exacerbate international poverty and drive further violence.
The world is becoming more violent, right?
Not really, at least not in the sense of rising interstate wars. For simplicity I focus on the post-Cold War period, 1989-2023, and use deaths from conflict as the indicator.
Less than 10 per cent of the 3.47 million conflict-related deaths over this period were due to interstate conflict (i.e., war). Most, almost 55 per cent, were from intrastate deaths. The rest are considered one-side violence or non-state conflicts. The world is clearly more violent for many people but often this is not the result of war (interstate conflict) but due to internal conflict, e.g., the Rwandan genocide.
Conflict-based deaths have a strong regional distribution. The regions most affected by violence are Africa and the Middle East. During this period, Africa has faced 350 deaths per 100,000 people; the Middle East 285 deaths; Europe 40 deaths; Americas 31 deaths; and Asia-Oceania 19 deaths.
There is evidence of an increase in annual deaths from conflict since 2012, but this has been driven by non-state and one-sided violence, not interstate violence. It was not until 2022, with the latest episode of the Ukraine-Russia war, that interstate conflict death numbers rose. A recent study estimated that up to 100,000 Ukrainians were killed and 300,000 were wounded, while 250,000 Russians have died and 700,000 have been wounded.
The data I have presented are slim in support of the view that the world has become more violent. But I accept that there might be better indicators of violence or that the argument is not about recent history, but about fear of the future. That is, the fear is that the rise of authoritarian countries, most notably the rise of authoritarianism in the United States (not to mention China and Russia) and that these states will fuel future interstate violence.
So, will better arming us will make us less vulnerable to aggressive authoritarian pressures? I do not specialize in military and political theory, so I leave this debate for others. But what I would like to argue is that an unequal world is one that can create and exacerbate tensions and lead to rising violence including interstate violence.
Violence flows from a world in which certain groups, nations, and regions accumulate more wealth and power at the expense of others.
Conversely, there are many ways in which a poor group can experience self-identified economic improvement. It is critically important that the international economy is rules-based, that these rules embed economic justice within them, and that wealthy nations support relatively poorer ones. Worthwhile support comes in the form of fair trading and investing systems. Moreover, the poorest nations require assistance in the form or high-quality development assistance.
But fair trade, investment, and aid are diminishing. Trade barriers are rising. For instance, the U.S. has placed a 37 per cent tariff on garments from Bangladesh. This is an odd move, because it is unlikely the U.S. will ever gain a share of garment manufacturing. It is a low-wage sector and, with anti-immigration pressures in the U.S., American wages are likely to rise well beyond what is needed for a competitive garment sector.
For years, a key international goal was that development assistance would reach 0.7 per cent of national income. This is only one of many needed reforms. But the increasingly ubiquitous goal of spending two per cent (or five per cent) of national income on military has usurped that goal. The U.K. has stated its plan to cut its development assistance and the U.S., by cutting its agency USAID, it has already done so. Canada and other countries are following suit and plan to reduce their development assistance.
The case of the Israel-Gaza/Palestine conflict demonstrates how military force does not solve the problem. After over a year and a half of violence, there is no end in sight. Civilian deaths and infrastructure obliteration will only aggravate inequality and cycle back into more violence.
Fear about a violent future should compel us to embrace a justice-based economic system.
The alternative is imperialism and the violence that logically flows from inequality.
Jerry Buckland is a professor of economics and international development at Canadian Mennonite University.
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