Global Partnership for the Prevention of Armed Conflict – Northeast Asia Statement on the Occasion of the Global Day of Action on Military Spending

Posted on April 13, 2015 by TPNS • Posted in The 5% Campaign, What interests us • Tagged China, GDAMS, Japan, Korea, Military spending

This year marks the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II, and the division of the Korean Peninsula. Yet full peace and reconciliation is far from being achieved in Northeast Asia.

Tensions between Japan, China, and the Koreas over territorial disputes, historical issues and nuclear weapons programs, exacerbated by overall regional trends of nationalism and militarism, are triggering an arms race and creating a climate of increasing mistrust among key Northeast Asian countries. The security environment in the region has been additionally complicated by the US “rebalancing” to Asia, including its strengthening of alliance in Northeast Asia. Ongoing efforts by the current Japanese administration to revise the country’s war-renouncing constitution play a further detrimental role in this regard.
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22 German MPs call for “Stop the new arms race – disarmament for a sustainable future!”

Posted on April 13, 2015 by TPNS • Posted in The 5% Campaign, What interests us • Tagged GDAMS, Germany, Military spending

Appeal to Members of the German Bundestag:
Stop the new arms race – disarmament for a sustainable future!

Already in 2010 Ban Ki-Moon warned us: “the world is over-armed and peace is under-funded”. For 2013 the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) calculated global military expenditures of over $1.7 trillion. Hundreds of billions will be spent for the modernization of nuclear arsenals and the NATO summit in Wales decided to raise the level of its demand on member states’ military spending to 2% of their GDP. For Germany that would amount to €53 billion per year – nearly two thirds more than today. China, Russia, Brazil, India and many other states are upgrading their defence capacity as well. The global arms race enters a new round.
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European Groups Support Global Campaign On Military Spending

Posted on April 13, 2015 by TPNS • Posted in The 5% Campaign, What interests us • Tagged EU, Europe, GDAMS, Military spending

“The world is over-armed and peace is under-funded.” — Ban Ki-moon

Statement on the Global Day Against Military Spending (GDAMS), 13 April 2015, part of the Global Campaign on Military Spending (GCOMS). The aim of the campaign is to raise awareness of military spending and alternatives.

Across the EU, governments spend a total of 255 Billion euro on the military. This is grossly excessive and contributes to insecurity for many people around the world.
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Military investment is still a significant global problem

Posted on April 13, 2015 by TPNS • Posted in The 5% Campaign, What interests us • Tagged Budget, GDAMS, Military spending

http://www.paxchristi.net/news/world-military-expenditure-2014-military-investment-still-significant-global-problem/4467

On this Global Day of Action on Military Spending, 13 April 2015, Pax Christi International expresses deep concern about the scandal of excessive military spending in a world where human and ecological well-being are in dire need of investment. Figures recently published by SIPRI, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, estimate world military expenditures in real terms for 2014 at roughly $ 1.8 trillion, a significant increase from the already shocking $ 1.75 trillion spent in 2013.
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5% Digest (Week 23/03/15)

Posted on March 31, 2015 by Lin • Posted in Blog, The 5% Campaign, What interests us • Tagged 5% Digest, Afghanistan, Budget, Climate change, F-35, Iraq, Military spending, Pakistan, the Pentagon, UN, USA, Yemen

Gregory D. Johnsen wrote a detailed account of the rise of Huthis in Yemen. Adam Baron argued that the power struggle is primarily local and foreign intervention will be a very bad idea.

But what is abundantly clear at the moment is that this remains, by and large, an internal Yemeni political conflict—one that, despite frequent sectarian mischaracterizations and potential regional implications, remains deeply rooted in local Yemeni issues.

And if history is a guide, foreign intervention will only stand to exacerbate the situation. Ironically, talk now centers on a potential Saudi Arabian and Egyptian military intervention in Yemen, a scenario that immediately brought to mind the memory of North Yemen’s 1960s Civil War which saw both sides intervene—albeit on different sides—in a matter which only appeared to draw the conflict out further. This is not to say that there isn’t a place for foreign powers to aid Yemeni factions in negotiating some new political settlement. But any nation that aims to make Yemen’s fight their own is more than likely to come out on the losing side.

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5% Digest (week 09/03/15)

Posted on March 17, 2015 by Lin • Posted in Blog, The 5% Campaign, What interests us • Tagged 5% Digest, Arms trade, Budget, China, F-35, Japan, Militarization, Military spending, Nuclear weapons, the Pentagon, UK, USA

British MPs voted in favour of keeping defence spending at 2% of GDP. Just 40 MPs voted and the result carries no legal force.

Rory Stewart, Conservative MP for Penrith and the Border and chairman of the defence select committee, warned MPs that Britain could not continue to rely on the military might of America and be a “freeloader”. “This 2% is needed because the threats are real. The world is genuinely getting more dangerous,” he said.

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5% Digest (week 02/03/15)

Posted on March 12, 2015 by Lin • Posted in Blog, The 5% Campaign, What interests us • Tagged 5% Digest, China, EU, Germany, Japan, Military spending, NATO, Nuclear weapons, the Pentagon, Trident, UK, USA

In Seumas Milnes’s piece ‘The demonisation of Russia risks paving the way for war‘, he argues that “Ukraine – along with Isis – is being used to revive the doctrines of liberal interventionism and even neoconservatism, discredited on the killing fields of Iraq and Afghanistan.” Hundreds of US troops are arriving in Ukraine and Britain is sending 75 military advisers of its own. This is a direct violation of last month’s Minsk agreement, negotiated with France and Germany – Article 10 requires the withdrawal of all foreign forces from Ukraine.

But when the latest Minsk ceasefire breaks down, as it surely will, there is a real risk that Ukraine’s proxy conflict could turn into full-scale international war.

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January Reading List

Posted on February 3, 2015 by TPNS • Posted in The 5% Campaign, What interests us • Tagged Economy, Fracking, Military spending, Reading List, UK, USA

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November Reading List

Posted on January 22, 2015 by TPNS • Posted in The 5% Campaign, What interests us • Tagged Africa, Arms trade, China, Climate change, Defence contractors, Economy, Military spending, Military-Industrial Complex, Nuclear weapons, Reading List, Solar power, the Pentagon, UK, USA

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October Reading List

Posted on November 5, 2014 by TPNS • Posted in From Pink to Prevention, The 5% Campaign, What interests us • Tagged Austerity, Breast Cancer, Defence contractors, Drones, Economy, Fracking, Japan, Military spending, Reading List, Shale Gas, UK, USA

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5% Digest (September 2014)

Posted on October 4, 2014 by Lin • Posted in Blog, The 5% Campaign, What interests us • Tagged 5% Digest, Israel, Military spending, Military-Industrial Complex, Nuclear weapons, Russia, the Pentagon, UK, Ukraine, USA

Journalist Ahmed provided a brief history of the rise of Islamic State, arguing the complicity of US and British in its creation and rise through deliberate tactical actions, ill-conceived policies and indirect/direct financial support.

“Since 2003, Anglo-American power has secretly and openly coordinated direct and indirect support for Islamist terrorist groups linked to al-Qaeda across the Middle East and North Africa. This ill-conceived patchwork geostrategy is a legacy of the persistent influence of neoconservative ideology, motivated by longstanding but often contradictory ambitions to dominate regional oil resources, defend an expansionist Israel, and in pursuit of these, re-draw the map of the Middle East.“

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September Reading List

Posted on October 3, 2014 by TPNS • Posted in The 5% Campaign, What interests us • Tagged China, Climate change, Defence contractors, Fracking, Inequality, Militarization, Military spending, Military-Industrial Complex, Nuclear weapons, Reading List, Surveillance, USA

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USA’s 2015 budget for ‘defence’ is $1 trillion not $496 billion

Posted on March 17, 2014 by TPNS • Posted in The 5% Campaign, What interests us • Tagged Military spending, National security, the Pentagon, USA

Winslow T. Wheeler, “America’s $1 Trillion National Security Budget,” 16 March 2014, Truthout

Scarcity of money is not their problem. Pentagon costs, taken together with other known national security expenses for 2015, will exceed $1 trillion. How can that be? The trade press is full of statements about the Pentagon’s $495.6 billion budget and how low that is.

There is much more than $495.6 billion in the budget for the Pentagon, and there are piles of national security spending outside the Pentagon-all of it as elemental for national security as any new aircraft and ships and the morale and well-being of our troops.
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Taiwan should spend less not more in military expenditure

Posted on March 17, 2014 by Lin • Posted in Blog, The 5% Campaign • Tagged China, Military spending, Taiwan

I read this commentary article about the news that

In early March, Taiwan’s defense minister Yen Ming estimated the island nation could resist a Chinese onslaught “at least one month”—and that’s assuming other countries aid in Taipei’s defense.

The point of the article is that Taiwan has only itself to blame for its hopelessness against a Chinese invasion because why have Taiwan not kept up their military spending with China’s ever increasing military budget.
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Massive war budget remains despite Afghanistan pullout

Posted on March 16, 2014 by TPNS • Posted in The 5% Campaign, What interests us • Tagged Budget, Military spending, the Pentagon, USA

Stephanie Gaskell, “Pentagon Wants to Keep Controversial War Budget Beyond Afghanistan,” 5 March 2014, Defense One

… But despite the massive drawdown, Pentagon officials want to keep a comparably oversized war chest funded well into next year, quickly raising eyebrows among members of Congress.

The fiscal year 2015 budget calls for $79 billion for Overseas Contingency Operations, or OCO, which funds the war in Afghanistan and other overseas operations. Although the U.S.footprint in Afghanistan has shrunk over the past couple of years, the war budget has stayed robust. This year Congress approved $85 billion for the account.
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Economic cost of widening inequality in the UK

Posted on March 16, 2014 by TPNS • Posted in #MLKGlobal, The 5% Campaign, What interests us • Tagged Inequality, Military spending, UK

Tracy McVeigh, “Inequality ‘costs Britain £39bn a year’,” 16 March 2014, Guardian

The ever-increasing gulf between rich and poor in Britain is costing the economy more than £39bn a year, according to a report by the EqualityTrust thinktank. The effects of inequality can be measured in financial terms through its impact on health, wellbeing and crime rates, according to statisticians at the independent campaign group.

Researchers pointed to the fact that the 100 wealthiest people in the UK have as much money as the poorest 18 million – 30% of all people – and said that the consequences of such unusually high rates of inequality needed to be acknowledged by politicians.
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U.S. Air Force is redundant

Posted on March 14, 2014 by TPNS • Posted in The 5% Campaign, What interests us • Tagged Air Force, Military spending, the Pentagon, USA

Kyle Mizokami, “The Independent Air Force Is a Mistake,” War is Boring

… In Grounded: The Case for Abolishing the United States Air Force, Farley argues that the Air Force is redundant. And, he claims, its existence actually hurts American national security.

Now, Farley doesn’t suggest getting rid of air power. Instead, he recommends the Pentagon dismantle the Air Force and hand its missions—and aircraft—over to the Army and Navy. …
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Military spending is integral to capitalism

Posted on March 11, 2014 by TPNS • Posted in The 5% Campaign, What interests us • Tagged Capitalism, Militarism, Military spending

Richard Seymour, “Global military spending is now an integral part of capitalism,” 7 March 2014, Guardian

There are few surprises about the distribution of military spending: for all the current focus on China’s growing military outlays – and it is significant that they have embarked on a sequence of double-digit increases as a percentage of GDP – the United States still accounts for 40% of such expenditures. However, the distribution is not the only thing that matters; it’s the sheer scale of such investment – $1.756tn in 2012. The “peace dividend” from the end of the cold war has long since bitten the dust. Global military spending has returned to pre-1989 levels, undoubtedly a legacy of the war on terror and the returning salience of military competition in its context. In fact, by 2011 global military spending was higher than at any year since the end of the second world war. …
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Britain to order another 14 F-35 jets

Posted on February 13, 2014 by TPNS • Posted in The 5% Campaign, What interests us • Tagged F-35, Military spending, Military-Industrial Complex, UK

Brenda Goh and Andrea Shalal-Esa, “Britain may order 14 F-35 jets as early as next week: sources,” Reuters, 23 January 2014

The so called ‘Main Gate 4’ order, for the F-35 B vertical take-off variant of the Joint Strike Fighter, would mark the Britain’s first firm F-35 purchase since it committed to buying 48 planes in 2012.
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Top 20 spenders together account for 87% of the global military spending

Posted on February 10, 2014 by Lin • Posted in Blog, The 5% Campaign • Tagged Military spending • Leave a comment

There is a huge imbalance of national military spending around the world. Just the top 10 spenders alone account for 76% of the total global military spending. If we add in the next 10 top spenders, the top 20 spenders together spend 87% of the global total, that’s nearly 7 times as much as the rest of the world combined. In SIPRI’s research, they consider 170 countries out of nearly 200 independent countries in the world, no data is available for 34 countries in 2012. Nevertheless, that still leave us more than 100 countries in the rest of the world group.
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