Military Spending, the Sustainable Development Goals, and Financing for Peace

As WILPF re-launches its #MoveTheMoney campaign, the United Nations released two new reports on military spending and development and on financing peace. In this analytical article, we welcome these reports, highlight what is useful and what’s missing, and assess their recommendations.

(Image credit: Marek Studzinski / Unsplash)

By Ray Acheson and Nela Porobić Isaković with contributions from Katrin Geyer and Genevieve Riccoboni
22 September 2025

In recent months, the United Nations (UN) published two reports highlighting the impacts of military spending on peace and development. The UN Secretary-General (UNSG)’s report The Security We Need: Rebalancing Military Spending for a Sustainable and Peaceful Future notes that “rising military spending runs counter to the very objectives, principles and purposes of the United Nations” and argues that peace, security, development, and human rights are mutually reinforcing.

In addition, the Independent Expert on the effects of foreign debt and human right, Attiya Waris, published a report Financing Peace and Financing War. She opens her report by establishing that peace is both a human right and a public good and argues that the absence of laws on peace—as opposed to laws on war—is a clear global oversight. Among other things, she recommends divestment from militarism, elimination of war profiteering, and redirection of national economies from those guided by war to models guided by peace financing.

Together, these two reports offer a useful critique of the military-industrial complex and show how military spending impedes “development”—though this concept of development also need to be interrogated due to the prevailing capitalist, patriarchal, colonial, and imperialist policies associated with mainstream “development” projects and approaches, and the historical and current actions leading to “under-development”.

Surging military spending

The reports are a timely and important contribution to public discussions in a context where the global military expenditure has surged to an all-time high of 2.7 trillion USD. Meanwhile, only a fifth of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are on track to be achieved by 2030; the annual financing gap for the Goals now stands at 4 trillion USD.

This financial gap is not accidental. It is a result of deliberate political choices that define security in militaristic terms and deprioritise human needs and ecological well-being. We must push back against these choices as a matter of urgency.

As the UNSG’s report notes, “Recent geopolitical uncertainties have led many Governments to prioritize security through deterrence and military strength. In this environment, military expenditure is seen as a necessity to manage an increasingly unpredictable world.” Thus, the SG warns, “While rising military expenditure is not a new phenomenon, its recent intensification poses the risk of it becoming ‘normalized’ and regarded as inevitable.”

Heavily militarised states claim that investments in weapons and militarism are not about waging wars, but about ensuring peace. This is the argument that the European Union (EU) and its individual member states, for example, are using to raise more than 800 billion EUR to, in their words, “defend peace” from perceived threats from Russia; it is the argument Russia is using in relation to its perceived threats from Ukraine and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO); it is what India and Pakistan are using in relation to each other; what Israel is claiming while waging war against an entire region and committing genocide of Palestinians; what the US claims as it arms and enables genocides and wars abroad and launches attacks against Venezuela and Iran; and on and on.

As WILPF made clear in its submissions to the military spending and financing peace reports, there is nothing “inevitable” or “normal” with funding war over peace. There can be no sustainable peace and development if there is no commitment to disarmament and demilitarisation. And sustainable peace, economic justice, and freedom cannot be achieved when inequality is perpetuated by patriarchy, militarism, capitalism, racism, colonialism, and imperialism. As one of the authors of this article argued in an earlier UN Office for Disarmament Affairs publication, “Military spending—not its volume or level, but rather the absolute nature of it, the roots of it and the consequences it has had for ordering our societies and international relations—has thus far condemned us to live within systems of violence and exploitation.”

The political economy of military spending

The disproportionate spending on militarism has led to catastrophic global harms, from wars, genocide, and armed violence to ecological destruction, to gender and racial discriminations and persecution, and more. But still, the political and economic elite of many countries are committed to militarism and to war economies—they are right now repurposing our economies for war. The financial gap resulting from these deliberate political choices is not just a gap. It is a testimony to the commitment to the systems of oppression that brought us to this situation in the first place. It is a commitment to militarism, to racism, to neocolonialism, to imperialism, and to capitalism. As long as this commitment persists, the security and development we are being promised will only ever be accessible to a few countries and a few privileged individuals in those countries. There will never be sufficient financing for socioeconomic justice for the rest of us.

As the UNSG’s report points out, “Reorienting economies towards the military changes the long-term outlook for public finance; affects long-term social investment in health and education, including as demographics change; and locks countries into military-centred policies, sometimes for decades.” It also highlights that the entrenchment of miliary-oriented economies “fosters networks of political, economic and social influence primarily dedicated to sustaining high levels of military expenditure and moving away from civic and developmental governance.” Articulating the ways in which the political economy of the military-industrial complex shapes budget allocations, the UNSG’s report notes the analysis of WILPF’s disarmament programme Reaching Critical Will, among others. 

The Financing Peace report also makes a case for a political economy approach in understanding war and peace. The Independent Expert notes that while “research and analysis on peace seems to be focused on the site of war and conflict and neighbouring areas,” it is also necessary “to look at where financing for war and conflict comes from, not just in terms of monetary support but also political support and the provision of arms and services.” She contrasts some states that are perceived as “peaceful,” or as not as engaged in war, such as France and Germany, with the fact that they are among the biggest arms exporters and those with the largest military budgets. She points out, “The primary beneficiaries of soaring military budgets seem to be war profiteering corporations, companies registered predominantly in France, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, including its overseas territories, and the United States.”

However, what the International Expert misses out on is to push for a feminist political economy approach to contrast the harms of the so-called productive economy, in which military spending takes place, and the healing power of social reproductive labour that goes into caring for and reproducing our societies. This labour remains invisible, unaccounted for and undervalued, and is even referred to as “unproductive” by mainstream economists.

Harms resulting from military expenditure and the gaps in financing for peace

Key to stigmatising military spending so that it doesn’t become normalised is highlighting the concrete immediate and long-term impacts it has on people and the planet. The UNSG report points out that rising military spending is “crowding out resources essential for social investment, poverty reduction, education, health, environmental protection and infrastructure—undermining progress on nearly all the Sustainable Development Goals.”

These arguments are important for understanding how “an increase in global military expenditure generates negative externalities for every region of the world.” But military spending isn’t just diverting money away from the SDGs and other social needs—it is also actively contributing to death and destruction around the world, demolishing existing social infrastructure and destroying already achieved progress.

The UNSG report goes into some examples of this, making the link between military spending and the devastating impacts of armed conflict. It discusses the impacts of armed conflict on health, poverty, and other inequalities in terms of direct impacts and as a consequence of military spending.

In relation to the climate crisis, the report recalls a recent study that demonstrates how a substantial rise in military spending “could render climate goals unattainable.” The report notes, “Each dollar allocated to the military generates more than twice the greenhouse gas emissions of a dollar spent elsewhere.” Importantly, the report also recognises broader environmental impacts along the supply chain of military equipment, from resource extraction to arms production and disposal as well as environmental impacts of armed conflict.

Global north governments and military alliances are increasingly framing the climate crisis as a “threat multiplier”. Such a narrative positions the climate crisis as a security rather than a global justice issue, justifying militarised responses to the climate crisis. The UNSG report recognises that this could “contribute to the normalization” of the use of military forces in disaster relief responses. In the same vein, while the report unfortunately argues that “greening the military” can align “climate goals with security,” it does challenge such a focus as contributing to further normalisation of militarisation.

Finally, the report provides a strong narrative of the misallocation of military spending versus climate finance. Quoting WILPF, it calls for the redirection of resources to climate adaptation, observing that “so little could do so much.” Overall, it is significant how this report spotlights the many intersections of military spending and ecological destruction, and is a reflection of how these intersections are gaining increasing recognition in (multilateral) climate justice and peace spaces and in movements. It is an achievement that can be attributed to academics, researchers, civil society groups, and activists who have been raising these issues for many years.

The UNSG report also notes the gendered impacts of military spending, which WILPF raised in its submission to the report. Unfortunately, it only skims the surface on this topic, declining to unpack the specific ways in which war, displacement, and armed violence have gendered impacts. While militarism is mentioned, it is not defined, nor does the report look at the gendered harms of military bases or of weapons beyond small arms.

The Financing Peace report also insufficiently looks at the importance of demilitarisation and disarmament in achieving peace and gender equality. In its submission to the International Expert, WILPF argued that financing peace must be framed by a feminist understanding of root causes to war and violence and a feminist political economy approach to recovery and prevention. Understanding the effects that war and military operations, fueled by military spending, have on women, gender non-conforming people, and LGBTQ+ people must be central to the discussion on gender equality and development. Gender, racial, and other forms of equality cannot be achieved in a deeply militarised world, riddled with structural racism, ableism, sexism, and homophobia, and where, under the conditions of the capitalist political economy, labour is done under deeply exploitative and extractive conditions.

However, the Independent Expert makes a helpful and progressive argumentation that we must expand our understanding of war beyond “physical war” as it is traditionally understood in international law. She demonstrates how fiscal and economic tools, such as debt regimes, tax, trade, digital and tariff wars, sanctions, and unilateral coercive measures are used to put countries under duress so severe that they can cause death. These harms are not captured under the international law as “war” and thus not subject to the same potential restrictions or responses from the international community. She makes a case that financial actors and the fiscal decisions made by various stakeholders directly affect global peace. This matches WILPF’s analysis that global financial institutions such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank undermine peace in national contexts and should be held legally accountable. 

Shifts in security

To counter the trend of ever-increasing military spending, the UNSG’s report calls for “a fundamental shift in how we understand and pursue security.” It concludes that security is an outcome, to which military spending is an input—but urges that rather than defining security narrowly in terms of military capability, we need “a human-centred, multidimensional approach rooted in dignity, human rights and sustainable development.”

We welcome this push for a shift in the security discourse, but are disappointed that the UNSG’s report, despite the above statement, suggests that some military spending can benefit security. “When insecurity threatens lives and livelihoods, military spending can help restore order and create the foundation on which development can take root,” it argues. “The challenge, however, is funding legitimate security needs without increasing the risk of military budgets crowding out investment in sustainable development.”

However, one key question is, who has the power and influence to define legitimate security? For most people, insecurity comes from eroded public support systems, housing crises, food insecurity, austerity measures, gender-based violence, poorly paid and insecure jobs, and so on. Militarism and military spending cannot address the underlying drivers of instability and inequality in the world, nor can they resolve gender-based violence, racism, imperialism, and other systems of harm. What they do instead is to perpetuate them. Only dedicated investments in peace that are adequate in their size, efficient in their approach, and framed by justice, redistribution, transparency, accountability, inclusivity, and sustainability, can create security that is centred on people’s and planet’s wellbeing.

It’s clear that the UNSG report does understand that military spending does not lead to security, pointing out, “Despite rising expenditures, however, global security has continued to deteriorate, calling into question the effectiveness of more military spending to enhance security.” But here the report does not connect this to its analysis of the military-industrial complex. Increases in military spending are not really about security, despite the claims of the investing states. Spending money on weapons and war is more about profitmaking for the contractors, companies, and politicians than it is about “security”. 

The UNSG report also does not expand its analysis into other kinds of “security”-related spending, including increased securitisation at the national level on policing or on other structures of state violence, such as border enforcement. Although this may have been seen as out of scope of the report given the focus on military spending, it is crucial to also examine how militaristic logic is employed by governments at all levels, from the local to the global. Just as the report points out how military spending is taking away from sustainable development at the global level, securitisation is also detracting from advancing human rights in local communities, as the “solution” for social issues such as mental health, unhoused communities, “crime,” and more is increasingly centering armed actors with weapons rather than investments in care.

The broader logic of militarism and “security” and their role in the capitalist political economy is critical to understanding what drives them, what the harms of military spending are, and how to address them.

Turning recommendations into actions

Both reports contain recommendations that provide a push-back against rampant militarisation. The UN Secretary-General’s report offers a five-point agenda for member states and the international community to:

• Prioritise diplomacy, peaceful settlement of disputes, and confidence-building measures to address the underlying causes of growing military expenditure through 2030;
• Bring military expenditure to the fore of disarmament discussions, and improve links between arms control and development;
• Promote transparency and accountability around military expenditure to build trust and confidence among member states and increase domestic fiscal accountability;
• Reinvigorate multilateral finance for development; and
• Advance a human-centred approach to security and sustainable development.

The Financing Peace report, among other things, recommends:

• Retooling military corporations for peacebuilding purposes;
• Assigning higher strategic priority for peace building and development;
• Divesting from militarism and redirect towards public care systems and promotion of human rights;
• Placing all privatised arms companies under public ownership and eliminate profiteering;
• Revising conditionality framework to exclude austerity measures that compromise peace and development; and
• Reforming the security sector by transforming security paradigms.

Not all the recommendations in these reports are useful, and some seem to miss the mark. For example, the UNSG’s call to address the underlying causes of growing military expenditure would need to more explicitly reflect that one of the underlying causes is the capitalist growth imperative, and make suggestions on how to address that. Although the UNSG’s report points out that military spending is not necessarily a tool for economic growth and in fact can have a negative impact on said growth, it is important to position degrowth narratives and understandings of economic well-being beyond GDP as better equipped for defining and advancing true sustainable development. In addition, some of the Financing Peace report recommendations offer minimalist approaches to reducing military spending while maintaining problematic frameworks of security and development.

However, the reports do offer a valuable overarching critique of military spending and the military-industrial complex, and provide concrete recommendations to address these as key drivers of conflict, violence, and inequality. WILPF has been making these connections and arguments since our founding in 1915, and is one of the very few organisations calling for reductions in military spending in disarmament, development, and climate justice spaces. 

To take the reports’ recommendations and turn them into action, concerted effort is needed on all levels to divest from militarisation and reinvest in peace, care, and justice. WILPF’s reinvigorated Move the Money campaign seeks to call out governments and international institutions and to amplify people’s demands to #MoveTheMoney from weapons to well-being. Military spending is a political choice. States must stop funding war and start funding peace, now.