In a world of simultaneous military and environmental crises our capacity to finance both has become unsustainable. Globally, military expenditure over the past decade has been rising at double that of GDP, reaching an all-time high of $2.4 trillion in 2023.
We should not be surprised: the daily military cost of the Ukraine war alone is some US$600 -800m – US$2-300 billion annually. Just the annual bill for firing off 2,000 howitzer shells a day by the Ukrainian forces comes at a cost of US$3.6 billion!
But the way in which this and other wars are being fought – dominated as they are by the widespread destructive force of drones, guided bombs and missiles both within and more often than not, outside whatever battlelines there are – means the bill for collateral economic and social damage is massive. For the Ukraine – some 1.5 million homes destroyed – the total cost of reconstruction and recovery is projected by the UN to be around $486 billion.
The cost of rebuilding Gaza where some two thirds of buildings have been destroyed and damaged is estimated to be upwards of US$50 billion and will probably take until 2040 to effect. If we need any further reminder of the horrendous cost of war’s collateral damage there is Iraq’s repair bill following the 2003 invasion of US$88 billion and Syria’s ongoing reconstruction needs of more than US$250 billion.
The world’s all too ready infusion of funding for rising defence budgets, military conflicts and the need to then fund the massive post war reconstruction costs comes at a time when there are serious shortfalls in funding the fight against the greatest of all global existential threats – that of climate change and biodiversity loss. We are nowhere near being able to meet the annual global cost of fighting climate change, protecting biodiversity and cutting pollution which UNCTAD puts at $5.5 trillion annually from 2023 to 2030.
The global cost of climate change is expected to rise to between US$1.7 trillion and US$3.1 trillion per year by 2050. That military expenditure should be in the same ballpark as the resources needed to combat climate change is obscene economics. So is the fact that the daily cost of the Ukrainian war is around double the global cost of climate change adaptation – averaging some US$390 million per day. To these costs preserving the world’s biodiversity has to be added. The World Economic Forum estimates half the world’s economy depends on nature and therefore if we fail to protect it – as we are to a dangerous extent – US$$44 trillion of economic value is put at risk.
Such a fundamental, looming battle over resource allocation is shaping up to be a major challenge to our relations with the US – attached as it is to global military supremacy and to being a dominant player in global geo-politics. The US is responsible for an extraordinarily large proportion of global military expenditure – 37% in 2023. The US’s $916 billion share of the $2.4 trillion total puts China a long way second at an estimated $296 billion, Russia’s estimated $109 billion and India’s $83.6 billion. The reasons for the size of these differentials are highly visible: the US has 128 overseas military bases staffed by almost 230,000 troops. The US is also the West’s chief war financier. It provides 50-60% of foreign military aid to the Ukraine government which, in total, is providing up to 50% of its total military expenditure. The US provides two thirds of the arms flowing into Israel, enabling its multi-fronted wars in Gaza, Lebanon, and Yemen. Military aid to Israel come in the form of automatic annual appropriation from Congress of $3.8 billion ‘topped up’ with a further $12 billion earlier this year. Such largess goes a long way to cover the Israeli Government’s 2024 defence budget of $30 billion.
For Australia the linkage between regional security and the environment is destined to demand far more of our attention. There is widespread recognition that if not prevented, climate change will pose a major regional security threat (the full extent of which could well be revealed once our Government chooses to release ONA’s commissioned report on this issue) .
How we most effectively invest in our regional security then is becoming a choice of priorities between military and environmental means.
The problem is, of course, that giving priority to military budgets in response to real and perceived near term threats has become a political no brainer for our government, subject as it is to such brief election cycles.
Addressing the true extent of ‘over the horizon’ climate and biodiversity threats are wedged out of consideration and habitually deferred over the electoral horizon.
There is therefore no consideration, for example, as to whether the massive AUKUS outlay will better achieve regional security than an extensive outlay on regional climate change prevention/mitigation.
Which is to ask: would not Australian leadership in our region’s pathway to carbon neutrality go a long way to underpin our security and economic well being? If so, the US needs to be aware that, for Australia, emergence of a resource competing big power regional arms race would be the least welcome of all developments, and itself a destabilising threat to our security.
Dr Webb is a former diplomat with postings in Indonesia, South Korea, Paris and New Zealand. In a former career as a journalist he was the economics writer for the Bulletin Magasine and Assistant Editor of Rydges Business Journal. He currently carries out research in the field of environmental economics at the Queensland University of Technology.
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