The $2.7 trillion question - what is the true cost of security? | A new report by the United Nations Secretary-General explores how rebalancing military spending for a sustainable and peaceful future can furnish the security we need.

 

War, conflict, and crisis. 

For ten years, the world has been shaken by inequalities, climate chaos and rising tensions. 

Against this backdrop, military spending reached a record $2.7 trillion last year. 

This choice has a steep cost. It moves us away from diplomacy. It drains money from vital areas like ending hunger and poverty. 

A new report by the United Nations Secretary-General explores how rebalancing military spending for a sustainable and peaceful future can furnish the security we need. 

 The report shows a stark choice: continue to fund militaries or invest in sustainable development to build a future that is truly secure for everyone

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United Nations

“The world is spending far more on waging war than on building peace.” The United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres Sept. 2025: The true cost of peace [& the CRUCIAL IMPORTANCE of] Rebalancing world military spending for a sustainable and peaceful future

“The world is spending far more on waging war than on building peace.”

@antonioguterres

as new UN report reveals global military spending hit a record $2.7 trillion in 2024.

 

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https://www.un.org/en/peace-and-security/the-true-cost-of-peace

The true cost of peace

Rebalancing world military spending for a sustainable and peaceful future

Global military spending is soaring, fueling a new arms race and placing immense pressure on national budgets and priorities.

According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, a staggering $2.7 trillion was spent on militaries in 2024. This marks a more than 9 per cent jump from the previous year—the steepest increase since the Cold War and the tenth consecutive year of growth.

The Cost to Sustainable Development and Peace

This unprecedented military spending surge is occurring as global security deteriorates and progress on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)—the world's blueprint for a more equitable future—is falling short. In response, UN Secretary-General António Guterres has released a new report, The Security We Need: Rebalancing Military Spending for a Sustainable and Peaceful Future.

The report offers a stark warning: if current trends persist, global military spending could reach $4.7 to $6.6 trillion by 2035. A $6.6 trillion annual military budget would be nearly five times the level at the end of the Cold War and more than twice of what was spent in 2024.

This trajectory of accelerated militarization poses a serious threat to humanity's future by diverting critical resources from sustainable development and peace-building initiatives.

The Security We Need

Rebalancing Military Spending for a Sustainable and Peaceful Future

Global military spending is rising significantly across all regions driven by escalating geopolitical tensions, conflicts and perceived security threats. But does increasing military spending truly guarantee security? No, it often fuels arms races, deepens mistrust among countries and further destabilizes international relations.

The Secretary-General’s report, as requested by UN Member States in the 2024 Pact for the Future, examines the difficult trade-offs presented by the increasing global military spending, making a powerful case for investing in peace and in people's futures.

It proposes a shift towards a human-centered and multidimensional approach to security, one that prioritizes diplomacy, cooperation, sustainable development and disarmament over military build ups.

The $2.7 trillion question

War, conflict, and crisis. For ten years, the world's answer has been defense, with military spending reaching a record $2.7 trillion last year.

This choice has a steep cost. It drains money from vital areas like ending hunger and poverty. A billion dollars spent on the military creates jobs, but the same money invested in education creates more than double the opportunities.

The path forward is clear. We can continue to fund conflict, or we can invest in sustainable development to build a future that is truly secure for everyone.

Investing in humanity, not arms

Breaking down the global military spending

 

https://www.un.org/en/peace-and-security/the-true-cost-of-peace

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"Recognizing a Palestinian state is a limited but welcome step that addresses an enduring blind spot: Palestinian rights cannot be conditioned on Israeli interests" Noam Sheizaf in The Guardian

 "... Since the Oslo process in the 1990s, much of the world has accepted the Israeli framing: Palestinian rights would be recognized only after a peace process was completed. In other words, rights were treated as conditional on Israeli interests – a prize to be granted at the end rather than a foundation to guide negotiations. This is the root of past failures. But if rights become the starting point, then the two peoples could finally choose their political future: one state, two, or some in-between like a federation. No choice would need to be final; states can divide or unite, agreements can evolve. The very idea of a definite end point is an illusion.

Recently, there are signs that the west is opening its eyes to the horror in Gaza, mainly due to sustained civil society activism. It is not surprising that the United States is mounting unprecedented opposition to the countries deciding to recognize Palestine, including by withholding visas from Palestinian officials seeking to travel to the UN. For Washington too, Palestinians exist only on Israel’s terms. So far, the countries leading the recognition effort are not deterred; pushing against American hegemony over diplomacy is another positive byproduct of recognition.

As limited as the recognition of Palestine – a state with no territory or sovereignty – is, it is a step in the right direction, because it re-establishes the existence and the rights of Palestinians as individuals and as a collective. It finally moves up the end goal, which should have been a precondition to the talks all along. More urgently, it strengthens the Palestinian case in international institutions and further justifies the demand for sanctions that could end the war.

Steps against Israeli ministers who advocate ethnic cleansing and genocide, as some countries are considering, are another positive development. More should follow, and more rapidly; as the destruction of Gaza is happening now...."  ... READ MORE   https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2025/sep/14/how-to-burst-the-israeli-bubble

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How to burst the Israeli bubble

Noam Sheizaf

Recognizing a Palestinian state is a limited but welcome step that addresses an enduring blind spot: Palestinian rights cannot be conditioned on Israeli interests

Sun 14 Sep 2025 09.00 EDT

Israeli home demolitions, family fragmentation, and forced displacement of Palestinians began in 1948 with the Nakba and continues to this day- Sept. 15th 2025

Israeli home demolitions, family fragmentation, and forced displacement of Palestinians began in 1948 with the Nakba and continues to this day- Sept. 15th 2025

Artists4Ceasefire: WE BELEIVE all life is sacred, NO MATTER FAITH OR ETHNICITY... CEASEFIRE NOW... STOP WEAPONS... SAVE LIVES

 

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Artists4Ceasefire

artists4ceasefire.org

UPDATE: Since October 2023, Artists4Ceasefire has echoed the call of millions of people around the world, demanding that our leaders take action to achieve a permanent ceasefire, the release of all hostages, and the delivery of lifesaving aid to civilians in Gaza. The reality is that this is now the bare minimum of what is required in the face of 22 months of catastrophic destruction of life. 

While our letter was originally addressed to President Biden, our call remains loud and clear.

For the sake of our shared humanity, we are dedicated to ensuring a permanent and lasting ceasefire takes hold, as this is the first step toward survival, healing and rebuilding. The administration has changed, but our demand to center humanity remains.

Human rights are for all of us, and a lasting peace can only be achieved when all people in Palestine and Israel live in freedom, safety, and equity. Together, Artists4Ceasefire will continue to raise our voices for the equal protection of precious lives, and for a just and lasting peace.  

We come together as artists and advocates, but most importantly as human beings witnessing the devastating loss of lives and unfolding horrors in Israel and Palestine.

We ask that, as President of the United States, you and the US Congress call for an immediate de-escalation and ceasefire in Gaza and Israel before another life is lost. More than 63,000 people have been killed over the last 22 months, and over 159,000 injured* – numbers that any person of conscience knows are catastrophic. We believe all life is sacred, no matter faith or ethnicity and we condemn the killing of Palestinian and Israeli civilians.

We urge your administration, Congress, and all world leaders, to honor all of the lives in the Holy Land and call for and facilitate a ceasefire without delay – an end to the bombing of Gaza, and the safe release of hostages. Half of Gaza’s two million residents are children, and more than two thirds are refugees and their descendants being forced to flee their homes. Humanitarian aid must be allowed to reach them.

We believe that the United States can play a vital diplomatic role in ending the suffering and we are adding our voices to those from the US Congress, UNICEF, Doctors Without Borders, The International Committee of The Red Cross, and so many others. Saving lives is a moral imperative. To echo UNICEF, “Compassion — and international law — must prevail.”

Since Oct 7th, more than 86,000* tons of bombs and missiles have been dropped on Gaza - resulting in one child being killed or injured* every 30 minutes*.

"Children and families in Gaza have practically run out of food, water, electricity, medicine and safe access to hospitals, following days of air strikes and cuts to all supply routes. Gaza’s sole power plant ran out of fuel Wednesday afternoon, shutting down electricity, water and wastewater treatment. Most residents can no longer get drinking water from service providers or household water through pipelines.... The humanitarian situation has reached lethal lows, and yet all reports point to further attacks. Compassion — and international law — must prevail.” – UNICEF spokesperson James Elder

Beyond our pain and mourning for all of the people there and their loved ones around the world we are motivated by an unbending will to stand for our common humanity. We stand for freedom, justice, dignity and peace for all people – and a deep desire to stop more bloodshed.

We refuse to tell future generations the story of our silence, that we stood by and did nothing. As Emergency Relief Chief Martin Griffiths told UN News, “History is watching.”

*Updated as of 8/29/25

Supported by Oxfam America & ActionAid USA

Artists https://www.artists4ceasefire.org/

Artists4Ceasefire Pin: Artists4Ceasefire is a collective of actors, filmmakers, and other artists calling for an immediate and permanent ceasefire in the Gaza war, the delivery of humanitarian aid to civilians, and the release of all hostages.

After calling for a free Palestine in her Emmys acceptance speech, the Hacks star said ‘I feel like it is my obligation as a Jewish person to distinguish Jews from the state of Israel’- Hannah Einbinder and Javier Bardem among Emmy stars to call for Gaza ceasefire

Alyx Gorman and Sian Cain

Mon 15 Sep 2025 00.04 EDT 

The Guardian

Television’s biggest stars have used this year’s Emmy awards to speak out against Israel’s war in Gaza, either through fashion on the red carpet or fiery acceptance speeches.

Hacks actor Hannah Einbinder, who won best supporting actress in a comedy, wore a red Artists4Ceasefire pin, as did White Lotus stars Aimee Lou Wall and Natasha Rothwell, Ruth Negga of Presumed Innocent and Chris Perfetti from Abbott Elementary.

The pin asks that the US government call for an “an immediate de-escalation and ceasefire in Gaza and Israel before another life is lost”.

Spanish actor Javier Bardem, nominated this year for his performance in Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story, wore a keffiyeh to the Emmys, and said on the red carpet that he “cannot work with someone who justifies or supports the genocide”, while Hacks actor Megan Stalter wore a purse with “Ceasefire!” written on it in marker.

Ending her acceptance speech, Einbinder said: “Go birds, fuck Ice and free Palestine,” just before the music played her out.

Backstage, Einbinder told media: “I have friends in Gaza who are working as frontline workers, as doctors, right now in the north of Gaza, to provide care for pregnant women, and [working] for schoolchildren to create schools in the refugee camps.

“It’s an issue that’s really close to my heart for many reasons. I feel like it is my obligation as a Jewish person to distinguish Jews from the state of Israel because our religion and our culture is such an important and longstanding … institution that is really separate to the ethno-nationalist state.”

Last week, Einbinder was one of... READ MORE  https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2025/sep/15/emmys-2025-israel-gaza-speeches-hannah-einbinder-javier-bardem

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Hannah Einbinder, who won the Emmy for outstanding supporting actress in a comedy series for her role in Hacks. She called for a free Palestine on stage and wore a Artists4Ceasefire pin. Photograph: David Fisher/Shutterstock

Javier Bardem wore a Palestinian keffiyeh, a scarf worn as a headdress or neckerchief, on the red carpet at the Emmy awards. Photograph: Caroline Brehman/EPA

Megan Stalter’s handbag with “Ceasefire!” written on it. Photograph: Kevin Mazur/Getty Images

Israeli airstrikes on Saturday leveled three schools run by the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) in Gaza City, displacing thousands of civilians who had been sheltering there from months of bombardment

Smoke rises from three schools belonging to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) and several apartment buildings, where displaced Palestinians had taken refuge, after being targeted by Israeli forces in the al-Shati Refugee Camp in the western Gaza Strip on September 13, 2025. [Khames Alrefi – Anadolu Agency]

Thousands displaced as Israel targets UNRWA schools sheltering civilians in Gaza City

https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20250913-thousands-displaced-as-israel-targets-unrwa-schools-sheltering-civilians-in-gaza-city/

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September 13, 2025

Israeli airstrikes on Saturday leveled three schools run by the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) in Gaza City, displacing thousands of civilians who had been sheltering there from months of bombardment, Anadolu reports.

Witnesses told Anadolu that the army carried out heavy strikes on the Sit Sura, Al-Alya and Shaheiber schools in Gaza’s Beach refugee camp, where thousands of displaced people had sought refuge after fleeing earlier attacks.

They said the military had issued phone warnings for evacuation but gave families little time to collect belongings before the bombardment began. Residents described scenes of panic as people rushed into the streets under fire, leaving behind food, mattresses and documents.

The raids also struck a multi-story apartment block in the al-Firouz Towers area of western Gaza’s al-Nasr neighborhood and a home on al-Sinaa Street in the south of the city.

Earlier Saturday, Israeli planes dropped leaflets ordering residents of Gaza City to head south toward Khan Younis and Rafah, where more than 800,000 people are already crammed into makeshift shelters with little food, water or medical care. Palestinians have largely refused the evacuation orders, fearing permanent displacement.

READ: 7 more Palestinians including 2 children die of malnutrition in Gaza, taking toll to 420

The government media Office in Gaza said 1.3 million people remain in the city despite intense bombardment, most of them pushed into its western districts that have come under concentrated attacks since Friday.

Olga Cherevko, a spokesperson for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), said Israel’s actions amounted to “a death sentence on Gaza City,” adding that residents face the choice of “leaving their homes or dying under bombardment.”

The bombardment comes as part of Israel’s latest ground offensive, dubbed “Gideon’s Chariots 2,” launched Sept. 3 to fully occupy Gaza City. The plan has faced criticism inside Israel over fears it could jeopardize the lives of soldiers and captives held in the enclave.

Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza had already surpassed 700 days, with Israel having killed over 64,700 Palestinians. The military campaign has devastated the enclave, which is facing famine.

Last November, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.

Israel also faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice for its war on the enclave.

680,000 DEAD... Based on all the data collected, the death toll in Gaza is at least 680,000 and 380,000 are infants under five years of age...

middleeastmonitor.com

 "...  The Tel Aviv offices of Haaretz, described by The Jewish Chronicle as  a ‘left wing’ news outlet critical of the Israeli government, have been attacked, and two of its journalists assaulted by Israeli police. Under a 2024 Israeli law, the Qatar-based news agency Al Jazeera (which still reports from Gaza and the West Bank), has been banned from Israel because of its critical attacks on the government and judiciary. In Gaza itself, as of 8 June 2025, according to the International Federation of Journalists, 170 Palestinian journalists and media workers have been killed since October 2023, with many others injured or missing.

The net result of all this is a series of consequences: First, apart from some brave reportage from Al Jazeera and a small number of independent journalists, and insights gained ftom Gazans themselves via social media, there is restricted opportunity for a wholesale international assessment of how the IDF conducts its military operations in Gaza. Second, threats and intimidation of anti-Israel reporting have resulted in growing self-censorship among Israeli and other journalists. Put simply, they fear Israeli retaliation. Third, increasing restrictions on the press in Israel mean that the public is denied vital information on the conflict, which contributes, in part, to the skewed public view of the conflict, often ignoring the bloodletting and destruction of Gaza, and celebrating the heroism of the IDF forces. According to one poll conducted by Penn State University researchers in May of this year, the vast majority of 1,005 respondents surveyed across Israel supported the forced removal (ethnic cleansing) of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip. Over 65 per cent believed in a modern-day incarnation of Amalek, with most supporting the biblical command to ‘erase Amalek’"

Skewering History: The Odious Politics of Counting Gaza’s Dead

https://arena.org.au/politics-of-counting-gazas-dead/ 

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From Every River to Every Sea ...

"No self-respecting journalist considers Holocaust denial a legitimate point of view, and no serious media organisation argues that impartiality requires it to provide Holocaust denial with a platform in any serious discussion about Germany's extermination of Europe's Jews during World War Two - let alone equal time, or beginning and ending every such discussion with "Germany said". Gaza Genocide denial, by contrast, is a well-organised and orchestrated global campaign sponsored, funded, and avidly promoted - without any hindrance whatsoever - by the regime perpetrating the genocide."

Paper boats and a 'Stop the genocide' poster at a Palestine solidarity protest during the Venice Film Festival on 30 August 2025 (Stefano Rellandini/AFP)

In the West, it is a crime to deny one Holocaust and dangerous to name another

Mouin Rabbani

5 September 2025 

 

While outlawing Holocaust denial, western governments punish critics of Israel's crimes and elevate denial of its ongoing genocide in Gaza to official policy and media orthodoxy

The difference between Holocaust denial and Gaza Genocide denial is that Holocaust denial is illegal or a criminal offence in many countries, and is, for the most part, the preserve of marginalised kooks and conspiracy theorists.

No self-respecting journalist considers Holocaust denial a legitimate point of view, and no serious media organisation argues that impartiality requires it to provide Holocaust denial with a platform in any serious discussion about Germany's extermination of Europe's Jews during World War Two - let alone equal time, or beginning and ending every such discussion with "Germany said".

Gaza Genocide denial, by contrast, is a well-organised and orchestrated global campaign sponsored, funded, and avidly promoted - without any hindrance whatsoever - by the regime perpetrating the genocide.

In many states, Gaza Genocide denial counts among its champions elected and other senior officials, influential lobbies and powerful organisations. Its messages are amplified by an international network of conspiracy theorists, fanatic ideologues and hired hands.

Serious media organisations not only consider it a journalistic requirement to give Gaza Genocide denial a platform and equal time, but they also routinely communicate Israel's talking points to their audiences. The BBC's compulsive resort to "Israel says" is a case in point.

In many of the same states that have criminalised Holocaust denial, it is opposition to, rather than open denial of, the Gaza Genocide that is criminalised and punished. People have been fired from jobs, lost business, forfeited careers and educational opportunities, and literally been imprisoned for speaking out against it.

This repression is happening during the Gaza Genocide, when such voices are most urgently needed to influence governments that, under the 1948 Genocide Convention, are obligated not only to punish but also to prevent genocide.

Denial as policy... READ MORE

https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/west-criminal-deny-holocaust-while-it-is-dangerous-recognise-gaza-genocide

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AFTER SAVAGERY: "The West’s moral exceptionalism has expired. What’s left is the hard work of rebuilding universality from the camp outward, universality as solidarity, not domination. Palestine is not a cause on your list; it is a lens. Through it, everything sharpens: climate justice, policing, borders, surveillance, labour. The same empire, the same alibi. Choose your side."

"... He is not trying to make “both sides” feel seen; he is trying to make the dead visible and the living responsible. 

The book will irritate readers clinging to elite decorum or academic hedging. It will thrill and steady readers who have been gaslit by years of “context” that never quite manages to include Palestinian lives.

For an average reader who’s been told that Gaza is too complicated, After Savagery is a relief. 

It is not simplistic; it is clarifying. It arms you with frames that travel: read the news critically; translate “security” claims into real-world harms; watch for the “humanitarian crisis” label that surgically removes politics; test every universal against Gaza. If it fails there, it fails everywhere.

This book also gives you a language of joyful defiance. The Kanafani thread is not nostalgia; it’s instruction. The lantern is a method. Culture is a method. Sumud is a method. You don’t wait for elites to license your humanity. You practise it, publicly, until it becomes ungovernable. 

After Savagery ends not in despair but in a forward tilt: the old metaphysics are collapsing; help the new one be born.

The argument you’ll carry away when you finish, three convictions stick: Gaza is the measure. Any politics or philosophy that can’t look Gaza in the eye is not worth your time.

The West’s moral exceptionalism has expired. What’s left is the hard work of rebuilding universality from the camp outward, universality as solidarity, not domination.

Palestine is not a cause on your list; it is a lens. 

Through it, everything sharpens: climate justice, policing, borders, surveillance, labour. The same empire, the same alibi. Choose your side.

This is a book of witness and a book of strategy disguised as philosophy. It will be shelved under Middle East Studies; it belongs on your desk, annotated, next to your news feed. Dabashi does not ask you to admire his argument. He asks you to risk something for it.

In a season of euphemisms, After Savagery tells the truth with its gloves off and its lantern on."

https://www.middleeasteye.net/discover/hamid-dabashis-after-savagery-detonates-wests-moral-alibi-gaza 

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"Dabashi accuses mainstream media of producing processed news, like processed food.

Such outlets, he says, provide additives, preservatives, artificial colouring, manufactured to stabilise a political diet rather than nourish understanding. "

'After Savagery' by Hamid Dabashi detonates the West's moral alibi on Gaza

The Columbia professor's new book argues that Gaza is the measure by which any moral framework must be judged

 

Book Review By Hossam el-Hamalawy 12 September 2025

Palestinian children in Gaza struggle to collect food from an aid operation in this image from June 2025 (AFP)

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After Savagery is the latest work by Columbia professor Hamid Dabashi (Haymarket Books) currently available for pre-order from Haymarket Books  etc...

"Written during a genocide, After Savagery reveals the ethical bankruptcy of “Western philosophy” and how it undergirds the erasure of the colonized.

 

 

The death toll in Gaza continues to rise―a cold, lifeless number representing entire communities crushed under the weight of settler colonialism.

What remains of the theories we use to understand our world? With lyrical and lucid fury, Hamid Dabashi exposes the racist roots of Western philosophy, demanding that readers overcome its pernicious phantom of relevance. Rather than perceiving “the West” as giving carte blanche to Israel, Dabashi insists that Israel must be understood as its quintessence.

If Israel is the West and the West is Israel, then Palestine is the world and the world is Palestine. Holding to glimmers from revolutionary works of literature and film, Dabashi argues, in grief and love, that the wretched of the earth need poetry after barbarism―and that Palestine is the site of a liberated imagination." 

After Savagery: Gaza, Genocide, and the Illusion of Western Civilization