In 2009, countries have reached perilous new levels of conflict, tension and military spending characterised by nuclear proliferation, ideological warfare and pre-emptive invasions of sovereign nations. As news reports highlight an intensifying competition over natural resources, the international community is faced with a stark choice - to share resources and cooperate, or to continue on the path to further warfare.
This section of the report 'Financing the Global Sharing Economy'
demonstrates how governments could redirect the colossal financial
resources currently spent on military budgets as a first step toward reducing armed conflict and war, while also providing urgent national and global public goods for social development.
All forms of conflict are ultimately fuelled by a fragmented state of human consciousness, reflected today in the breakdown of that which is collective. To finally end war and restore the planet's life-support systems, we need to reintegrate our awareness, recognise our common purpose and work towards universally held aspirations, argues Doug Griffin.
To believe that nuclear weapons are a generally positive contributor to establishing a just and peaceful world is an irresponsible view. It is unimaginable to reach any plateau of global justice
without acting with resolve to rid the world of nuclear weaponry, argues Richard Falk.
A groundbreaking report identifies more
than 300 banks, pension funds, insurance companies and asset managers
in 30 countries with substantial investments in nuclear arms producers. By the
International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN).
With growing competition over the world's increasingly scarce natural resources, governments
will only be able to avoid future military conflict by embracing
a policy of economic cooperation that prioritises resource conservation and
climate change mitigation, argues Richard
Heinberg.
We urgently need to
move beyond our limited concept of national security as being exclusively aligned to
military power. A larger vision of security must also include factors
that promote the internal resilience of the nation, such as public health, education
and environmental sustainability, explains David Orr.
Creating a more stable peace-based local economy demands shifting from military to civilian work in factories,
laboratories, and military bases. It is time for the peace movement to capture people's imagination with the concept of economic conversion, writes Mary Beth Sullivan.
