Herman Goering was second-in-command of Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Germany. In a radio broadcast in 1936 he said: “Guns will make us powerful; butter will only make us fat.”
This may be the origin of the phrase “Guns or Butter.” Whether or not Goering was the first to use the phrase it has become one that economists often use to describe the choices governments make.
Worldwide Arms Spending at Record High
Our planet does not have unlimited resources. So, decisions have to be made about how many resources to allocate for the defence of the state (guns) and how many for the needs of the people (butter).
According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, governments around the world are increasingly choosing guns. Global military spending reached $1.204 trillion in 2006, an all-time high, and 37 percent greater than it was ten years earlier. That amounts to $182 for every single person on the planet.
Meanwhile, butter got about $104 billion in 2006; that’s the total amount of international development assistance spent by all countries. That amounts to the equivalent of $15 for every person on the planet. Development spending has increased over the last decade but it still represents a tiny fraction of military spending.
United States Leads the World in Military Spending
By far the biggest gun enthusiast is the United States. Under President George W. Bush its military spending doubled. In 2008, the U.S. military budget was $696 billion. That’s more than six times bigger than its nearest rivals – China and Russia – which spend less than $100 billion each.
The fourth President of the United States, James Madison (in office 1809-17), warned about the dangers of such heavy military spending. “Of all the enemies to public liberty,” he wrote in 1785, “war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes…known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few… No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.”
When spending on guns hugely outbalances spending on butter ordinary folks get uppity. Conflict often follows.
Canada Ramps up Military Spending
Canada has become the 15th largest military spender in the world, says the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. Currently, Canada has 62,000 men and women in uniform and the Canadian Forces website says “the Government of Canada will expand the regular force to 75,000 personnel and add 10,000 reservists, and acquire leading-edge military technology and equipment.”
The price tag on this expansion is reported by CBC News (January 22, 2009): “The military budget for 2008 was $18.2 billion, with planned spending for 2009 estimated to be more than $19.1 billion.”
David MacQuarrie adds that parliamentary budget officer Kevin Page, in October 2008, reported that “Funding the war in Afghanistan could cost a total of $18.1 billion, or $1,500 per Canadian household, by 2011.”
Alternatives to Weapons Spending
According to the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation: “For less than two-thirds of the cost of a ballistic missile defence system, the U.S. could fully fund the entire Millennium Development program.”
All of the Third World’s debt could be paid off in one go by diverting three quarters of U.S. annual military spending for one year and America would still have the world’s biggest defence budget.
Half of one percent of global arms spending would provide basic education for all.
Water and sanitation could be provided for every person by rerouting less than one percent of the world’s military spending.
Providing basic health and nutrition for everyone on Earth would cost about $13 billion, a little more than one percent of the global military budget.
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