Where are Our Priorites to Develop Peace?

Some Indicators of Our Madness

Statistics from the Promise of World Peace Universal House of Justice

• To keep military expenses at their present levels, (1980) everyone during his lifetime will have to sacrifice three to four years of his/her income to the arms race.
• The developed countries spend twenty time more on their military programs than on economic aid to the poor countries.
• In two days, the world spends on armaments what it costs the organization of the United Nations and its specialist agencies per year.
• More than 100 million citizens receive their wages directly or indirectly from Ministries of Defense.
• The training of military personnel in the United States costs twice as much each year as the budget for the education of 300 million children of school age in South Asia.
• The price of the Trident Submarine is equal to the cost of maintaining 16 million children in the developing countries in school for a year.
• For the price of one tank, 1,000 classrooms for 30,000 children could be built.
• For the price of one fighter plane, 40,000 village pharmacies could be set up.

Adapted from World Military and Social Expenditures 1980, by Ruth Leger Sivard, © World Priorities, Leesburg, VA 22075 and North South: A Programme for Survival, the Report of the Independent Comission on the Problems of International Development, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 

 1980.

What do you think?