WEIGHED IN THE BALANCES.

So, let’s weigh arms and war against disarmed peace. Here are the two sides.

ARMS AND WAR: have killed some two hundred million people in the last century, caused a similar number of deaths through disease and famine have seriously injured and traumatized perhaps three times that number, blighting the lives of some 10% of the total world population during the century. Arms need loads of money, about $1.7 trillion a year, and wars cost a similar additional amount in fighting and damage. Soldiers get killed and kill others. Cities are flattened. Tens of millions of refugees flee their homes. Invasions upset people. Arming military dictators destroys democracy. Bombs produce a lot of CO2, as do fighters, missiles, aircraft carriers and the rest. Military bases annoy other states. Allies provoke enemies. New weapons will be copied. Arms companies have a vested interest in war. Wars mess up countries. Bombing countries breeds terrorists. Threats create counter threats and arms races. Revenge leads to more violence. Our weapons finish up in their hands. Arms sold to dictators will be used against the people. Power blocs do arms races. Weapons make leaders arrogant. Wars create almost all chronic poverty. Nuclear accidents have and will happen. War crimes occur on all sides. Destroying enemies destroys ourselves. Militarism promotes hate. Explosions blow ordinary people up. Once wars start, all issues of justice are side-lined. Armed forces and war victims are riddled with PTSD. Weapons have often been sold through bribery. Wars rapidly extend. Military procurement costs often, even usually, escalate. Murdering people is wrong; war tries to make mass murder right, and soldiers have to be brainwashed into doing the unacceptable. The experience of war blights life. Infant mortality spikes in wars. The young fight and are killed and injured. Wars promote disease and sickness, and undermine health services. At the beginning we are going to win wars, at the end everyone loses them. Wars lead to later wars. Wars destroy markets, territory, infrastructure, families, political debate, international relations. Arms destroy trust. Weapons can only destroy; they are anti-good. Arms and war have destroyed and wasted, at the very least, 5% of the total world economy over the last century.

PEACE: injures and kills no one, requires zero CO2, allows and encourages trade, helps resources to be used for people’s benefit, develops trust and co-operation, allows states to enjoy and not hate one another, makes democracy to flourish, removes threats, fear, destruction and costs nothing. Invasion becomes holidays and competition occurs in football. Peace is free. It rests upon us. It allows the good to happen without opposition. It does not blame, hate, attack or try to eliminate. It makes ordinary lives work well and blesses us.

DROWNING OUT DISARMAMENT: The imbalance is so obvious, we need an explanation of why militarism is dominant in so-called thinking democracies. In fact, we ordinary people are scared off peace and disarmament by the military-industrial-political system. We are not allowed to think disarmament, because the militarists control us through fear, patriotism and direct access to government. The military make sure peace and disarmament cannot be considered, and it is not. The military are praised. Failed wars are fudged. Our aggression is justified, and in any attempt at multilateral disarmament, the militarists insist on running the process into the ground, because turkeys do not vote for Christmas. The world’s most heavily armed countries, and especially the United States, run the United Nations’ Security Council, and those who support disarmament are called traitors. So, the blindingly obvious way forward of world disarmament and peace stays locked in the militarist box of “There is No alternative” with the key hidden by the arms companies. Any hint of disarmament and they drive up the fear. Like the American gun lobby which says we all safer with two guns under our pillows, the merchants of death push their wares, even though they are destroying the planet.

DOING THE OBVIOUS – WORLD MULTILATERAL DISARMAMENT: Arming is silly. It is sense to disarm, and it is straightforward, far easier than the complex military business. All states reduce military expenditure by 10% a year for a decade until it is all gone, destroying and transforming weapons as we go. It is in everybody’s interest, except in the short-term, the arms companies. The United Nations polices it. Arms companies are subsidised while they change their output. Terrorism is addressed through weapon sweeps and buy back systems. An international military force polices it and enforces recalcitrant groups. Open inspection prevents cheating, and each year the threats fall by 10%. Money, scientists, technologies, resources become available as this destructive system is dismantled, and the blight on the world is removed. Of course, aid, the dismantling of military dictatorships, detoxing militarised areas, ending military brainwashing and other challenges are there, but these would be even greater without disarmament. The time has come to expose the stupidity of arms and weapons. It is the world’s biggest failed experiment. World multilateral disarmament can be on the world agenda immediately, as ordinary people wake up and insist on it. It can be worldwide practical policy in a year or two and done in ten. And then most of the news around the world will be good. States have learned to shake hands and not guns. Now that was easy, wasn’t it?