Global military spending is soaring while the United Nations faces financial crisis, even as conflicts rise and the need for cooperative security becomes more urgent.
We live in a world bristling with nuclear and conventional weapons – with a potential destructiveness unprecedented in history. A nuclear war, for example, would largely be over in one hour, with each second equivalent in destruction to World War II.
Meanwhile, our security is increasingly threatened by skyrocketing global military expenditure while the UN’s capacity to maintain peace is being undermined by member states starving the organisation of funds.
The United Nations and its prescription for a better world
In the aftermath of two world wars, there was considerable hope that humanity would learn its lesson and that each would be ‘the war to end all wars’. Indeed, the United Nations was created for just this purpose, as stated in the Preamble to its Charter: “We the peoples of the United Nations determined to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind…”
The Charter’s prescription for preventing violent conflict was a solid one. States that joined the organisation had to agree, as an obligation of membership, to resolve their disputes peacefully and to refrain from the threat or use of force against one another.
But before this hopeful blueprint could get off the drawing board, a new danger to global peace and security arose. As detailed in the Report of the Commission on Global Governance: “As the Charter was being negotiated and signed in San Francisco, the atomic bomb was being developed in Los Alamos, New Mexico, a thousand miles away…The first atomic bomb was exploded over Hiroshima on 6 August 1945, just forty-one days after the Charter was signed. By the time the United Nations was established on 24 October 1945, the world that it was to serve had changed in fundamental ways.”
Indeed, for the next 45 years, the nuclear threat and the Cold War hung like a pall over the UN, greatly distorting the hopes invested in it by the world’s peoples.
When the Cold War suddenly ended, its legacy of abuse and neglect was not easily swept away. One superpower had bankrupted itself in the headlong race towards military superiority, and the other had spent vast resources developing expensive nuclear weapons.
In the power vacuum following the Cold War, the UN was no longer sidelined but, instead, required to take centre stage. In a short space of time, the expectations, demands and responsibilities placed on the organisation increased dramatically. An organisation whose peacekeeping budget was no greater than the budgets of the New York City police and fire departments was asked to become the world’s police and fire department. At the same time, some who clamoured for it to play this enhanced role continued to be late in payment of their dues or to withhold them altogether.
Even so, over its 81 years, the UN has had many successes, exemplified by its 12 Nobel Peace Prizes. At the inter-governmental level, it offers venues, such as the General Assembly and Security Council, for member states to discuss international problems and take action. Because states have different interests, these are necessarily slow and cumbersome, but many have had far-reaching consequences.
In a parallel process, the secretary-general, the Secretariat and UN funds, programs and specialised agencies carry out their mandates throughout the world. Preventive diplomacy, peacemaking and peacekeeping have prevented and resolved many crises and conflicts. Local disarmament initiatives have ensured that conflicts don’t reoccur and international efforts have contributed to nuclear non-proliferation and to outlawing and monitoring biological and chemical weapons. Humanitarian efforts have prevented or contained famines, refugee flows and pandemics. The International Court of Justice (also part of the UN) has strengthened international law, as have new international treaties. Most important of all, as Secretary-General of the United Nations António Guterres explains, the UN has been instrumental in preventing a third world war.
However, the UN of today is staggering more than ever under the unparalleled expectation that it should be able to deal effectively with a multiplicity of extremely complex problems and that it should somehow be able to do so with resources that are woefully inadequate.
Meanwhile, world military expenditure increases, as do conflicts
Even after the Cold War, states continued to pursue the flawed policy of deterrence and to equate military might with security, in spite of research that arms races increase the likelihood of war and evidence that military spending does not decrease conflict – as the recent data from the world’s leading source of information on organised violence shows.
In 2025, violent conflicts increased to 65, the highest since data collection began in 1946. While most were intrastate, there is also a sharp increase in interstate conflict.
Fatalities also increased sharply in 2025 to the second highest since the Rwandan genocide in 1994. The war between Russia and Ukraine was the deadliest in the world for the third consecutive year.
The world’s global military expenditure also increased in 2025 for the eleventh consecutive year – to an astonishing $2.9 trillion. If similar increases continue, and NATO countries enlarge their expenditure as currently pledged, global military spending could reach $6.6 trillion by 2035 – five times the level at the end of the Cold War.
The current US military budget is a jaw-dropping $1 trillion, but the Trump administration is requesting a whopping increase to $1.5 trillion for 2027. Thus, if global military expenditure increases as predicted, the US $1.5 trillion (if approved) would account for nearly half of the entire world’s military expenditure.
Although the US government frames security threats from China and Russia as the main reason for its sky-high military budget, Russia’s military expenditure for 2025 was $190 billion, less than one-fifth of that of the US. China, the world’s second largest military spender, was $336 billion – about one-third of the US military budget.
As the secretary-general concludes: “Despite rising expenditures… global security has continued to deteriorate, calling into question the effectiveness of more military spending to enhance security.”
Rebalancing global priorities
Do we really want or need more weapons and more wars? Shouldn’t we, instead, choose cooperative security, collective security and human security, as represented by the United Nations?
In January 2026, Secretary-General Guterres sent a letter to member states warning of “imminent financial collapse” if dues were not paid on time. By 8 February, the due date for membership contributions to the regular budget, only 55 countries, including Australia, had paid their dues in full. But to date, neither the US nor China, the UN’s biggest contributors, have paid all of their dues.
In July, the UN controller reported, “We don’t have enough cash beyond August. Unless its big donors step up, the UN will have to delay other payments to afford its High-Level Week of the General Assembly” [22–28 September this year]. To address last year’s shortfall, the UN’s regular budget was reduced by 15 per cent in 2026 to 3.45 billion – making the world’s military expenditure 840 times that of the UN regular budget.
In a recent review of where the international order is headed, Brookings’ scholars conclude: “Whether the Trump administration moves aggressively enough to shatter what’s left of the multilateral order remains to be seen; there’s no evidence of what would replace it beyond unfettered American power.”
Clearly, we can’t let the United Nations be thrown off the cliff. It is time to commit to revitalising and reforming the UN to meet the needs of the future. As the UN secretary-general has stated: “Rebalancing global priorities. . . is an imperative for humanity to survive.”
Connie Peck
Dr. Connie Peck, AO, is the Founder/Former Principal Coordinator of the UNITAR Programme in Peacemaking and Conflict Prevention – the first-ever training programme in negotiation and mediation in the United Nations (now in its 33rd year). When lecturing at La Trobe University in the 1980s, she also founded Psychologists for the Prevention of War (now called Psychologists for Peace) during the height of the Cold War and acted as its first Convenor. She is the author of several books and numerous articles on conflict resolution and the nuclear threat.See also: www.linkedin.com/in/connie-peck-b92a403a0