“I occasionally think how quickly our differences worldwide would vanish if we were facing an alien threat from outside this world,” Ronald Reagan pondered in his 1987 address to the 42nd Session of the United Nations General Assembly.
“What could be more alien to the universal aspirations of our peoples than war and the threat of war?” he added.
Four years earlier, President Reagan had proposed his Strategic Defense Initiative, commonly called "Star Wars. " This was a space-based missile defense system aimed at protecting the United States from nuclear attacks. It marked a shift away from the concept of mutually assured destruction to a defensive approach. The proposal garnered some support but faced substantial criticism and was labeled "Star Wars" because of its perceived reliance on science fiction technology and high cost.
Now, 10 presidential terms later, its offshoot, President Trump’s Golden Dome, which he claims would cost $175 billion and could be built in three years, whereas the Congressional Budget Office says it would coat about $831 billion and the Center for Strategic and International Studies says it won’t be ready before 2030, is on offer.
Defining defense spending in the context of strengthening peace and security involves a complex mix of national security priorities, geopolitical factors, and socio-economic considerations. It primarily aims to protect a nation from external threats while ensuring its sovereignty and territorial integrity. It is claimed these investments serve as a deterrent against potential aggression from adversaries and play a crucial role in maintaining peace. They are also essential for crisis management, conflict prevention, and the allocation of resources to enhance rapid response capabilities and support peacekeeping operations.
This spending involves personnel costs, salaries, training, and welfare of military personnel, equipment and technology acquisitions and maintenance of weapons, vehicles, and advanced technology, R&D funding for innovation in defense technologies and strategies, and operational expenses associated with military exercises, deployments, and logistics.
It is said defense must be balanced with diplomacy. Diplomatic engagement complements military strength, combining capabilities with diplomatic efforts to resolve conflicts and build international alliances. However, defense spending should not overshadow essential public services like education, healthcare, infrastructure, and sustainable development.
It is claimed investing in defense contributes to economic growth and stability, reducing the root causes of conflict. Whereas it actually only increases the delineation between the weak and strong.
Proponents of defense spending claim it is crucial for maintaining national security, but it must be strategically balanced with efforts to promote peace and prevent conflict. This requires a comprehensive approach that combines military readiness with diplomatic, economic, and social strategies to foster a stable and peaceful international environment.
Canada’s Prime Minister says sacrifice is necessary to pay for defense spending.
Such a claim demonstrates a lack of vision, imagination, leadership, to say nothing of gumption, especially when Canada’s own, homegrown intellectual property, which would advance the cause of global peace and security far more than defense spending ever will, goes unheeded.
Instead of making such a claim, he should be giving pause to President Eisenhower's words, who, before becoming America’s 34th president, was considered one of America’s greatest generals. In his farewell address, Eisenhower warned of the potential dangers of the "military-industrial complex." He cautioned against the unchecked influence of this complex, which he described as the close relationship between the military and the defense industry, and its potential to endanger American liberties and democratic processes.
While President Reagan’s was an alien threat from outside this world, climate breakdown, which is held up today as the most urgent threat to the planet's future, is a threat from within.
Approximately 90% of the warming caused by increased greenhouse gas emissions is absorbed by the Earth's oceans. Levitus S et al. in the paper World ocean heat content and thermosteric sea level change (0–2000 m), 1955–2010 said, “If all of the heat the oceans have absorbed down to a depth of 2000 meters from 1955–2008 (raising their temperature by an average of .09 degrees Celsius) was instantly transferred to the lower 10 kilometers of the atmosphere, that layer would be warmed 36 degrees Celsius.”
The average of 1955-2008 is 1981, and as the following graphic shows, the ocean heat content has more than tripled since that date, so such a transfer would presumably be closer to 100 degrees.
In the paper Global Warming in the Pipeline, Hansen et al. show that the equilibrium global warming for today’s greenhouse gas content is 10°C.
Although Levitus noted that releasing ocean heat into the atmosphere won’t be immediate, it is inevitable. The transit time of the Thermohaline Circulation is approximately 1000 years. This is about the same time as the Earth System Sensitivity, which encompasses all climate feedbacks, including ice sheet melting, permafrost melting, and changes in the carbon cycle, fully kicks in. And when the ocean heat introduced in 1960 starts to reemerge at the surface.
The thing is, though, that the world’s ocean heat content represents a significant energy resource. It can be converted into work, and the excess heat from that conversion can be transferred to deep water in a ratio of approximately 1 to 12. This sequestered heat will then return after about 226 years and can be recycled.
The shifting of ocean heat into deep water is a countercurrent heat flow that triples the length of time humanity derives the climate buffering benefit of the world’s oceans.
In 2023, the U.S. military spent approximately $820.3 billion on defense, about 13.3% of the total federal budget for that fiscal year. And according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, global military expenditures reached a record high of $2.718 trillion in 2024.
According to Bloomberg Intelligence, the U.S. also spends about $1 trillion a year on the impacts of rising temperatures. And the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research estimated that global annual damages will be 38 trillion dollars, with a likely range of 19-59 trillion dollars, in 2050.
These damages will result mainly from rising temperatures, rainfall changes, and temperature variability.
In the alternative, thermodynamic geoengineering technology can reduce surface temperatures, and for $2.1 trillion annually, two and a half times more energy than we are deriving from fossil fuels globally can be obtained.
“Energy wars” refer to conflicts, literally and metaphorically, in which energy resources or infrastructure play a role as either a cause or a consequence of war. Throughout history, energy has been a strategic asset and a source of conflict, often becoming a target for attacks. The Middle East is particularly significant, holding over 48% of the world’s proven oil reserves, making it geopolitically crucial. Control over these resources has drawn internal and external actors into conflict, most notably during the Iraq–Iran War (1980–1988) and the Gulf War (1990–1991).
Western nations, particularly the U.S., U.K., and France, have frequently intervened in the Middle East to secure energy supplies and maintain influence over oil-rich states. Notable examples include the 1953 Iranian Coup, the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and ongoing tensions in the Strait of Hormuz, which is critical for the passage of 20% of the world's oil. These interventions underscore the importance of regional control to global energy markets. This control continues to be threatened today, largely due to American and Israeli actions against Iran.
And the conflict in Ukraine has highlighted the interconnectedness of energy and geopolitics, with Russia using its energy resources as leverage and Europe scrambling to reduce its dependence on Russian gas.
As has been seen with attacks on Ukrainian energy facilities, energy infrastructure is increasingly vulnerable to cyberattacks, which can disrupt supplies and cause widespread damage.
The transition to renewable energy sources is also becoming a source of tension, with some countries seeking to secure access to critical minerals and technologies needed for the green energy transition.
Energy can be used as a weapon. Countries can restrict energy exports to exert political pressure on others, as Russia has done in Europe.
Energy infrastructure can be a target of conflict, with attacks designed to disrupt energy supplies and weaken an enemy.
And nations can control energy resources to create dependencies and influence other countries.
However, the oceans, which are a global common, can negate these threats by becoming a source of all the energy and resources we will ever need.
Sustainability, like sovereignty and territorial integrity, will become meaningless in the face of temperatures 10 degrees hotter 1000 years from now.
The Energy that gives peace a chance will return surface temperatures to the preindustrial temperature in 226 years and then keep it there for 3,000 years.