The diversion of military spending to combat pandemics, the climate crisis and poverty is certainly desirable, and 2% of the current obscene £1.49tn annually would be worthwhile (‘Colossal waste’: Nobel laureates call for 2% cut to military spending worldwide, 14 December). But how unambitious of these eminent scientists to set such a low figure. Why not 10%, 20%, 50%, or even, as Simon Jenkins has argued, 100%? Unrealistic? Perhaps, but if the human race is to survive the many threats to its future, it must learn to settle its differences without periodically slaughtering one another and squandering the Earth’s precious resources on the means to do so. And it is the realists, with their friends in the killing industry – the military-industrial complex – who profit from the slaughter, who have got us into this parlous state.
A substantial part of that military spending is related to creating the means for the existential threat of a nuclear holocaust, one possible scenario leading up to what is described so terrifyingly by Julian Borger (‘15 minutes to save the world’: a terrifying VR journey into the nuclear bunker, 14 December). With the high probability of a nuclear detonation by accident, miscalculation or malfunction, the economic cost of these megadeath machines is just one more reason for demanding their abolition in the shortest possible time.
Frank Jackson
Former co-chair, World Disarmament Campaign
