Global defence budget jumps to record high of $2440bn ( www.theguardian.com )

BertramDitore , 27 days ago

Two Thousand Billion is not a number I’m capable of conceptualizing.

Chefdano3 , 27 days ago

Is that not just 2.4 trillion?

BertramDitore , 27 days ago

Yup, it is. I can’t really conceptualize a thousand billions or a trillion, though. These are not numbers that translate to reality in any practical way for me.

afraid_of_zombies , 27 days ago

• 16.67 Apollo Programs
• 3,289.47 Hover Dams
• 4.01 Interstate Highway Systems
• 381 years of running the US space shuttle program
• 325,333 human-days running experiments on ISS
• 821,548,821,550 school lunches for students in the UK
• 78.92 Three Gourges Dams
• 84,311,344.93 2023 full loaded Nissan Leafs

Does that help?

ShellMonkey , 28 days ago

So the USA is only about 1/3 of the global total. Nothing out of the ordinary going on here …

streetfestival , 28 days ago

Sounds like a lot of pollution and human suffering

JohnDClay , 28 days ago

Yeah, I wish Russia wouldn’t try and take people’s stuff. And I hope China doesn’t start trying. And Israel and Iran going at it is so stupid. So much suffering and loss. But as long as that stupid happens, other countries need to deter them from trying anything more. Because as terrible as military stuff is, war is much much worse.

Chemical , 28 days ago

Agree. We’re a species still very much in its infancy.

copd , 28 days ago

The world is ran by children, from the outside it must look like a soap opera

tal , 28 days ago

en.wikipedia.org/…/Si_vis_pacem%2C_para_bellum

Si vis pacem, para bellum (Classical Latin: [siː wiːs ˈpaːkɛ̃ ˈparaː ˈbɛllʊ̃]) is a Latin adage translated as “If you want peace, prepare for war.” The phrase is adapted from a statement found in Roman author Publius Flavius Vegetius Renatus’s tract Dē Rē Mīlitārī (fourth or fifth century AD), in which the actual phrasing is Igitur quī dēsīderat pācem, præparet bellum (“Therefore let him who desires peace prepare for war”). The idea which it conveys also appears in earlier works such as Plato’s Nomoi (Laws). The phrase presents the insight that the conditions of peace are often preserved by a readiness to make war when necessary.

CaptainSpaceman , 28 days ago

Conditions of war are inflamed by those who profit from it the most.

Maybe stop letting the warmongerers stay in power.

autotldr Bot , 28 days ago

This is the best summary I could come up with:

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For the first time, analysts at the thinktank recorded a rise in military outlay in all five geographical regions: Africa, Europe, the Middle East, Asia and Oceania and the Americas.

Since 2014, when Russia first invaded Crimea and the eastern Donbas region of Ukraine, the US has been shifting its focus from counter-insurgency operations and asymmetric warfare to “developing new weapon systems that could be used in a potential conflict with adversaries with advanced military capabilities”, according to Sipri’s report.

Russia, India, Saudi Arabia and the UK – the largest spender in central and western Europe after a 7.9% year-on-year increase – follow in Sipri’s league table.

With spending at 5.9% of GDP, equivalent to 16% of the Russian government’s total expenditure, 2023 marked the highest levels recorded since the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

Expenditure in the Middle East rose by 9% to an estimated $200bn, making it the region with the highest military spend as a proportion of GDP in the world at 4.2%, followed by Europe (2.8%), Africa (1.9%), Asia and Oceania (1.7%) and the Americas (1.2%).

Diego Lopes da Silva, a senior researcher at Sipri, said: “The use of the military to suppress gang violence has been a growing trend in the region for years as governments are either unable to address the problem using conventional means or prefer immediate – often more violent – responses.”

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The original article contains 889 words, the summary contains 230 words. Saved 74%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

BombOmOm , 28 days ago

Russia informed the world the time of global (relative) peace is coming to a close. And nobody wants to be left holding the bag.

CaptainSpaceman , 28 days ago

If global peace is out, nuclear winter is in

BombOmOm , 28 days ago

Great powers have directly fought eachother in third locations on multiple occasions without nukes coming into play. Additionally, nukes are even less useful than they used to be, as advances in precision guided munitions have taken many of their cold war roles. There is no reason to think nuclear winter is the likely outcome.

CaptainSpaceman , 28 days ago

We have been at proxy war for decades already. Whats the next escalation if not nuclear winter for at least PART of the globe?

It really does seem the most likely way TPTB will cull the proletariat once AI is siloed in their new bunkers tbeyve been building.

Then again, could be doomsday prepper scammers somehow got to the rich folks and scammed them too, in which case were prolly fine.