Peace is cheaper than militarization

Every October 2, the world pauses to honour Mahatma Gandhi. In India, the day is celebrated as Gandhi Jayanti; globally it is marked as the International Day of Non-Violence, a United Nations observance adopted in 2007. It is a rare day when a nation’s memory and a universal message converge, reminding us that Gandhi’s defiant insistence on non-violence was not weakness, but strength. Gandhi faced empires with nothing but moral conviction, showing that truth can compel change without bullets or bombs. In our time, when conflict is rising and governments are spending record sums on weapons, Gandhi’s warning is clear: a world that invests only in arms will end up armed to the teeth but starved of peace.

The numbers don’t lie. According to the Uppsala Conflict Data Program, 2024 saw more state-based conflicts than any year since 1946. Whole generations are growing up knowing only instability. Yet governments are not pouring resources into mediation or prevention—they are doubling down on weapons. Global military spending hit a staggering USD 2.7 trillion in 2024, its highest ever, after ten straight years of increases. NATO, at its 2025 summit, formally pledged to devote at least 3.5 percent of GDP to core defence by 2035, with some leaders pressing for a broader 5 percent target if “security spending” is defined more expansively. The United States, already the world’s biggest spender, has boosted its budget again while funding wars abroad. Russia and China are not slowing down either. The assumption is always the same: more weapons equal more security. History tells us otherwise.

Militarisation deters in the short term but rarely eliminates threats. More often, it deepens cycles of violence. Meanwhile, the institutions that could break those cycles are starved. Peacebuilding organisations, mediation centres, grassroots women’s groups—the ones actually capable of addressing the roots of conflict—are underfunded, sidelined, and in some cases targeted for dismantling. In 2025, the U.S. administration even attempted to dismantle the U.S. Institute of Peace; a federal court blocked it, but the move underscored how fragile peacebuilding institutions remain. Governments always seem to find money for missiles but rarely for dialogue tables.

The cost of this imbalance is measured in lives and futures. Children are being recruited and killed at unprecedented rates. Women are facing escalating gender-based violence, used as a weapon of war from Sudan to Ukraine. In Afghanistan, the Taliban has entrenched a system of gender apartheid that erases women and girls from public life. In Gaza, UN experts and a UN Commission of Inquiry have alleged genocide, while the International Court of Justice continues to weigh the case with provisional measures in place. The UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women has gone further, calling the mass killing of women in Gaza an unfolding “femi-genocide.” These are not abstract horrors—they are happening right now.

Wars also devastate the planet itself. The U.S. Department of Defense is the single largest institutional consumer of fossil fuels in the world, and one of the largest institutional greenhouse gas emitters. Militaries burn oil at unimaginable scales while conflicts destroy ecosystems, poison rivers, and displace communities. Some environmental damage is so severe that international lawyers now argue it meets the threshold of ecocide. Conflict, climate breakdown, and inequality now feed each other in a vicious cycle—and militaries are part of the problem, not just a response.

So why do governments keep feeding the war machine? Because defence spending is visible and politically rewarding. Tanks can be paraded, fighter jets photographed. Peacebuilding, by contrast, is invisible. Dialogue rooms don’t win elections. Grassroots women’s organisations don’t make front-page headlines. Prevention is slow, complex, and harder to sell. Yet prevention is cheaper and smarter. Study after study shows that preventing war costs far less than rebuilding after one. Militarisation treats symptoms. Peacebuilding addresses causes.

Gandhi understood this more than a century ago. Thrown off a train in South Africa for the colour of his skin, he refused to retaliate with violence and instead transformed humiliation into a philosophy: satyagraha, truth-force. Non-violence for him was not passive—it was revolutionary, demanding courage to resist oppression without becoming its mirror. It was the moral power behind the Salt March of 1930 and the Quit India Movement of 1942, when millions mobilised without raising a weapon. His philosophy travelled across borders, inspiring Martin Luther King Jr. in America and Nelson Mandela in South Africa. At the UN, Gandhi’s message still resonates. In 2022, UNESCO’s Gandhi Institute used a life-size hologram of him to remind delegates that education must cultivate empathy and moral imagination alongside knowledge. Gandhi’s legacy is not nostalgia—it is blueprint.

Taking Gandhi seriously today means governments must rebalance their priorities. Instead of endless military spending, they must invest in infrastructures of peace: better early-warning systems to prevent violence before it ignites, mediation platforms to resolve disputes, sustained funding for local peacebuilders—especially women-led groups that succeed where formal diplomacy fails. They must confront climate change as a root driver of conflict, and expand education and human rights protections to strengthen societies against violence. None of this is utopian. Inclusive peace processes consistently deliver longer-lasting results than military interventions. Prevention is cheaper than reconstruction. Dialogue saves lives.

India itself offers examples of Gandhi’s ideals translated into policy. The Swachh Bharat Mission, launched on his birth anniversary in 2014, made the country open-defecation free and saved millions of children’s lives. The revival of Khadi and village industries embodies his philosophy of self-reliance. The PM Janjatiya Unnat Gram Abhiyan, launched in 2024, invests nearly  Rs 80,000 crore in tribal advancement, echoing Gandhi’s belief that national development begins in the village. These are not ceremonial gestures—they are living examples of how Gandhian values can shape development.

Globally, his influence endures. In 2023, world leaders gathered at Rajghat during the G20 summit in New Delhi to pay tribute to Gandhi. It was more than symbolism; it was a reminder that, even amid geopolitical rivalries, Gandhi’s philosophy of non-violence remains a compass for diplomacy. The 2024 Pact for the Future adopted at the UN was another chance—imperfect, but still a recognition that peace, justice, and climate stability are inseparable.

On this International Day of Non-Violence, governments face a choice. They can continue to equate security with weapons and accept a world defined by perpetual conflict. Or they can redirect resources toward justice, equality, and dialogue, investing in the quiet, patient work of peace. True security is not missiles and tanks. It is children in classrooms, women free from violence, ecosystems protected, and societies resilient. Gandhi warned that violence, however justified in the moment, breeds only more violence. Non-violence, by contrast, holds the possibility of breaking the cycle.

The world is at a tipping point. We can normalise militarisation—or we can invest in peace. On Gandhi’s birthday, the choice could not be clearer.

(With additional inputs.
The Conversation)