Reallocate Resources
by David Krieger and Carah Ong, April 2002

Nuclear Weapons are a drain on both human and financial resources and, as history proves, they are not an effective means of preventing or resolving conflict. Throughout the Nuclear Age, more than $8.8 trillion has been spent globally to maintain these indiscriminate weapons of mass annihilation.These resources could have been used to eradicate poverty, prevent starvation, improve agriculture, provide health care, improve schools and education, research and develop renewable energy sources, clean up polluted land and water, and make reparations to indigenous and colonized peoples who have suffered most from the nuclear cycle.

Approximate number of nuclear weapons: Estimates of the global nuclear stockpile range from 24,700 to 33,300

Estimated cost to date to research, develop, test, deploy and maintain global nuclear arsenals: $8.8 Trillion

Estimated cost to date to research, develop, test, deploy and maintain the US nuclear arsenal: $5.5 Trillion

Estimated annual cost of Global Military Expenditures: $800 Billion

Estimated annual cost to maintain and improve US nuclear arsenal: $30 to $35 Billion

Estimated annual cost to operate the entire United Nations system: $10 Billion

Estimated number of people worldwide who lack access to safe drinking water: 1 Billion

Estimated number of people worldwide who lack access to sanitation: 2 Billion

Estimated number of people in developing countries who live on less than $2 per day: 3 Billion

Estimated number of people who die each year from starvation and preventable diseases: 60 Million, many of whom are infants and children

Estimated number of children worldwide who can not afford or do not have access to education: 275 Million

Estimated annual cost to ensure that every child around the world would be able to go to school: $7 Billion

"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children...This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron."

-Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1890-1969