Global Military Spending verses the UN Millennium Goals 2015

Global military spending reached a record $1,464 billion last year with the United States taking up by far the biggest share of the total, Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) said.

Arms shipments were up 4 percent worldwide from 2007 and 45 percent higher than in 1999, the think tank said in its annual study of the global arms trade.

OK we are in a global recession right !!! Yet the world is still spending record amounts of money on the Military machine $1.4 Trillion that we know of. Look at this table !!

Defense Spending In The Billions: The United States, with a budget of $535.9 billion annually, spends more on defense than the next fourteen nations combined. One wonders if all that spending by the United States is really necessary, considering that the U.S. military budget is more than four times that of the next largest spender, China, at $121.9 billion. If America’s NATO allies are included, that adds another $207.2 billion in defense spending. Those countries are the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, Canada, and Spain.

Now just think outside the box for a second !!

The UN Millennium Development Goals require about $140 billion to achieve these goals

More than halfway to the 2015 deadline to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), major advances in the fight against poverty and hunger have begun to slow or even reverse as a result of the global economic and food crises, a progress report by the United Nations has found. The assessment, launched by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in Geneva, warns that, despite many successes, overall progress has been too slow for most of the targets to be met by 2015.

Global Military Spending is $1.4 Trillion - so could we not take 10% of the Military spending $1.4 Billion and put this over to the UN Millennium Goals?? or is this just not possible.. to 'Out' there thinking some would say.

If the UN had 10% of the Military Spending then they would be able to achieve the following.

END POVERTY - UNIVERSAL EDUCATION - GENDER EQUALITY

CHILD HEALTH - MATERNAL HEALTH - COMBAT HIV/AIDS - ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY

GLOBAL PARTNERSHIP

Pretty pressing issues really - BUT hey lets just spend more on the Military when there is no real threat and less wars than there were 10 years ago - it just does not make any sense.