lalue

You mentioned that the spending could be used to improve international collaboration. How do you respond to the point that this initative could actually degrade international relations, because it might make some countries break some of their international commitments, like the 2% GDP commitment in NATO?

[Controversial question. Merely to stimulate the debate. I am not a fan of the 2% nor other military spending.]

emilia.ismael

It is a very interesting campaign but it seems very unlikely due to the nuclear and militar capacity that some countries have. To work, this initiative should have the support of every country in the entire world.

mcw

To implement your proposal, Naomi, there would have to be some checking of national military budgets and also some intervention if a national government  agrees to to this but does not act in this way. So, how should this be done without powerful, i.e. legitimate, international institutions? This being maybe a hen and egg problem: if there were these institutions the 20 per cent issue maybe would not even exist anymore...

Beyond this, should there be any kind of forcing govvernments to comply if they do not want to? This raises the abovementioned question even more.