The U.S. taxpayers’ spending for this “peace industry” includes everything from drones and spare parts to satellites, military housing, drugs to combat the effects of radiation exposure, Artificial Intelligence capabilities, and more. One of the biggest orders, worth US$249 million, is for “Long-Range Sub Orbital Vehicles (LSOV) to the Naval Surface Warfare Center Port Hueneme Division.”
That is just a little less than the entire United Nations budget 2025.
I contributed to the compendium and intend to work with the World Tourism Network to keep the issue alive.
If Travel & Tourism, the so-called industry of peace, seriously plans to start walking the talk, one key question that it will have to mull, and mull seriously, is: “Who benefits most, who profits from wars, destruction, and conflict?”
The answer is not rocket science: The weapons makers, the merchants of death. Look at this compilation of press releases on awarding U.S. military contracts just in December 2024. Billions more are being spent by other countries worldwide.
As the straightforward research proves, the economic and commercial impact of the arms bazaar is beyond comprehension. Hence, while everyone talks about peace, happiness, safety, security, and the UN Sustainable Development Goals, the military-industrial complex is,, in reality,, a far bigger job creator and driver of “economic development,” GDP, and income distribution.
Global taxpayers ultimately pay both the price and the costs of conflict and wars. The human, social, cultural and environmental costs are virtually unaccounted for. Precisely because the arms business survives on continued war and conflict, Travel & Tourism faces many more decades of brutal, mind-numbing violence, along with its ripple-effect consequences — incalculable human suffering along with the fraying of democratic freedoms and human rights.
Monitoring military expenditures and contracts is easy. Companies seeking contracts both in the United States and abroad promote their products, just like in any other business sector. A deeper look at the companies’ shareholding, ownership, locations, and supplier chains would yield even more valuable information about the causes the companies and their senior executives support. That, too, is not difficult.
Travel and tourism will certainly face some dilemmas in advancing the peace-building agenda. The military-industrial complex generates huge revenue streams for Travel and tourism, too. Witness the trade exhibitions, travel and entertainment spending by its corporate executives, personal travel by the highly paid executives, and much more.
But what about the flip side? If the impact of global warming and climate change is so important, why are no questions asked about the carbon emission levels of the hundreds of tanks, naval ships, air force jets, and armored personnel carriers? How much energy do the arms-makers consume? What is the environmental impact of the mining of precious rare earth metals? Etc., etc.
How could US$3.5 billion per month be spent on making the world a better place? On funding poverty alleviation, promoting health and education and the UN Sustainable Development Goals at large?
Travel & Tourism can certainly play a role in helping convert swords into plowshares.
In the ecotourism sector, we try to wean indigenous people, fishermen, and forest dwellers away from dynamite fishing, wildlife hunting, and deforestation by converting them into protectors of their natural habitats. We persuade them to use their indigenous knowledge to become tour guides and thus make a more sustainable living via preservation rather than destruction.
Perhaps there is a way to persuade the weapons makers to do the same. Perhaps they can be persuaded to redeploy their technological expertise for the betterment of humanity rather than its destruction.
The academic community can certainly play a major role. There is no shortage of research on the linkages between peace, tourism, and the role of geopolitics and the arms bazaar. Entire conferences can be organized on the topic, perhaps with the funding support of the weapons-makers.
It would be easy to pooh-pooh this. After all, the U.S. is awash with guns and regularly hit by all kinds of violence in schools and workplaces. Despite that, it remains the world’s most in-demand tourism destination. On the surface, that argument alone would indicate that global wars, conflicts, and violence have nothing to do with global tourism flows.
The counter-argument is that within the United States, cities wracked by crime and violence also rank low in terms of visitor arrivals. Safety and security is a primary determinant of destination choice. Thus, PREVENTION becomes far more important than cure. While many countries have used tourism as a force for economic and social recovery AFTER a conflict, it makes more sense to PREVENT conflicts from breaking out in the first place.
Of course, a prevention rather than cure approach will NOT be good for the weapons makers.
All this is grist for the mill.
The simple data-gathering exercise in this post is designed to advance the agenda and put two questions up for debate: How much money is spent on weapons and armaments annually? And how could that money be redeployed to other more positive, constructive causes?
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