Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth is requesting as much as $70 billion in emergency military spending to cover the costs of the Iran war, in addition to the proposed $1.15 trillion National Defense Authorization Act. He reasons that his request is based on “new realities of a world we face, stepping up to meet that moment.”
It is ironic that his observation of new world realities points to evidence for the very opposite of the need to increased military spending. The new realities of the world demand stepping up to meet the challenge of the devastating impact of choosing sides, of human carnage and environmental pollution that wars are inflicting on our world.
The United Nations reports that there are record levels of conflict and violence today. For example, in 2023 there were over 170 armed conflicts and close to 120 million people worldwide were forcibly displaced. There have been 73,000 people killed in Gaza, 1,200 civilians killed in Iran and 773 people killed in Lebanon. These deaths are experienced by survivors as immense loss, unfathomable grief and penetrating anger. These feelings are lost on many of the leaders of nations who orchestrate the wars. It seems that the success of a war is measured by body counts and infrastructure damage.
Also, the toll on the environment is often overlooked as a consequence of war. The United States war machine is a major contributor to making swarths of contaminated land uninhabitable. Armed conflicts use large quantities of munitions that are toxic even and leave devastating impacts on human health and the environment.
Ecosystems are disrupted, natural resources are depleted and the environment is polluted. For example, in Ukraine, hundreds of acres of land are contaminated with landmines and unexploded ordnance. Its soil, waterways and forests have been polluted by shelling, fires and floods. The United Nations reports that, “According to satellite imagery analysis, as of 11 October 2025, approximately 81% of all structures in the Gaza Strip are damaged.” The consequences of the 170-armed conflicts jeopardize the health of our planet for generations to come.
Also, wars and walls are fast companions. Wars create walls between nations: concrete, political, social, ethnical. Uprisings result in walls separating leaders of nations from the people. However, the divisive experiences of these walls may motivate an alternative to waring nations. There is precedence and poetry advocating the demise of walls. President Ronald Reagan called out on June 12, 1987, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.” On Nov. 9, 1989, East and West Germans broke down the wall dividing Berlin. Germany was officially reunited on October 3, 1990. And poet Robert Frost observed, when two neighbors try to repair a frost-heaved stone wall, it occurs to them that “Something there is that doesn’t love a wall.”
Who among us, who are not in the direct path of a war, can comprehend the scale of pain and destruction caused by war? Who among us can comprehend the amount of the $1.15 trillion to wage war? Yet, perhaps we can chip away at the immensity of the impact of war by clearing a path to peace.
To end the dependency upon war, it is necessary to repair relationships. Wars create anger and enemies. In “Peace with Honour,” A. A. Milne wrote, “war is poison, and not (as so many think) an over-strong, extremely unpleasant medicine.” Brandishing the “poison” instruments of war must be set aside and replaced with an open hand of friendship. (The origin of shaking right hands was to demonstrate that no weapon was being held).
The $1.15 trillion National Defense Authorization Act can be repurposed to be used to support the Peace Corps, US-aid, The Institute for Peace and Diplomacy and United Nations Development Programmes, among other organizations that serve people and nations in need. Giving no-strings-attached aid that is requested will make many more friends than the barrel of a rifle. The old proverb, “you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar,” applies here — an antidote to poisonous war, a step up to a new reality.
John Buttrick writes from his Vermont Folk Rocker in his Concord home, Minds Crossing. He can be reached at johndbuttrick@gmail.com.