Peace dividend

In practice

Over time, from the beginning of the Cold War to the present, the defense aspect has played a smaller or larger part of society, fluctuating according to different conditions.

Europe

European nations were sharply criticized by a December 2023 Wall Street Journal article for the lack of progress on arming themselves since Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Examples it gave were Denmark having no heavy artillery or air defence, France only having 90 howitzers, and Germany only having two days of ammunition stored. Noting that West Germany used to have 7,000 tanks, the article pointed out that now-unified Germany has only 200. Also, military production is low in volume.

Countries in the European Union such as Germany have long been reducing their military spending. With a NATO member's average spending in 1989 being 4% of GDP, the number of tanks and equipment have been slashed alongside spending. In 2014 that same spending had dropped to 1.4%. The Washington Post described Germany as having the most "stunning" turnaround after 2022. The peace dividend also affected the structure of Europe's militaries. Many European countries abolished conscription and moved to professional armies. The peace dividend does not only show in the military sphere, but also in the economic. When the Russian 2022 invasion of Ukraine began, it was laid bare how unprepared and dependent some European countries were on Russian energy and raw materials. Germany had to scramble to build new LNG terminals. Another vulnerability is pipelines and other infrastructure running on the seabed, evidenced by the Nord Stream explosions. The Nord Stream incidents have highlighted similar threats to "critical infrastructure", such as against the energy network or the information network, like undersea cables.

Some countries in Europe, such as Finland, did not abolish their conscription and bought many weapons from the disarming nations, such as M270 and Leopard tanks from the Netherlands. Thus, Finland is amongst the better armed nations in Europe today, while the Netherlands receive criticism for not having tanks any longer. However, even with these aspects, Finland also had its defense budget go under 2% in the post-Cold War period. Sweden abolished its conscription, but re-established it again after the Russian annexation of Crimea and has since the 2022 invasion reinforced it further.

Bruegel estimates that the peace dividend has benefited Europe by 4,200 billion € over a 30-year period.

The logic behind not spending money on threats like those outlined is that it is thought to spur economic growth by freeing up defense spending for other things. The Conversation states that the peace dividend helped finance the British welfare state, noting that "The UK currently spends slightly over 2% of GDP on defence each year, amounting to some £45 billion in 2021, or about £660 per person. This has fallen substantially over time. In the mid-1950s, the UK spent almost 8% of GDP on defence. That fell to about 4% in 1980, 3% in 1990, and around 2% today. At the same time, spending on the health service has grown from around 3% of GDP in the mid-1950s to more than 7% on the eve of the pandemic." While the peace dividend was somewhat criticized earlier in the 1990s, with the war launched by Russia against Ukraine, the peace dividend came to the fore of societal discussion and countries' spending on preventing threats started to increase. Not everyone has criticized the peace dividend as a negative; according to one research paper: "This study found that the results varied according to national characteristics and regional environmental characteristics. However, peace dividends generally had a significant impact on national productivity."

NATO spending

According to a 2023 Econpol report, NATO defense spending increased as a result of Russia's invasion, from an overall pre-war level of 1.7% of GDP to 1.9% in 2023, and 11 nations out of the 30 members (plus Sweden, which was not a NATO member at the time) were spending above the 2% level. Poland became the biggest spender per capita and issued the biggest increase to its budget as well. The report noted there is an East to West divide, with countries closest to Russia increasing spending the most in general. Some countries reduced their spending during the same 2021-2023 period per capita, such as Portugal, the United States and Croatia.

The Econpol report explains that "Protection against external threats is a public good—and one of the core tasks of a state" ... "Maintaining an armed force, however, is expensive. Many NATO members must consolidate their budgets and have hardly any leeway for significant increases in expenditure." ... "If higher defense spending means making spending cuts elsewhere or raising taxes or public debt, it will be difficult for them to achieve a majority in parliament and elections, which may tempt some of them to simply announce that the 2% target will be reached sometime in the future." However, the report also states in its conclusions that "Clearly, Europe’s peace dividend has come to an end."

Role of conscription in the debate

In 2024, some countries in Europe, such as Germany and the United Kingdom, have started to debate conscription. The central question is whether they should remain on a 'career' army path or go to some form of conscription. In Germany, there is debate on emulating the "Swedish Model" of limited conscription mentioned above, while the UK is considering a "citizen army" of either conscription or national service. In 2017, when Sweden re-introduced conscription, their initial model was based on that of Norway. The Swedish conscription law was originally enacted in 1901, while in 2009 conscription was de-activated during peacetime, though the old law was still left in force. The current conscription model means that both men and women may have to serve as soldiers.

North America

According to Forbes, the US helped win the Cold War with a high level of defense spending. Defense spending has decreased since the end of the Cold War, in comparison with total federal spending. Regarding predictions that defense spending would drop after the Cold War, it states: "This assessment proved to be accurate, as defense outlays as a share of total federal spending declined thereafter. The decade of the 1990s, in turn, was marked by above-average economic growth of more than 3.5% per annum, low inflation and a federal budget surplus by the end of the decade."

In an article based on an opinion piece of Marco Rubio, highlighting that the US military fell 41,000 recruits short of its recruitment goals, Rubio criticized the US for the peace dividend not looking good in the US. EconoFacts questioned what the current defense budget is spent on, noting that the peace dividend has caused a lowering of military spending from 6% of GDP to 3%.

Canada needs to spend an additional $18.2 billion to meet the NATO two percent of GDP spending on defence goal, in addition to the already planned increases. Since the 1970s, Canada's spending has ranked among the lower spenders on defence in the alliance.

Oceania

In Australia, the term has been linked to the Voice Referendum. There were worries that the down voting of said proposal could lead to an increase in the culture wars. Other opinions stayed more true to the original definition of the term and express worry about how "This reprioritisation of government spending could hurt Western living standards, including Australia’s. The absence of the peace dividend could hit the funding of education, health, lower taxes, the transition to a greener economy, housing and so on, as pressing needs other than defence are pushed to the side." Others have been worried about the peace dividend being too strong in Australia in light of recent world events following the dissolution of the Soviet Union. One such statement reads: "Indeed, it is now well recognised that the Australian Defence Force is in a position similar to that of a decade ago, with little progress made in the way of new capabilities being delivered to the ADF" and highlighting the changing times and that Australia should do more in the defense space.

Africa

The African Union used the term in its December 2022 newsletter, linking the term strongly with peace negotiations. The AU highlighted peace efforts like the one between the Ethiopian government and TPLF and that peace treaties would allow African countries to reap peace dividends, such as from good governance.

Latin America

Viviana García Pinzón highlights the mixed results of the peace dividend in Colombia following the FARC peace agreement. She writes that there have been some advances in democracy and a shifting of public debate to issues like inequality and corruption, but that violence has still not ended despite the agreement. Due to the lack of implementation of the peace accords, Colombia is caught in a middle state between fully gaining the dividends from peace and sliding back towards the previous levels of violence.

In history

Ancient Egypt

Toby Wilkinson in his book on Ancient Egypt states that Thutmose IV had the opportunity to get economic benefits for Egypt by signing peace with the Mitanni. The Pharaoh could then put economic resources into construction projects. Further commenting on the aftermath of the Battle of Kadesh, he writes: "Ramesses II’s strategic aims, the standoff and cessation of hostilities did at least allow him to reap a peace dividend. Resources that might have been expended on foreign military adventures could instead be invested in projects at home". Ramesses was then also able to divert resources to building projects. Building projects usually employed significant amounts of the workforce.