GCOMS Webinar on Military Spending and Global (In)Security

UPDATE
Read about the webinar and find the video link here.

On December 3 (14h Central European Time) we will be hosting a webinar on Military Spending & Global (In)Security, in order to start a conversation about how current levels of military spending condition our responses to the global emergencies of our time. Speakers include: Michael Klare, Tarja Cronberg Walden Bello and Binalakshmi Nepram, with closing remarks by Federico Mayor Zaragoza, former UNESCO director general.
The conference is supported by the Asia-Europe People’s Forum (AEPF), Centre Delàs of Peace Studies and the International Peace Bureau, and will be moderated by GCOMS coordinator Jordi Calvo and AEPF representative Dong Huy Cuong.
The event will be live-streamed on the GCOMS Youtube Channel.
You can also find the Facebook Event here.

The webinar will also serve as a presentation of the book edited by Jordi Calvo: ‘Military Spending and Global Security. Humanitarian and Environmental Perspectives’. The book was published on November 26 by Routledge and will give context to the discussion at hand about the links between militarism and security threats and the scope of military expenditure around the globe.

Above all, this online conference will try to make obvious how people are not well served by nation-states when they continuously seek to out-compete one another in the size and destructive powers of their militaries, and how military spending further prevents us from adequately dealing with global problems such as climate change or the COVID-19 pandemic.

Registration form:

About the speakers:

• MICHAEL KLARE, Five College Professor Emeritus of Peace and World Security Studies and Director of the Five College Program in Peace and World Security Studies (PAWSS)., holds a B.A. and M.A. from Columbia University and a Ph.D. from the Graduate School of the Union Institute. He has written widely on U.S. military policy, international peace and security affairs, the global arms trade, and global resource politics. His books include “American Arms Supermarket” (1984), “Low-Intensity Warfare” (1988), “World Security: Challenges for a New Century” (3 Editions since 1991), “Rogue States and Nuclear Outlaws” (1995), “Blood and Oil” (2004) and “The Race for What’s Left” (2012) among many others. His articles have appeared in many journals, including Arms Control Today, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Current History, Foreign Affairs, Harper’s, The Nation, Scientific American and Technology Review. Klare serves on the board of the Arms Control Association and advises other organizations in the field.

• TARJA CRONBERG is a Distinguished Associate Fellow with the SIPRI European Security Program. Cronberg has a long record of activities both as an academic in security and peace studies and as a politician in foreign and security policy, with special focus on non-proliferation and nuclear disarmament. Most recently she, as a member of the European Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee and subcommittee for Security and Defense, worked with the Iran nuclear issue as the Chair of EP’s delegation for relations with Iran. In December 2013 she led the first delegation (in six years) of the EP to Iran. Her subjects expertise: Security and defense, nuclear disarmament, regional security, military-civilian relations, missile defense, border studies, technology, sociology. She’s also an author of the book we present tomorrow: ‘Military spending and global security”.

• BINALAKSHMI “BINA” NEPRAM: born in Manipur Nation, currently located in India’s Northeast Region next to Myanmar, is an indigenous scholar, published author and civil rights activist spearheading work on making women-led peace, and disarmament meaningful to our lives. She is an author of five books, her two most recent being “Where are our Women in Decision making on UNSCR 1325” (2016) and “Deepening Democracy, Diversity, Racial and Gender Violence in India” (2019).

• WALDEN FLORES BELLO is a Filipino academic and engaged scholar who was awarded the Right Livelihood Award, whose website describes him as “one of the leading critics of the current model of economic globalization, combining the roles of intellectual and activist. “Bello is also a fellow of the Transnational Institute (based in Amsterdam), and is a columnist for Foreign Policy in Focus. In March 2008 he was named Outstanding Public Scholar for 2008 by the International Studies Association. Socialist Worker described Bello as “one of the most articulate and prolific voices on the international left” and noted that “he has devoted most of his life to fighting imperialism and corporate globalization”