Bullets vs. Books: Rethinking Global Investment Priorities
Kuuldeep Sharma
Executive Coach, Facilitator & Counsellor | 20+ Years in Leadership Development, Executive Coaching, Team Training & Organizational Growth | Expert in People Development, Strategic Guidance & Performance Improvement
In a world dominated by defense contracts, arms races, and military alliances, one figure stands tall: $2.7 trillion — the total global military expenditure in 2024.
Now compare that to the cost of solving one of humanity's oldest and most solvable challenges: Illiteracy. According to UNESCO and World Literacy Foundation estimates, eliminating illiteracy globally would cost $10–15 billion annually over a decade. That’s less than 0.6% of what the world spends on defense each year.
The Economics of Illiteracy
Illiteracy isn't just a social problem — it’s an economic one. It costs the global economy more than $1.2 trillion annually in lost productivity, lower earnings, and limited access to opportunities.
Educated citizens are more employable, healthier, politically aware, and capable of driving economic growth. A literate world is one where:
Yet despite this, education budgets remain chronically underfunded in most developing nations (and many developed countries as well), while military budgets balloon (over 9% in 2024)
Why Defense Gets Funded — and Education Doesn’t
The business model of defense is clear: big contracts, political lobbying, job creation, and cutting-edge tech. It's seen as "essential."
But literacy doesn’t sell missiles or deliver dividends. It doesn’t sit on stock exchanges or drive defense indices. And so, it gets sidelined.
But here’s the paradox: nations justify military spending in the name of national security, yet few investments secure a nation's future more than universal literacy.
Reframing the ROI
A literate child becomes a skilled worker, a critical thinker, a voter, a taxpayer. If every country redirected just a fraction of its military budget, we could ensure universal basic literacy in less than a decade, transforming global labor markets, unlocking innovation, and reducing extremism and unrest (often rooted in inequality and ignorance).
Final Word
The choice is not between security and education — it’s about balancing both. Right now, the scales are dangerously tilted.
Imagine a world where the pen truly is mightier than the sword — not just poetically, but economically and politically.
(I am not in favour of posting political articles on LinkedIn. This is not a political post but approached purely from an economic perspective. The recent global news on military spending made me curious and put me in research mode.) (Edited using ChatGPT)