We live in a world obsessed with “hard security.” We measure a nation’s safety by the size of its defense budget, the sophistication of its arsenals, and its capacity to project force. Yet, in the Anthropocene—an era defined by systemic planetary disruption—this narrow 20th-century mindset has created a dangerous national security paradox.

While states over-allocate finite public capital to traditional military systems, they are hollowing out the very pillars required to survive our current century: ecological integrity, resource availability, public health, and social welfare.

This is not a theoretical debate; it is a measurable fiscal trade-off. Last year at the “Democracy Today” conference in Yerevan, I participated at a session exploring a critical question: Can we move the money from war to peace? Research of the Tahadhari Center (Brussels) reveals a stark, empirical reality: there is an........

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