Global military spending has almost doubled since the end of the Cold War. Is the world a safer place?

It is time to rethink our approach to global security, which is too often considered simply a matter of military strength: bigger defence budgets, stronger deterrence, harder borders. Those things can matter. But they no longer describe the full reality of what makes societies safe, prosperous and resilient.

In the 21st century, global security is increasingly shaped by risks still too often treated as peripheral, including climate change, pandemics, artificial intelligence, biodiversity loss and cyber risk.

This has created a dangerous mismatch between the way global security is commonly imagined and the way insecurity is actually experienced. Global military expenditure exceeded 2.7 trillion USD in 2024 – the highest level on record – even as climate shocks, pandemics and digital risks emerge as primary drivers of instability. Climate change is intensifying extreme weather, food insecurity and displacement. In 2022 alone, climate‑related disasters displaced around 32 million people, more than conflict. Pandemics and cyberattacks can spread across borders with extraordinary speed: COVID‑19 killed over 7 million people and cost the global economy roughly 12.5 trillion dollars.

These risks are especially dangerous because they do not occur in isolation. They interact and cascade across connected systems, turning localised shocks into national or global crises. These are examples of systemic risks, where shocks in one area can trigger instability across others. For much of the world, these are not abstract future risks: whether Africa, South Asia, Europe or Small Island Developing States, the consequences of cascading insecurity are already lived daily. Any serious rethinking of security must start from that reality, not from the vantage point of those most insulated from it.

Insecurity is also increasingly shaped by the digital environments through which people interpret the world. Platforms and algorithms reward outrage and division. AI makes it harder to tell what is real. That makes it easier for fear to be manipulated for political or commercial ends – and harder to build the public support that cooperation requires. Security today is not only about protecting territory or infrastructure. It is also about protecting the social and informational conditions on which societal resilience depends.

The world is heavily invested in the security of the last century while remaining underprepared for the kinds of insecurity that define this one. Without a broader and more integrated understanding of global security, governments risk continuing to respond to symptoms while neglecting the deeper drivers of instability.