8. Conclusion
War is immensely harmful, but not primarily because of the horrible injuries, nor the large number of deaths it causes indirectly from infection, malnutrition and social and political disruption. By far the greatest harm comes from the diversion of huge amounts of money that could be used for beneficial development into harmful and destructive military activity.
The main problem is that many governments in both developed countries and developing countries do not want to limit military activity — the vested interests that support the military are too strong. We must do all we can to draw attention to the huge economic and human cost of war in the hope that this will force governments to take effective action to limit military activity.
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Shann, F. (2006). Warfare and the State of the World’s Children. In: Pollard, A.J., Finn, A. (eds) Hot Topics in Infection and Immunity in Children III. Advances in Experimental Medicine and Biology, vol 582. Springer, Boston, MA . https://doi.org/10.1007/0-387-33026-7_1
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