Costa Rica Consensus

The Costa Rica Consensus, presented by President and Nobel Peace Laureate Dr. Óscar Arias, represents a novelty in terms of global foreign policy. If the interest of governments and countries in the world is to improve the wellbeing of their people, it is evident that military spending is incorrect from a strategic point of view, since itt does not tend to comply with the former objective.

It is also incorrect from an ethical point of view, since military spending tends to the reduction of other human beings' wellbeing.

If wellbeing is measured in quality of life, including, among many other factors, quality of the environment; development sustainability; access, quality and cost of healthcare; access, quality and cost of education; justice in wealth distribution; effectiveness in wealth generation; therefore, it is true that war on the periphery of a country's borders or war within a country's borders reduces considerably the possibilities of sustainable, sustained and effective development.

Socio-economic indexes may not tolerate a war for much time. Also, military spending is, in economic terms, spending that is not attending other critical areas for development, namely healthcare and education. Any sovereign government may take the sovereign decision to suspend military spending and direct it to other priorities.

The cost for a State to develop a technical employee or a professional, or to simply graduate a person from high school, is much lower than the cost of poverty, unemployment and disease. Also, an educated person will produce wealth more effectively, more certainly, and more sustainably. This means that the generation of wellbeing is a virtuous cycle of sustainable development, if a government has the correct order of economic priorities.

For Costa Rica, military spending is not even a priority.

Now, a country like China, with its millenary history, its present, the forecasts about its economic development, its global leadership of common development and mutual benefits, its Buddhist philosophy of peace, its Taoist philosophy of choosing the Good from the Evil, and its democratic principle of socializing the greater wellbeing for the greater majority, could certainly embrace the Costa Rica Consensus as a flag to consolidate friendships around the globe and increase its commercial ties with three-fourths of the United Nations, which are developing countries, who have discovered, in this Twenty-First Century China, a good commercial partner, an important defense ally, and a good friend that offers help.