1 “Faut-il encore tirer des missiles à 1 million d’euros contre des drones à 20 000 dollars ?” [Should we still fire €1 million missiles at $20,000 drones?], Guerric Poncet, Le Point, 18 March 2024
2 According to the US Congressional Research Service
3 Brace yourself harder
4 The Weaponisation of Everything: A Field Guide to the New Way of War, Mark Galeotti
5 CBO estimate
6 Brown University
7 Shekels, Israel’s currency
8 Decades of debt: UK’s finance chief told to make gradual pay-offs, Alex Morales and David Goodman, Bloomberg - Al Jazeera, 10 June 2020
9 “L'Allemagne a remboursé ses dernières dettes datant de la 1ère Guerre mondiale” [Germany has paid off its last debts from the First World War], Eric Chol and Romaric Godin, La Tribune, 1 October 2010
10 Ukraine Raises Equivalent of $277 Million From Sale of War Bonds, Fergal O'Brien, Daryna Krasnolutska, and Priscila Azevedo Rocha, Bloomberg, 1 March 2022
11 “Mars 1188, la France se soulève contre la « La dîme saladine »” [March 1188: France rises up against the Saladin tithe], Jean-Marie Borghino
12 “Les Templiers, moines-soldats financiers et gestionnaires” [The Templars: warrior monks, financiers and managers], Jacques-Marie Vaslin, Le Monde, 18 February 2008
13 An Analysis of the French economic industrial and military mobilization in the Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars 1789-1815, Dr. Ioannis-Dionysios Salavrakos, Journal of Military and Strategic Studies, VOLUME 18, ISSUE 3
14 The Cost of Debt-financed War: Public Debt and Rising Interest for Post-9/11 War Spending, Heidi Peltier, January 2020, Brown University
15 “L’Italie dans la première guerre mondiale” [Italy in the First World War], Patrice Delpin, 15 June 2015
16 “Qui achète et qui vend des kalachnikovs, comment et à quel prix?” [Who buys and sells Kalashnikovs, how, and at what price?], Alexandre Le Mer, BFM, 9 September 2013
17 “30.000 armes illégales circulent dans les banlieues” [30,000 illegal weapons are circulating in the suburbs], Jean-Marc Leclerc, Le Figaro, 15 December 2010
18 Fighting Terrorism With a Credit Card, Uri Friedman, The Atlantic, 12 September 2016
19 The Ghost Budget: How U.S. war spending went rogue, wasted billions, and how to fix it, Linda Bilmes, Harvard Kennedy School, 1 April 2024
20 Brown University’s Costs of War Project
21 In constant terms
22 “Guerre en Ukraine : confisquer les avoirs russes gelés, l’arme fatale des Européens ?” [War in Ukraine: is confiscating frozen Russian assets Europe’s ultimate weapon?], Paul Véronique, L’Express, 9 March 2025
23 According to various investigations by the Financial Times and Brookings
24 SIPRI / Reuters
25 €1.5-3M according to several estimates, for a large school or a small secondary school
26 Arms producers saw revenue up in 2023 with the wars in Ukraine and Gaza, a new report says, AP, 2 December 2024
27 Iraq: 20 years on from US-led invasion, the companies that profited; incl. co. responses, Business Human Rights, March 2023
28 According to cross-checked estimates from the WHO and Physicians for Human Rights
29 “Cette réalité invisible de la guerre en Ukraine” [The invisible reality of the war in Ukraine], Watson, 19 April 2025
30 Iraq war costs U.S. more than $2 trillion: study, Daniel Trotta, Reuters, 14 March 2013
31 According to Brown University’s Costs of War project
32 According to the FAO