peace dividend

noun

1. money cut by a government from its defense budget as a result of the cessation of hostilities with other countries.

peace dividend

noun

1. additional money available to a government from cuts in defence expenditure because of the end of a period of hostilities

Word History and Origins

Origin of peace dividend¹

First recorded in 1985–90

Example Sentences

The fall of the Berlin Wall led to the peace dividend that cut military spending to 3% of GDP from 5% at the beginning of the decade.

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There may be a peace dividend for asset markets after the historic agreement struck between Israel and the extremist group Hamas bringing an apparent end to a conflict that has raged for two years.

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"After the War, we hoped for a peace dividend, to move on geopolitically, but clearly that's not something Russia wants to do. And now my eldest son is banging on the door to join the air force, wanting to make a difference too... It does feel a little circular."

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In reality, Europe will struggle to come up with even a third of that number, such is the effect of decades of running down its militaries, years after the post-Cold War peace dividend should have ended.

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A wider critique along these lines has been crystallising for some time: the sense that the 1990s were a holiday from history, as Jonathan Freedland called it, and that the end of the Cold War had created a peace dividend where defence budgets could atrophy and the money could be spent on hospitals and schools, for instance.

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