Planet Pay for Slay

Applying the Social Policy Bond concept to war would go some way to offsetting the current system in which arms merchants and others are richly rewarded. World military expenditure in 2024 reached $2718 billion. But, regrettably, financial incentives to keep conflict going aren't limited to suppliers of weapons. Strategy Page writes about the Palestinian Authority's (PA) Pay for Slay program, which the US is trying to end: 

Last year [2024] the PA continued using its Pay For Slay program to reward Palestinian terrorists. Since October 2023, the PA declared nearly 10,000 imprisoned Palestinian and Hamas terrorists as eligible for Pay for Slay money. The PA also recognized an additional 39,000 families of dead terrorists as eligible for Pay for Slay payments. While the PA agreed to the American demands, it is believed that the PA would seek to find a way to make the payments anyway. ... The most recent payment totaled $142 million for 738 Palestinian terrorists. That averages $193,000 per terrorist. Information Warfare: Pay For Slay Forever, Strategy Page, 8 August 2025

We now also have the 'gamification' of war whereby, under a scheme dubbed Army of Drones: Bonus, Ukrainian military units can earn points for each Russian soldier killed or piece of equipment destroyed. By contrast, few global resources are committed to the prevention, management, or resolution of the world's most prevalent wars, almost all of which take place in poor countries. Nor, in relative terms, is much spent on peacekeeping and post-conflict reconstruction. The annual budget for UN peacekeeping is about $5.6 billion. Preventive diplomacy missions cost only a tiny fraction of this amount: the United Nations Department of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs, which leads the UN's preventive diplomacy and conflict prevention work, operates on an annual budget of approximately $80 million. World Peace Bonds, about which I've written in a short piece here, and in my book, just published would be an attempt to redirect the market's incentives and efficiencies into preventing and ending conflict. With more efficient conflict reduction, it's likely in my view people would be more willing to put more resources into it. Of all the many urgent social and environmental problems that we face, I now believe that conflict and in particular the threat of nuclear conflict, is the biggest threat to humanity.