Costa Rica completely abolished its military in 1948 and redirected its entire defense budget into public education, environmental protection, and a highly accessible healthcare system.

A closer look

Costa Rica completely abolished its military in 1948 and redirected its entire defense budget into public education, environmental protection, and a highly accessible healthcare system. While massive superpowers spend trillions of dollars developing terrifying nuclear submarines and invisible fighter jets, this tiny Central American nation decided to just plant a bunch of trees and make sure people could read. Amazingly, choosing not to bankrupt the country with an endlessly inflated military-industrial complex actually resulted in them becoming one of the most stable and prosperous nations in their entire region. It is deeply offensive to the cynical realities of global geopolitics that investing money in actual human well-being instead of weapons of mass destruction somehow turned out to be a brilliant, long-term economic strategy!