Avast, ye miserable barnacles and salt-stained scoundrels! Captain Iron Ink here, squinting through a cracked spyglass at the latest ledgers of the Great Global Fleet. What I see makes me want to scuttle the whole lot of ‘em and let Davy Jones sort out the paperwork. While the deck-hands in the furthest reaches of the world are gnawing on their own boots to survive, the high-mighty Admirals on the quarterdeck are trading their last crusts of bread for more gunpowder and shiny new brass cannons. The news has drifted ashore like a bloated whale: military spending is hitting the clouds while the gold for the poor is being tossed overboard to lighten the load.

According to the soot-stained scribes at the Stockholm International Institute, the world’s war chests have swelled to a size that would make Blackbeard weep with envy. Trillions of doubloons are being funneled into iron birds and underwater steel leviathans. Meanwhile, the aid promised to the parched lands and plague-ridden ports of the Global South has become a mere pittance, a few copper coins tossed to a beggar after the Admiral has bought himself a new fleet of frigates. It’s a disgrace that would turn a shark’s stomach, I tell ye! We’re arming for a storm that we’re brewing ourselves by letting the crew starve.

My old shipmate, Quartermaster Grime, looked at the charts this morning and spat a dark stream of tobacco juice into the surf. 'Ink,' he growled, 'they’re building ships that can see a fly on a donkey’s ear from three leagues away, but they can’t seem to see the famine staring ‘em in the face. They’d rather build a submarine that can hide from God than give a lad a bucket of clean water and a bag of grain.' Grime’s right, as he usually is when he’s sober. The Military Industrial Complex is a beast that eats gold and shits lead, and right now, it’s got an appetite that won’t be sated until every last scrap of development gold is devoured.

I managed to corner one of the high-collared lords of the Western Powers near the docks—a man they call Lord Bullion, who smells of lavender and cold-hearted greed. I asked him why the orphans of the world are getting less while the armories are getting more. He adjusted his powdered wig and sneered, 'Captain, you don’t understand the climate. Peace is a luxury bought with a terrifying amount of artillery. You can’t shoot a famine with a sandwich, but you can certainly defend a border with a cruise missile.' The logic is as twisted as a three-day-old knot! They’re spending the future to protect a present that’s rotting from the inside out.

If this course isn’t corrected, the United Nations and their fancy charters won't be worth the parchment they're inked on. The world’s ledger is tilted so far to the side of violence that the ship is taking on water. We are witnessing the slow-motion shipwreck of human decency. When the cannons are finally fired, there won’t be anyone left on the shore to hear the bang, for they’ll have all perished while the Admirals were busy polishing their triggers. Mark me words, mates: a world that chooses steel over bread is a world that’s already half-sunk. Adjust your sails, or we’re all going down with the ship.