The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, known by its acronym SIPRI, stated in a little-noticed report in April 2022 that the global military expenditure is set to rise to a whopping 2 trillion dollars for the first time ever. This is something the world has never seen before and it is hard to believe that more and more money needs to be spent to keep the peace in the world!
Unsurprisingly, the US tops the list with a little under 1 trillion dollars annually. Traditionally, the US tops the list, not the least because it has as many as 750 military bases in 80 different countries. To be fair, the US also provides some global goods such as keeping sea lanes of communication open for trade & commerce as also for maintenance of global maritime security.
China looked to have a budget of 230 billion dollars in 2022, so it is nowhere near the American budget, but is fast catching up. As the second biggest spender, China’s aggressive actions on the Sino-Indian border, its unilateral measures to change the status quo in the South and East China sea and its threatening posture in the Taiwan Strait are cause for concern. Its wolf-warrior style of diplomacy does not help, although it has dialled back a little in this regard for tactical reasons.
India normally ranks as the third biggest spender, but here is the surprise. If the German Chancellor’s “zeitenwende” (turning point) moment is taken seriously, then according to SIPRI there would be an annual jump in defence expenditure of 50 per cent which will catapult Germany as the third largest defence spender ahead of India and Russia. India faces a two-country threat and is perhaps the only country to face two nuclear armed neighbours with whom it has fought wars. Russia is of course in the middle of a war itself.
Apart from Germany which announced a huge jump in defence expenditure after the war in Ukraine, there are two other countries which have decided to overhaul their existing defence posture radically. One is Japan, which announced in December last year a brand new National Security Strategy, a National Defence Strategy and the Defence Build-up Programme. Considering China, Russia and North Korea as serious security threats, Japan is slated to increase its defence expenditure by 25 per cent for the year 2023 to something like 52 billion dollars. Japan is a serious military player in Asia now.
Last, but not least, French President Macron has just announced that for the six year period 2024 to 2030 the defence expenditure will be over 400 billion euros. This is a significant increase over the expenditure over the last six year period which was a mere 295 billion euros. The Russian war in Ukraine was mentioned as the backdrop for this announcement.
So, what to make of all this? First, there is no question that we are seeing the increasing militarization of the world, without any exception. Second, this is occurring at a time when the world is going through a “polycrisis” and an overwhelming majority of the world’s population is reeling from poverty, food insecurity and the negative impacts of climate change. Third, if there is anything that the war in Ukraine has taught us it is that big, conventional land wars are not a thing of the past, but are very much possible in the heart of Europe and probably elsewhere.
The upshot is a dangerous militarization of the world and it is something we all have to live with!
Diplomacy and Geopolitics 