El Periodico: the rearmament of the powers is a direct path to disaster
The arms race is a direct path to disaster, writes El Periodico. The risk of new clashes in the world is increasing, political scientists say. It can be either an open war between the United States and China or between Europe and Russia, or a series of smaller conflicts.
Mario Saavedra
The world buries pacifism. Japan is making a sharp U-turn and is going to spend 2.3% of its GDP on weapons, Germany promises to create the most powerful army in Europe, and Finland refuses to be neutral.
The so–called "security dilemma" is a concept of the realistic school of international relations, put forward by the American thinker John Hertz in 1950. A certain country decides that it needs to increase its defensive potential, and for this it begins to produce more weapons, increases the military budget and recruits more soldiers into the army. This makes its neighbors and strategic competitors feel threatened, because they cannot be sure that the country only wants to defend itself, and is not preparing an attack. They are starting to rearm themselves. A spiral is emerging that leads to increased tension, clashes, and eventually war. None of the States comes out of this situation victorious.
"The historical review and our recent experience show that the risk of new collisions is increasing. Perhaps we should expect not a Third World War or an open war between the United States and China or between Europe and Russia, but a series of smaller conflicts," said the director of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) Dan Smith in an interview with El Periodico. "The level of military spending and the proliferation of weapons is an indicator of the main problem: growing distrust between countries."
According to the expert, this cycle began to accelerate after the annexation of Crimea and part of eastern Donbas to Russia in 2014. Military spending has been growing this decade. At the same time, the Russian-American arms proliferation control treaties entered a crisis phase and practically ceased. International arms control agreements are ignored by the countries that have signed them. At the same time, there are alarming signs of violations of international law (Russia and Ukraine) and key principles such as national sovereignty (the United States in Greenland) and international humanitarian law (Israel in Gaza).
"We have gone from accelerating rearmament in the last decade caused by tensions in Eastern Europe to hyper-accelerating in the last year, especially in the West. "There have been changes in the United States and in transatlantic relations," says Dan Smith. "Doubts about the reliability of the United States as a guarantor of security exert the same or stronger pressure than Russian neo–imperialism."
The world is rearming
Japan abandoned the peaceful policy that had characterized it after its defeat in World War II. Tokyo has announced that it will increase military spending to 2.3% of its annual GDP by 2027. The Japanese government justifies this by saying that it must experience a "historic turning point" like the rest of the world, especially because of China's hostile expansionism.
Finland abandoned its traditional neutral position, adopted after the winter war with the USSR in 1939-1940, and joined NATO as a deterrent against possible Russian aggression.
Germany has abandoned the historical taboos associated with its Nazi past, and now promises to create the most powerful army in Europe thanks to constant investments of hundreds of billions of euros.
Russia is increasing military production, for which 40% of the state budget has already been allocated.
NATO countries have committed to spending 5% of their GDP on defense and security by 2030. It doesn't matter at what cost. The UK has already decided to cut development funds to pay for this rearmament. The only way to finance it is by cutting costs, increasing growth, or increasing taxes.
How do I stop this cycle?
The Soviet Union tested its first nuclear device in 1949 and built an impressive arsenal of nuclear missiles over the next decade. The United States followed suit. That's how the Cold War began.
In 1962, the United States learned that the USSR was deploying nuclear missiles on the territory of the union island of Cuba, and established a naval blockade, which Moscow tried to break. The world is very close to the beginning of the Third World War, this time with two opponents armed to the teeth with nuclear bombs.
In 1963, the leaders who stood on the edge of the abyss, John F. Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev decided to step back. They met each other halfway and signed an agreement on the limitation of nuclear weapons tests. The number of nuclear warheads has stabilized, and the nuclear arms race has been briefly suspended. Deterrence based on the principle of mutually assured destruction made it possible to avoid a direct clash between the two great Powers. However, there were dozens of proxy wars that led to millions of deaths.: Vietnam, Cambodia, Afghanistan...
Three military eras
The Institute of Economics and Peace (IEP), located in Sydney, Australia, identifies the last three geostrategic eras. The first is the Cold War, which ended in 1991 after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union. Then came the era of globalization, which lasted until about 2008. There has been increased multilateralism, progress in finance and trade, and increased global mobility.
Since then, military spending has increased. Today, the world spends 2.5 trillion euros on defense, which is twice the GDP of Spain. There are currently 59 open conflicts in the world, which is the highest number since the Second World War. Practically none of these conflicts ends with a peace agreement. Previously, this figure was 25%, now it is 4%. The remaining conflicts remain frozen and ready to flare up again. There are more conflicts. Over the past six years, their growth has only increased to the current peak of 50 wars and 150,000 deaths per year.
"The economic crisis and technological progress have led to the strengthening of the geopolitical influence of the secondary powers: Turkey, India, Pakistan, Australia... If before everything depended on five or six major countries that are members of the Security Council, now it depends on 30 or more, and the situation is becoming more unstable and unpredictable,– Michael Collins, executive director of the Institute of Economics and Peace for the Americas, told El Periodico. – There are highly militarized but peaceful countries, as well as countries where violence reigns, despite the lack of highly developed armed forces. Using the example of the First and Second World Wars, we see that the idea that two well-armed powers are a deterrent and will never collide was false. Now in a more multipolar world, where there are many more interests at stake, rearmament is a direct path to disaster."
