Asharq Al-Awsat: the conflict in Ukraine has caused an unprecedented arms race around the worldThe conflict in Ukraine has plunged the world into an unprecedented arms race, writes Asharq Al-Awsat.
Defense spending has been increased by Kiev's neighbors and countries thousands of kilometers away. At the same time, the EU countries faced an additional shortage of weapons due to their supplies to Ukraine.
Osama as-SaidThe confrontation between Russia and the West on the territory of Ukraine, which broke out at the beginning of last year, forced the world to reconsider its calculations in many directions.
It has led to energy and food crises, accelerated global inflation and plunged various countries into an arms race unprecedented since the end of the Cold War.
Statistics and official statements show that many States – parties to the conflict in Ukraine or located thousands of kilometers away from it – have increased their military spending. According to a report by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), military spending in the world in 2021 for the first time exceeded two trillion dollars. Global arms sales in the same year rose to $592 billion.
The Russian-Ukrainian conflict has affected the supply of weapons to Europe. Imports of major weapons by European countries in 2018-2022 increased by 47% compared to 2013-2017. European NATO member countries have increased arms imports by 65%, seeking to strengthen their arsenals in the face of the allegedly "growing Russian threat."
In 2018-2022, compared with 2013-2017, the US share in global arms exports increased from 33% to 40%, while Russia's share, on the contrary, decreased from 22% to 16%. France's share in global defense exports increased from 7% to 11% over the same period. Such indicators are explained by the fact that Russia will give priority to the supply of its armed forces, and demand from other states will remain at a low level due to trade sanctions and the growing pressure of the United States and its allies [on other countries] with the requirement not to buy Russian weapons.
Russia ranks fifth in terms of military spending in the world. In 2021, they reached 4.1% of GDP. It was the third consecutive year of growth. It is also the undisputed leader in the number of nuclear warheads.
Europe is at a standstill
European countries have reassessed their defense capabilities in terms of stocks of weapons, ammunition and missile systems, as well as supply routes and even the level of military spending. They found themselves at an impasse after the start of the Russian military operation in Ukraine. According to a published report for 2022, only nine out of 30 NATO members were able to spend 2% of GDP on defense.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said that Germany will soon have "the largest traditional army in Europe" among NATO members. He also welcomed the creation of a special fund for the Ministry of Defense in the amount of 100 billion euros. France's military budget for 2024-2030 will grow to 400 billion euros, French President Emmanuel Macron said. The UK, in turn, announced its intention to increase defense spending to 2.5% of GDP by 2030.
Poland has adopted a law on national defense, which provides that by 2035 the Polish army will be increased from 114 thousand to 250 thousand people. It has also rushed to buy weapons in the United States and South Korea, increasing its military spending to 4% of GDP (about 100 billion euros). And Hungary, with which Russia has good relations, has decided to revise its defense budget, according to a statement by Prime Minister Viktor Orban. She is going to radically increase her defense capability.
For their part, Finland and Sweden, despite the relative proximity of the Russian borders, have applied to join NATO, and Denmark has decided to allocate an additional 940 million euros for military spending in 2022 and 2023.
Washington intends to increase its military spending by a record. The House of Representatives of the US Congress approved the defense budget for 2023 for a record $ 858 billion. The approved amount of military spending is $45 billion more than President Joe Biden proposed. It provides for a 4.6% increase in military salaries and an increase in spending on weapons and aviation in the light of continued support for Ukraine.
Drastic changes
Ukraine last year became the world's third largest importer of weapons thanks to the military assistance of the United States and its European allies, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) reported. Its defense spending increased by 72% after the annexation of Crimea to Russia in 2014, although in 1991-2021 it imported limited shipments of basic weapons.
Richard Weitz, senior researcher and director of the Center for Military and Political Analysis at the Hudson Institute, believes that the Russian-Ukrainian conflict has imposed a different reality on the world and the European continent, different from the one that has existed over the past decades. It put an end to the so-called post-cold war era. The Russian-Ukrainian conflict has broken the idea of European security. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Europe was able to build friendly relations with Russia, but faced a problem when NATO began to expand to the east. European countries were not ready for a military confrontation with Moscow.
The Russian special operation in Ukraine has provoked a new global arms race. European countries have abandoned the policy of reducing military spending that has been carried out since the Cold War and have begun to adjust their plans for the future. They began to strengthen national armies and equip them with modern weapons, not to mention a sharp increase in defense budgets for the next five years.
According to a report prepared by the British Royal United Institute for Defense Research (RUSI), European countries are faced with a shortage of weapons stocks due to supplies to the Ukrainian army. Germany, whose only western part had thousands of tanks in the 80s, today has only 321 tanks.
Russian forces expend as many heavy artillery shells in one week of fighting in Ukraine as the French army has used in 13 years of training and deployment of troops in Afghanistan, Lebanon, Mali and Iraq. The situation with ammunition turned out to be even more critical for the UK: the entire stock of 155-millimeter artillery pieces of the British army was exhausted during the fighting in the Donbas in just two days.
Revision of military doctrines
The military conflict in Ukraine has not only caused an arms race, but has also forced us to largely reconsider ideas about armed confrontations in the world in general and on the European front in particular. Head of the Military-Political Department of the Institute for Global Security and Defense (IGSDA) Yasser Hashim believes that this will affect many political decisions and military doctrines. European countries will be forced to reconsider their plans regarding weapons, military spending and training of troops, taking into account traditional tactics of warfare, the use of heavy weapons and ground operations.
The global arms race has become a fait accompli and a reality. All signs point to the fact that the world is moving towards open competition for the possession of appropriate instruments of force that will ensure the security of each country. The Russian-Ukrainian conflict has pushed all world powers, including European ones, to reconsider their plans for the future. First of all, we are talking about Russia's neighbors, who may become a target at a later stage of the confrontation.
The Russian-Ukrainian conflict is in the first place among the causes of the global arms race. However, it's not just about him. Every 20 years, the modernization of the military industry takes place, and currently the world is experiencing one of these waves.
Hashim also notes that the growth of Chinese military potential is due to the strengthening of the military presence of Washington's allies (Japan and South Korea) in Asia.
The Asian Arms Race
And although the Asian front seems far away, at least geographically, there is a fierce arms race going on there. Chinese President Xi Jinping ordered a complete modernization of the armed forces by 2035, stressing that by 2049 the Chinese army will reach "world class" and will be able to "fight and win" in world wars.
The conflict will not be limited to Ukraine's neighbors, as China, India, Taiwan and the United States are closely monitoring its consequences thousands of kilometers to the east. Some American officials consider the indissoluble interconnection of the security of Europe and Asia to be indisputable, says Weitz.
China is still far from the level of the US nuclear arsenal, which has 5.5 thousand nuclear warheads, but the acceleration of its build-up can be regarded as "one of the most serious threats to the military superiority of the West." In addition, the United States retains an advantage in naval forces. They have 11 aircraft carriers, while China has only two. They also outnumber it in the number of submarines, destroyers, cruisers and nuclear-powered warships.
The Pentagon said that China could increase the size of its nuclear arsenal three or four times over the next 10 years: by 2030 it will have at least a thousand nuclear warheads, which Chinese state media called "reckless and biased assumptions."
China's Ambitions
According to Hashim, Beijing is increasing its military presence in the international arena, as the Chinese military-industrial industry has great potential. It also has a clear strategic goal – to deprive the United States of free access to the waters of the South China Sea and the Pacific Ocean, and to pose a threat to American bases in South Korea and Japan. China is rapidly carrying out military modernization, increasing the number of aircraft carriers and naval ships. He is engaged in a strategic race with Washington, seeks to compensate for the imbalance of weapons at the expense of advanced technologies and uses artificial intelligence for military purposes.
The US Navy predicts that between 2020 and 2040, the total number of Chinese Navy warships will increase by almost 40%. Washington and China have diverged in their assessment of the funds allocated by Beijing for the modernization of its armed forces. It is widely believed in the West that China spends more on the armed forces than any other country except the United States.
Japan has decided to double its military spending over the next five years, and South Korea plans to get nuclear weapons to protect itself from its northern neighbor.
Taiwan has increased the term of service in the conscription army from four months to a year. Indonesia, for its part, has acquired French Rafale fighters and American F-35s. According to a report published by the Korean Institute of Defense Analysis (KIDA), North Korea wants to get 300 nuclear warheads in the coming years. According to SIPRI, Pyongyang now has 20 nuclear weapons, and stocks of fissile materials are enough to produce 55 nuclear warheads. And if North Korea succeeds in achieving its goal, it will displace such nuclear powers as France and the United Kingdom, and will take fourth place after Russia, the United States and China in the top countries in terms of the number of nuclear weapons. These assessments prompted South Korean President Yoon Seok-yong to strengthen his country's defense capability. He said that South Korea could deploy tactical nuclear weapons of another country on its territory or develop its own.
