Global defence spending like there is no tomorrow

The US alone provided $32.3 billion in of military aid to Ukraine — the largest ever the US ever provided to any country in a single year since the end of the Cold War

Three quarters of a century ago, economist Paul Samuelson talked about a stark imperative before societies: to choose between ‘guns and butter’. That allegory, highlighting the limited resources available to human greed, is reflected in the unprecedented global military spending that we witness today.

In its annual report published on April 24, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) said the armed forces of the world spent a whopping $2,240 billion in 2022 — an increase of 3.7 per cent in real terms over the previous year. For the record, the corresponding figure for 2021 was $2,113 billion. While the five largest spenders in 2021 were the United States, China, India, the United Kingdom, and Russia — together accounting for 62 per cent of expenditure — the US, China, and Russia again claimed 56 percent of the world total in 2022.

In the SIPRI list, India slid from its third position in 2021 to fourth in 2022, although the country spent 6 percent more on arms in 2022 than in 2021. Statistics, however, do not tell the whole story.

The Lion’s Share

In any case, it is not just these statistics alone that should raise eyebrows — rather, it is the fact that this is the eighth consecutive year that military spending has shot up. It may seem improbable for armed forces to record such high expenses during the second year of the COVID-19 pandemic. The reasons, however, obviously have much to do with the war in Ukraine as nervous nations jostled for securing their national interests amidst global uncertainties. Consider Europe: it seems to have recorded its steepest year-on-year rise in military spending of 13 percent last year, compared to 2021. Not surprisingly, Russia and Ukraine accounted for a lion’s share of this spending spree.

Spring Sale?

War-torn Ukraine became the focus of this record uptick in arms trade as it suddenly emerged as one of the biggest importers of weapons from the West. Going by SIPRI data, the US alone provided $32.3 billion in the form of military aid to Kiev — the largest ever the US ever provided to any country in a single year since the end of the Cold War.

As for the surge in arms exports of other European states, Machiavellian instincts seem to have prompted them to send Soviet-era weapon systems to Ukraine. For most of the aircraft, missile batteries, and armoured vehicles that NATO members have passed on to Ukraine are decades old. Evidently, the Europeans want to replace the military hardware offloaded on Ukraine with advanced defence platforms they can buy from the US. This also serves the purpose of clearing out the legacy weapons of Russian origin still in use with many east European countries.

No wonder countries such as Poland and Finland are busy striking new deals to buy advanced weapons from the US and licence produce them in Europe. Others like Bulgaria and Slovakia have declared intentions to dispatch their Russian-made MiG-29 jets to Ukraine and buy F-16 Fighting Falcons that cost four times as much from the US aerospace company Lockheed Martin. These long shopping queues are probably a sight for sore eyes for Washington as the European customer base would help the US military industry complex fill its order books again, the way it happened during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Guns And Butter

It is ironical that countries should spend on weapons as if there is no tomorrow. After all, the economic cost of defence spending would show up in their national debts every time their militaries go on such expensive shopping binges. This is especially true of poorer countries that must put aside key priorities such as healthcare and education just to beef up their armies in the name of national security. The ‘guns and butter’ conundrum is clearly at work here with the focus squarely on arms than food, which enervates nations as they indulge in military build-up at the cost of national development. North Korea is a typical example of this. The Kim Jong Un regime never lets out details of the country’s poverty indices, but it is no secret that the hermit kingdom doesn’t even have enough electricity to run its homes and factories (satellite photos show a few broken bright lines that represent the only lights shining in Pyongyang).

Remarkable India

The subcontinent remains one of the main export markets for international arms merchants. India’s dependence on Russia for military hardware has waned in New Delhi’s strategic calculus and the country buys from elsewhere too — be it French combat aircraft and submarines, advanced US anti-submarine warfare systems, or Israeli air defence systems. Since many weapons are produced indigenously under the ‘Make in India’ programme, the cost benefit (such as, say, job creation) in the domestic industry is huge.

Such defence sector reforms have helped India keep its defence spending to around 2 percent as a share of the projected gross domestic product (GDP) for 2023-24 without compromising the needs of the armed forces. That India achieved this despite one of the most unfriendly neighbourhoods on the planet and the possibility of a ‘two-and-a-half front war’ — with China, Pakistan, and Kashmiri militants — on the horizon is remarkable.

(Prakash Chandra is former editor of the Indian Defence Review. He writes on aerospace and strategic affairs.)

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author's own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.