About 11 months ago, days after Vladimir Putin ordered the “demilitarization” and “denazification” of Ukraine, the German Chancellor gave a speech in parliament about the “times of change” (Zeitenwende) and in which he announced a hundred billion euros to re-equip the army. Japan, another country bearing the brunt of the militarism associated with a totalitarian regime, has responded to China’s military buildup (and the ongoing threat from North Korea) with a new national security strategy and budget to match. No accident, Zeitenwende was the word for 2022 for the Germans and the Japanese monks of Kioymizu Temple chose as the ideogram of the year meaning battle or war.
These are the most symbolic examples implying tectonic movements in the respective societies. But from North America to the Far East there is, if not an arms race, at least a movement of military investment underway, not triggered by the Russian invasion, but rather taking on new dimensions.
In 2021, the armed forces’ combined expenditures will exceed $2.1 billion, up 0.7 percentage points from the previous year and a record high, according to accounting by the International Institute for Peace Studies in Stockholm (SIPRI). And the tendency is to get worse.
China’s rise to military power has prompted a strong response from the United States and Japan, as well as from India, whose citizens now see Beijing as the greater military threat rather than archenemy Pakistan.
The country that spends the most on defense, the United States, has a budget of 858 billion for 2023, an increase of eight percentage points. Its major economic rival, China, approved a budget of $229 billion for 2022, an increase of 7.1 percentage points. The economic slowdown – gross domestic product grew by 3% in 2022, the lowest since 1976 if we exclude 2020, marked by the pandemic – will pose a dilemma for the decision-makers of the communist regime, who normally expect growth of the military budget alongside economic growth. grow.
In recent months, and especially after the visit of then Speaker of the US House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi to Taiwan, Beijing has responded with unprecedented aggressiveness. Demonstrations of Chinese military power followed one after the other in the Strait of Formosa or in the Air Identification Zone and Chinese leader Xi Jinping did not rule out the use of force to take over the island, prompting US President Joe Biden to say that his country’s armed forces would support Taipei.
Closing the podium of most defense spenders (and the largest arms importer) is India. The world’s largest democracy, which traditionally looked down on Pakistan, is now more concerned about China. Here’s what a recent survey reveals, as analyzed by Foreign Policy: 43% of respondents see Beijing as the biggest threat, and 22% in Washington, with Islamabad on par with Moscow, with 13% of responses.
India is the country that has acquired the most guns abroad between 2017 and 2021, 11% of the total pie. Prime Minister Modi wants Indian industry to produce everything and has canceled purchases of planes and helicopters, but experts warn the country could run out of equipment.
What leads to these results is partly explained by the recent border disputes, which does not help the fact that the line between the two countries has not been demarcated for more than 3,400 kilometers – the problem that led to the 1962 war and ended in a Chinese victory . On the other hand, New Delhi is concerned about the growing Chinese naval presence in the Indian Ocean, while Beijing is making preparations for a third aircraft carrier.
China is once again the decisive factor in Japan’s historic turning point. In recent years, the former has surpassed the latter in economic vice leadership, while military budgets have also followed this expansion. Seven decades of pacifism do not come to an end on paper, as the constitution has not been changed and the principle of defense without the use of nuclear weapons remains.
Article 9. The Constitution of Japan provides that it “forever renounces war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as a means of settling international disputes.”
However, the adoption of the new national security strategy, which rewards the years-long efforts of Shinzo Abe, the former Japanese leader assassinated last year, points the finger at Beijing: “an unprecedented and greater strategic challenge” to peace and the security of Japan and the region. Tokyo is particularly concerned about Chinese military activity around the Senkaku Islands, which the PRC claims as its own (as well as Taiwan), and the launch of ballistic missiles that have landed in waters close to Japan.
The government of Fumio Kishida presented the defense budget for 2023 at a record $ 55 billion, 20% more than the previous year. In addition, it plans to almost double its budget within five years. Priorities include improving cybersecurity and intelligence services, and the acquisition of hundreds of Tomahawk cruise missiles, which can be installed on ships and have the capability to reach missile launch sites in both China and North Korea, a permanent threat to peace in the region .
500 Tomahawk. Japan’s five-year plan includes the purchase of half a thousand long-range Tomahawk missiles, manufactured in the United States. By the end of the period, the country should have the third largest defense budget.
North Korea’s Kim Jong-un wants an “exponential increase” in the country’s nuclear arsenal in the coming months, and Pyongyang is building a fleet of large mobile rocket launchers that can hit any point in the south with a nuclear warhead. The dictator’s atomic fever could translate into as many as 300 nuclear weapons in the coming years.
Seoul’s response was immediate and for the first time, President Yoon Suk Yeol suggested joining the nuclear club while stating that the way to avoid attacks is to “fight back a hundred times or a thousand times more”. After all, the defense budget for 2023 has increased by 4.6% compared to 2022 and stands at $42 billion.
After the large-scale attack on Ukraine, Russia was forced to adjust its defense budget upwards, which now stands at $84 billion. Vladimir Putin, who has said there are “no funding constraints” for the military, plans to spend a total of $600 billion between 2022 and 2025 on national defence, security and public order.
Germany, which since reunification has been committed to developing economic relations with Russia as a pro-Western agent of change, or at least stability, especially with the Nord Stream gas pipelines, has woken up and Chancellor Olaf Scholz has denounced Putin’s “imperialism” . He also announced a €100 billion package to invest in military equipment and to fulfill the commitment to set aside the equivalent of 2% of GDP for defense spending from then on.
67% support. According to a poll published in June on the T-online portal, two thirds of Germans approve the hundred billion package to equip the army, but the eastern regions are divided.
But that’s easier said than done in a country that carries the Nazi past behind its back, to which is added the repeated scandals of neo-Nazis infiltrating the armed forces. To this must be added a bureaucracy as extensive as the name of the department responsible for the acquisition (Federal Office of Equipment, Information Technologies and Support of the Army Service). According to NPR, an order for a backpack, for example, has to go through 12 offices. An employee of the company building the Leopard tanks, KMW, says not a single euro has been ordered, which will help explain why even the annual budget of 50 billion was not fully spent (300 million less) and that as a result the the target of reaching 2% of GDP is still a long way off.
On Friday, the new defense minister, Boris Pistorius, showed that he wants to turn the tide: he said that the acquisition process had to be accelerated, he believes that the hundred billion is not enough for the orders, nor the budget.
Berlin’s colleague in post-war European construction, Paris, is not indifferent to Russia’s challenges. And these are not limited to the European continent. In Africa, President Macron announced the end of Operation Barkhane, to fight jihadist groups, with Russian mercenaries filling the void.
More concentrated in Europe, the French armed forces will receive more than 400 billion euros for the period 2024-2030, an increase of 30% over the current period. “After the recovery of the armed forces, we will transform them,” the French leader promised, betting on the speed of action and the increase in strength, in parallel with greater investments in air defense, cybersecurity and military intelligence.
Source: DN
