“FROM THE ANALYST”
GLOBAL MILITARY EXPENDITURE REACHES RECORD HIGH

$2.2 trillion dollars was spent on defence in 2023. That’s the highest ever amount in monetary terms. 41% of that was the United States alone, with it spending 70% of the money all of NATO spends (though that’s not really a fair comparison as NATO is not a global alliance).
The constant threat of increasing tensions in Europe, Russian aggression, Chinese and North Korean militarism, the increasingly aggressive stance of the Iranian régime, Russian interference in Africa, and a growing realisation that the world is not in a good place, all contributed.
It’s hard to comprehend sometimes that after years of living under the threat of nuclear Armageddon, and honestly believing we might just have managed to get out from under it, we’re back to square one. Only this time it’s even worse.
There were only two power centres in the First Cold War. Now there are at least three and nominally as many as five.
Technology has moved things in directions nobody could have imagined, and directions that have no fixed parameters.
Decision making is swamped with information that may or may not be real, AI stands to revolutionise that process and risks making as many mistakes as it does providing solutions.
The first power to adopt full quantum computing and employ it effectively will have the ability to break every possible encryption and security fence online in seconds. The race to encode secure communications in a format quantum computers will have to work at - maybe even find impossible to break - is just as urgent and well under way. It’s a race against time. Effective quantum computing is five, maybe ten years away. Quantum computing and AI combined? Possibly and arguably, something that should never happen.
And with these technologies coupled to drones and advanced missiles and avionics, the next 30 years - if we get through them - look set to be tumultuous.
And it’s all of this that’s spurred on a new era of global rearmament and an appreciation that trade, and trade alone, with an ideologically driven enemy who doesn’t really care about the money as a bottom line, but prefers power and control, really requires weapons to deter.
For most of The West, armaments are a last resort. The willingness to use them has to be made clear. Russia has struck fear into NATO. Those who dithered over defence are now facing the consequences of not saying no loudly and clearly enough back in 2014. The attack on Ukraine left the disbelievers without any arguments. The only thing Russia understands is force and the ability and willingness to use it. The same applies to China and the lunatic slave camp we know as North Korea.
Oddly enough the willingness to strike at Iranian assets outside of its borders has been key in keeping the lid on that situation. Even Iran doesn’t want an attack on its homeland.
Israel’s behaviour may be repugnant in so many ways - and it truly has been barbaric in recent months - but its willingness to do it has left the Arab world horrified and surprisingly muted. That will have a price of its own eventually, for both sides. But it proves that in the end armed might and the willingness to use it keeps your otherwise potentially aggressive neighbours in their box.
We have all rediscovered that weapons and the willingness to kill and destroy is the only means of keeping the peace. It’s who and what we are as a species.
Until we all decide war is obsolete it’s never going to change. And that’s never going to happen. Ever. So expect next year’s military expenditure report to get even higher.
@ukrainejournal