Defence surge: the new era of global arms policy
Defence investment has become a policy priority for governments.
Russia's invasion of Ukraine has brought to the table a series of debates that have remained dormant until now. Defence investment is one of the key issues at the centre of new global roadmaps. These plans are now accompanied by the question: Is current defence investment sufficient to deal with current conflicts? What used to be one of the issues most rejected by EU states, lest they be labelled militaristic, has now become one of the main priorities.
Ukraine has been the ideal setting for this issue to leap into political reality. It has been a month since Russian troops launched an invasion of Ukraine with the aim of "denazifying" the country. The offensives have been sustained steadily in the face of a Ukrainian army that has shown admirable resistance, considering the superiority of the Russian army compared to the Ukrainian army. In this sense, the Ukrainians have managed to give an image of resistance that has already been seen around the world, encouraged by a figure who has won global admiration and recognition: the Ukrainian president, Volodomir Zelensky.
However, this resistance has not succeeded in stopping war crimes. The massacre in Bucha, a town 30 kilometres from Kiev, has shown the horror of conflict, with no mercy even for civilians of all conditions. "We will see that those responsible are punished," a heartbroken Zelensky declared from Bucha. "Mothers of Russian soldiers: your sons have no souls," he said in his speech. "You could not help noticing that they are deprived of everything that is human. They have no soul. They have no heart. They killed consciously and with great pleasure".
It is this same Zelensky who has tirelessly called for international assistance in armaments, a complex issue because, if a NATO country decided to act directly in the conflict, it would mean war on a larger scale, resulting in more people dying and destruction, especially since Russia has the world's largest nuclear arsenal.
Even so, the Alliance countries decided to send arms to Kiev in order to help them resist, as well as humanitarian and economic aid. In the case of the European Union, 21 of the 27 countries have sent arms to Ukraine, the first time that the Union has decided to send arms to a country under attack, an event that has marked a turning point in European arms strategy. As a result, Europe has achieved the highest growth in its arms budget in the last five years, a trend that is set to accelerate in the rest of the world, with the result that Europe will move from budget cuts in this sector to ever-increasing investment.
Thus, the European Commission activated an allocation of 500 million euros from the European Peace Fund, including 450 million euros for offensive material and 50 million euros for non-lethal material and supplies. The Commission's investment was followed by some of the EU countries that have already announced budget increases in Defence spending.
This is the case of Germany, a country that has never sent armaments since the Second World War. In addition to this shipment, Berlin announced that it will increase its military spending "to two per cent", a key figure in the NATO framework that marks the commitment of Alliance members to its defence policy. This new investment is part of a special fund of 100 billion euros that aims to reach this record figure for Germany.
"With the invasion of Ukraine we are entering a new era," said German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, "people are not only defending their homeland. They are fighting for freedom and for their democracy. For values that we share with them", he added.
However, although this reaction was a direct consequence of the current Russian aggressions, before the invasion by Moscow, military spending increased worldwide in 2020 to almost 2 trillion dollars, an increase of 2.6% in percentage terms compared to 2019, according to a report published by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).
This increase was also characterised by the fact that it occurred in the first year of the pandemic, when GDP fell by 4.4%, according to the International Monetary Fund, coinciding with the economic impacts produced by COVID-19.
In the same year, the United States led spending in this sector, reaching 778 billion dollars, making it the third year in which the US led the ranking after seven years of continuous reductions. Alexandra Marksteiner, a researcher with SIPRI's Arms and Military Spending Programme, said that these increases by the US "can be attributed mainly to heavy investment in research and development, and some long-term projects such as the modernisation of its nuclear arsenal and large-scale weapons procurement".
Shee said that "this reflects the growing concern about the perceived threat from strategic competitors such as China and Russia, as well as the Trump administration's drift to bolster what it considered to be dwindling military spending".
Two years on, Europe is the scene of an open conflict that has provoked the reaction and mobilisation of the European Union itself in its arms programme, something that only Putin has managed to achieve. Germany has been joined by more European countries that have already managed to reach the 2% investment designated by NATO, such as France, with a 2.01% investment, Croatia (2.78%), Estonia (2.28%), Poland (2.1%) and Latvia (2.27%), where Spain participates in NATO's mission in the eFP Battlegroup. However, the United States continues to lead the ranking with an investment of 778 billion, which translates into 3.42% of its GDP.
However, this figure does not seem to be enough for the presidency of Joe Biden, who has asked to increase his budget for 2022, which means 2% more than the budget invested in 2021. Furthermore, according to the "2022 aerospace and defence industry outlook" report, this investment will go towards the acquisition of unmanned combat aircraft and intelligence, a key sector in the new ways of waging war. Together with this, they predict that the world defence budget will increase by around 2.5%.
Spain, one of the countries that invests the least in defence, second only to Luxembourg, has announced that it will implement new measures to achieve this 2%. The Spanish president, Pedro Sánchez, has pledged to raise GDP in defence to 2%, a very ambitious measure that some economists are very sceptical about. This measure, moreover, does not have the support of all parliamentary groups, as is the case of Unidas Podemos, a political party that is strongly opposed to this measure, specifically 62% of these voters.
Spanish society is also divided over this new measure. According to a survey carried out by 40db, while 47.5% of Spaniards surveyed were in favour of the measure, 42.2% were against it.
In response to this new measure, the Minister of Defence, Margarita Robles, pointed out that "in the face of those who were unaware that the values of freedom, peace and security could be threatened, Putin's war has highlighted the need for us to be aware of the need to defend them". Thus, Madrid approved the dispatch of 1,370 grenade launchers, 700,000 machine gun cartridges and light machine guns. According to the minister, this material "allows for individual defence, even for people who have no weapons training".
For the time being and at the national level, Spain has a modernisation plan approved in 2018 and in force until 2022. In this regard, the Spanish military is aware of the obsolescence of many of its arsenals, and the armies are calling for greater investment in defence and security, both nationally and internationally. This plan was intended to modernise the H-135 helicopters (with a plan worth 178 million euros), the EF-2000 falcon (2,044 million euros), the Tiger MKIII helicopter (1,185 million euros) and the maritime action vessel for underwater intervention (183 million euros), among others.
In a meeting with her French counterpart, Florence Parly, the minister indicated that the new strategy should not focus solely on increasing the defence budget, but should do so "well". In the case of France, it is well known that it is providing significant support for industrial diplomacy. With 5,000 companies and 400,000 jobs in this sector, French industry accounts for a quarter of all European capabilities.
In this sense, France is an advocate of supporting this type of diplomacy and cooperation in order to foster the emergence of a true European arms identity, as envisaged in the Strategic Compass Defence Plan. Along these lines, France is a strong advocate of "coordinating European arms procurement policies" as a "natural and indispensable complement to the common security and defence policy".
All this comes at a time when the EU announced an investment of 200 billion euros in an attempt to 'implement more robust, swifter and more solid and decisive action, including for the Union's resilience and our mutual assistance and solidarity', in the wake of the Russian attacks.
"There are two ways of settling a military dispute, one that is settled by negotiation and one that is settled by force. Since the first is characteristic of human beings and the second of beasts, we must resort to the second only if we cannot exploit the first". With this phrase Cicero made a clear distinction more than 10 centuries ago between what we know formally as soft power and hard power.
Soft power has tried to establish itself in countries in this idea of persuading other states without the need to use war. This new power has avoided and continues to avoid military conflicts that involve direct confrontation through violence and destruction.
However, in the current landscape, this soft power has proven to have limitations. It is currently unable to stop Russia's advance. Despite the fact that negotiations on a possible end are still ongoing, Moscow has not ceased its military attacks on Ukraine, causing all the damage that wars entail.
The truth is that defence implies security, both national and international. In this sense, the United States and the European Union (in which France, the United Kingdom, Germany and Sweden stand out) have managed to establish themselves as some of the leading representatives of this soft power, although in the case of the United States they have been far from applying it in the Middle East region.
In this regard, the United States has experienced a diplomatic crisis at home that has led to cuts in diplomatic posts. Even so, diplomacy has tried to survive and sustain itself. But we have not been able to celebrate lasting diplomatic achievements, at least in the last ten years.
While the United States and the Union have managed to be symbols of this power, Russia's advance through its attacks has shown that sometimes this power is limited and therefore it is necessary to have a back-up that can curb violence and armed attacks, and this is direct investment in defence.
The increase in the defence budget has also gone a step further. In the face of new Russian attacks, countries have considered increasing spending on nuclear material. A report published by Allied Market Research indicates that the world market for nuclear missiles and bombs should exceed $126 billion in ten years' time, which implies an exponential increase of 73% in this sector compared to 2020 levels.
They point out that this increase would be a reflection of the current escalation of geopolitical conflicts, a context that has increased the military budget to a compound annual rate of 5.4% until 2030. The report foresees a demand for nuclear warheads that can be launched from fighter and land-based missiles.
Although Russia and the United States are currently the countries that invest the most in this nuclear market, the report indicates that the fastest growth will come from countries in the Asia-Pacific region such as India, Pakistan and China. Allied Market warns that "international treaties and consortiums advise against nuclear testing", which would hinder "market growth".
In addition, just a week ago, Joe Biden requested a defence plan that aims to prioritise his nuclear "triad" of ballistic missile submarines, bombers and land-based missiles, something he has never done before and which represents a turning point in this area.
This nuclear extension has now been installed in the AUKUS, a pact in which the UK, Australia and the US will now work to develop nuclear-capable hypersonic weapons. This item, approved after Russia's use of lethal high-speed missiles in air strikes, will aim to expand "new trilateral cooperation on hypersonic and counter-hypersonic weapons".
The unique feature of these hypersonic missiles is that they have the ability to travel at least five times faster than the speed of sound and have a manoeuvrable design, allowing them to evade commercial anti-defence missiles.
According to Joe Biden himself, Russia has reportedly used its Kinzhal hypersonic missile against Ukrainian targets, calling the missile an "unstoppable (...) almost impossible to stop" weapon. Others, such as US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin, have been more sceptical, noting that the missile "would not see it as a game changer" while others see it as modified versions of Russia's Iskander ballistic missiles, missiles that are launched from fighter jets.
Despite these facts, the international powers are aware that a possible nuclear war would be the end. This was signed in a joint declaration by countries such as the UK, the US, China, France and Russia earlier this year. This signature is now wobbling on the table at a time when nuclear deterrence remains paramount, but this does not imply that it is permanent.