It's back: the global arms race

China now sees itself as a major power, and US defense spending is at its highest inflation-adjusted level since 1946.

from the March 26, 2007 edition

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Mr. Wen told a news conference that China's military spending is less than that of many wealthy countries – and of some developing countries as well.

China has long had a huge army, says Wezeman. It was armed, though, with "rubbish equipment." Now it has been buying more Russian weapons and setting up a defense industry with the help of Russian technology.

China, he adds, now sees itself as "a major power," and "not just a regional power."

Some other East Asian nations, especially Taiwan, wonder what China wants with its weapons. "It changes the balance [of power] in Asia," Wezeman says.

Most Russian arms technologies are at least "10 or 15 years" behind those of the US defense industry, the SIPRI expert notes. That means Russian exports of arms, now second only to those of the US, "are probably drying up in a couple of years" as their competitiveness fades.

Russian leaders talk of making major arms purchases for their own armed forces – such as 1,000 combat aircraft over 10 years. But Wezeman doubts that Russia will be able to fulfill such ambitions, despite greater revenues from major oil and gas exports. Russia has bought only three or four new fighters in the past five years – compared with US purchases of 300 or so.

US dominance in military expenditures is huge. The global war on terror, in monetary terms, has cost the US $502 billion in seven years, calculates Steven Kosiak, an expert with the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments in Washington. The Bush administration expects to spend at least another $93 billion in fiscal 2007 and $142 billion in fiscal 2008 for the Iraq/Afghanistan conflicts and other war-on-terror spending. Also, President Bush has requested $483 billion for the Department of Defense (DoD) base budget in 2008.

That puts DoD spending, in inflation-adjusted terms, at its highest level since 1946, indicates Mr. Kosiak. That's above the historical high of US peacetime defense spending in the 1980s. If the Bush plan to increase the permanent size of the Army and Marine Corps is implemented, it would add another $100 billion over the next six years, he estimates.

Some 34 armed conflicts (each involving at least 1,000 deaths) are raging in the world today, says Siebert. These aren't best resolved by arms spending, he argues, but by tackling the poverty, ethnic, and religious issues that often lie behind them.

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