Cold War militarism returns to Europe fueled by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The military spending of the countries of Central and Western Europe reached 345,000 million dollars (315,000 million euros), which exceeded for the first time that of 1989, when the period of hostilities between the US blocks ended. the USSR, and grew 30% more than in 2013, a year before the start of the conflict in Donbass, between Russia and Ukraine, according to data from a report released this Monday by the Stockholm International Institute for Peace Research. (SIPRI).
In fact, since the Russian annexation of the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea in 2014, Eastern European countries, former Soviet republics, have doubled their arms purchases, preparing for an escalation of warfare, which ultimately culminated in the start of the Ukraine war, February 24, 2022.
Europe was the continent that registered the highest year-on-year increase in arms purchases, 13%, which, together with the increase in tensions in East Asia, contributed to world spending reaching a record figure of 2.2 trillion dollars (2 trillion euros), 3.7% more year-on-year in real terms (double not counting inflation) and the equivalent of 2.2% of global gross domestic product (GDP).
Finland, with 36% more, Lithuania (27%), Sweden (12%) and Poland (11%) experienced the most pronounced increases in the military budget, and the plans launched by several countries suggest that spending in the area will continue growing in the future, highlights SIPRI. NATO members have pledged to increase their military spending over the next decade. In the case of Spain, it hopes to double it.
While the “full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 certainly affected spending decisions in 2022, concerns about Russian aggression have been building long before that. Many former Eastern Bloc countries have doubled their military spending since 2014”, writes this prestigious institute.
Russia, third on the world list, raised its military investment by 9.2% to nearly 86.4 billion (78.86 billion euros), 4.1% of its GDP, while Ukraine experienced a record increase of 640%, 34 % of its GDP, not counting donations received from other countries.
Despite the increases registered in Europe and other areas, the United States maintains its indisputable dominance worldwide: it spent 877,000 million dollars (880,469 million euros), 39% of the total and three times more than China, the second in the list. That figure represents an increase of 0.7% compared to 2021, which would be “much higher” if the country had not registered the highest inflation since 1981, and was driven by the “unprecedented” level of military aid to Ukraine. “Given the magnitude of US spending, even a minor increase in percentage terms has a significant impact on the level of global military spending,” notes SIPRI.
The 19.9 billion allocated last year by the US to Ukraine represent the largest amount in military aid to a country since the Cold War, explains SIPRI, but it represents only 2.3% of total US military spending.
India, with 6% more, and Saudi Arabia, with 16%, complete the top five positions in annual spending, followed by the United Kingdom, Germany, France, South Korea and Japan, with Ukraine in eleventh place, twenty-five more positions. higher than in 2021.
