This weekend, half a thousand officials, political leaders, academics and businessmen from the defense sector from some 70 countries, in addition to a hundred journalists covering the most prestigious annual event on security and defense issues, the Munich Conference, which since 1963 has been held every February in the Bavarian capital.
The summit, created by Ewald-Heinrich von Kleist-Schmenzin, a former German soldier who participated in the Valkyrie plan – the attempt to kill Adolf Hitler in July 1944 to end World War II – was held under the motto 'Peace through dialogue'. But, this year, the 60th edition of the conference was marked more by talking about war than peace.
Driven by the wars in Ukraine and Gaza, violent conflicts in central Africa and the Red Sea, tensions in much of the Middle East, the Korean Peninsula and the China Sea, Arms sales hit a new record last year: $2.2 trillion, up 9 percent from 2022.
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The market has been on the rise for at least two decades. Even in 2020, the year of the pandemic, the business grew to $1.83 trillion, almost four percent more than in 2019, and that despite a slight slowdown at the end of the previous decade. Over the course of 20 years, sales of the 100 largest weapons companies tripled.
Israeli tanks near the Gaza Strip.
To get an idea of the size of that figure, it is enough to say that the 2.2 trillion dollars of total sales in 2023 are equivalent to more than five times the nominal GDP of Colombia (the total production of goods and services in the country, together the public and private sectors).
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Weapons sellers tried to hide their smiles at an expanding market, and Senior officials, politicians and academics expressed their concern, while news from various regions of the world made it possible to predict that, for now and in the coming years, the arms race will continue..
Fear of Vladimir Putin
As the summit progressed, terrible news echoed from Gaza, where Israeli troops continue their attacks at enormous cost to the civilian population, and new tensions in the China Sea between the Asian giant and the small island of Taiwan, at the same time that North Korea launched new test missiles.
Meanwhile, in Europe, The Government of Ukraine confirmed that its troops abandoned the city of Aidiivka, in the east of the resistance front against Russian troops, which marked the greatest advance achieved by Vladimir Putin's army in a year and a half..
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![Vladimir Putin](https://www.eltiempo.com/files/article_content_new/uploads/2024/02/18/65d2142439474.jpeg)
Vladimir Putin, president of Russia.
Almost at the same time, Putin's government confirmed the death in prison of opposition leader Alexei Navalny, murdered by the regime, according to the statements of his widow, Yulia Navalnaya. And in the United States, intelligence sources confirmed that Russia has a powerful anti-satellite weapon almost ready to operate in space.
All of this confirms Putin's emboldening, in the face of a West that seems insecure and doubtful, with the populist right in Europe and the United States striving to stop military and financial aid to Ukraine. “Who would have thought that this right was going to become the great ally of a Russian leader who stimulates among his people nostalgia for the times of the Soviet Union?” a French academic present at the meeting asked in a corridor talk. from Munich.
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Who would have thought that this right was going to become the great ally of a Russian leader who stimulates nostalgia for the times of the Soviet Union among his people?
But it is like this. While in the Old Continent the right-wing Hungarian leader Viktor Orbán – a great ally of Putin – puts one strike after another to stop the European Union's aid to the kyiv regime, In the United States, the Trumpist Republicans in the House paralyze the vote on the aid package promoted by President Joe Biden and, in the process, do an enormous favor to an increasingly defiant Putin.
Natalie Tocci, director of the Italian Institute of International Affairs, referred to the lack of inspiration aroused by Western leaders such as the vice president of the United States, the German chancellor and even the charismatic president of Ukraine, at the Munich meeting: “Kamala Harris is empty, Olaf Scholz soft, Volodimir Zelenski tired,” Tocci said. “Many words, no concrete commitment,” concluded the Italian academic in statements to The New York Times.
It is a different atmosphere from a year ago, when Ukraine had slowed down and pushed back Russia, and Western leaders seemed united and determined, an attitude that undoubtedly served to skyrocket spending on weapons, not only in military powers like the United States. , Great Britain and France, but in countries that had decades of pacifist commitments such as Japan and Germany.
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![Kamala Harris](https://www.eltiempo.com/files/article_content_new/uploads/2022/11/03/6363bc1e6e67e.jpeg)
Kamala Harris, vice president of the United States.
The push of 2023
But, Beyond doubts about the future, the reality is that in 2023 Western military spending on weapons grew strongly.
While the US remained the undisputed world leader, with 905 billion dollars, 41 percent of the planet's total spending in this field, Europe accelerated. Ten European countries reached their announced goal of dedicating 2 percent of their GDP to the defense sector, with countries like Germany advancing above 3 percent. Since Russia seized the Crimean peninsula in 2014, military spending by European Union countries has increased 32 percent, but the acceleration was most notable in 2022 and 2023 following the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
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![Weapons in Ukraine](https://www.eltiempo.com/files/article_content_new/uploads/2022/06/19/62aef14c7f621.jpeg)
Himars missile carrier, US arms supply to Ukraine.
Fayez Nureldine. AFP
Together, the United States, Canada and their European partners in NATO concentrated 58 percent of the world's military spending, with a notable effort from the countries of the Old World: Great Britain exceeded 73 billion dollars (against 68 billion in 2022 ); Germany, 63,000 million dollars (against 55,800 million in 2022), and France, 60,000 million dollars (against 53,600 million in 2022). Japan, the great ally of the West in the Far East, also increased its military spending: it added almost $50 billion, 8 percent more than in 2022.
But Russia, China and other powers at odds with the West have also accelerated the pace of their weapons production and acquisition. Determined to catch up with the United States in this field as well, China has spent more than $200 billion annually on military spending for several years now.
Many words, no concrete commitment
The plans indicate that this pace will continue to accelerate, among other reasons, due to its strategic decision to become the dominant great power in Asia and the Pacific, and its objective of annexing the island of Taiwan, which remains a republic. independent since 1949, to mainland China.
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In the case of Russia, Last year, many experts questioned the ability of Putin's government to sustain weapons production, the only way to withstand its ambitious and very costly offensive in Ukraine, where, in tanks alone, the Kremlin has lost more than 3,000..
![Korean War AFP](https://www.eltiempo.com/files/article_content_new/uploads/2024/01/06/65998f59445bc.jpeg)
Korean missile launch.
Despite economic sanctions, and the embargo on the sale of Western weapons and key raw materials for the military industry, Moscow has maintained the constant and rapid rise of its defense spending. In 2022, at the beginning of which the invasion of Ukraine was activated, this spending exceeded $86 billion, to grow by nearly 30 percent in 2023, reaching almost $110 billion.
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That amount is equivalent to a staggering 7.5 percent of GDP, confirming that the gigantic war effort, even if Russian coffers have been able to sustain it, has meant sacrificing investment and spending in other areas, at great cost. for the whole of society.
By 2024, Russian military spending will continue to rise, reaching over $115 billion. It is almost four times more than Ukraine's military spending, making Zelensky's government hugely dependent on aid from the United States and Europe..
![Zelensky participates in forum in Munich](https://www.eltiempo.com/files/article_vertical_content_new/uploads/2024/02/17/65d0d6aa4640d.jpeg)
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky during the Munich Security Conference.
In Russia, such a flow of resources has, in any case, an activating effect on an economy weighed down by Western sanctions. A few weeks ago, Putin proudly declared that “520,000 jobs have been created in a year and a half, by the defense industry.” According to the Kremlin leader, Russia has “6,000 companies that belong to the defense sector and generate 3.5 million jobs.”
Russian purchases of military equipment have boosted production in other countries, such as Iran. By May of last year, Ukrainian President Zelensky claimed that the Ayatollah regime had sold more than a thousand explosive drones to Putin's army. According to insiders, the figure may now reach more than double.
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Another Asian country that for years has played a leading role in terms of military spending and arms production is India. It has invested more than $70 billion a year since the end of the last decade, and in 2023, with $73.6 billion, it was the fourth nation that spent the most in this field, below only the US, Russia and China.
The geopolitical analyzes that explain the increase in tensions due to what is happening in Ukraine, the Middle East, central Africa and Asia allow us to understand what is happening. An arms race occurs precisely because a country spends more and its adversaries must imitate it, so as not to be left behind..
But, even with these explanations, it is still terrifying that, in a world where nearly 200 million human beings in more than fifty countries suffer from hunger, and some 700 million live below the poverty line, such enormous quantities of money going to weapons and other military expenditures. A situation that, judging by the way political tensions are growing on the planet, is not going to change in the years to come.
MAURICIO VARGAS LINARES
ANALYSIS[email protected]
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