Is the world heading for disaster? The military budgets of countries are growing, and the standard of living is falling

Leonid Zlotnikov

In the autumn of 2022, experts of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in their report assessed the growth of military budgets of the leading countries of the world.

The figures turned out to be very unpleasant: spending on weapons is growing rapidly, while economic growth, on the contrary, is rapidly declining. This is a clear sign of the destabilization of the international situation, which portends armed conflicts with grave consequences to the world. In addition, spending on security and defense comes at the expense of social spending items, which damages the most vulnerable segments of the population of a country, seriously reducing the standard of living of their citizens.

Most military budgets have been record-breaking in recent years. For example, the United States spent $ 761.6 billion on weapons in 2022, and in 2023 it will be 858 billion. China has increased its defense budget from 178.2 billion to 230 billion in 2023. Russia is not far behind, having increased the figures by more than 100% - up to $ 143 billion. The same is true in the EU countries: their total costs will exceed 500 billion euros. And this is despite the economic downturn.

Japan's defense budget will increase from $40.2 billion to $51.7 billion, and by 2027 it will amount to about 80 billion. The same is the case in South Korea, India, and Australia.

At the same time, it is impossible not to take into account that simple historical pattern: a country that begins to increase spending on weapons sooner or later gets involved in a war.

Analysts of the channel "Russian Futurist" write: "This can be seen not only in the example closest to us: let's take Saudi Arabia. The sheikhs at some point began spending billions not on glamour and luxury, but planes and missiles, and eventually got involved in the bloody Yemeni conflict. A coalition of nine countries led by the SA was involved in a proxy war with the rebels, counting on the support of Iran. It has been going on for more than seven years, has claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands and continues to be a fuse capable of igniting the entire Middle East..."

The increase in military spending by China and the United States does not surprise analysts, since it is known that the Americans consider China to be the No. 1 threat, and Russia is only its puppet:

"Washington has every reason to fear its "other enemy", trade with which brings fabulous profits, and imports are only growing. The defense budget of the People's Republic of China is the only one in the world that has reached almost a third of the huge spending of the Pentagon, which remains the main customer of weapons in the world. In all types of modern weapons, the Chinese are stubbornly catching up with the Americans, constantly modernizing not only the equipment, but also the PLA's means of communication, its logistics and operational mechanisms. However, fantasies about a direct clash between China and the United States still remain on the pages of prose about popadants — in reality, the Celestial Empire has two strong regional rivals.

To begin with, "the biggest democracy in the world." India not only has a comparable human resource for which it has already begun to overtake its neighbors, but also has long been developing its own missile systems, building the main Arjun tanks and saturating the army of UAVs of various types. One of the "points of contact" of India's and China's interests has been the border areas of Pakistan for many years, which has recently been getting closer and closer to Beijing, including in military matters — it recently acquired 26 "swift dragons" (multi-purpose fighters of the fourth generation J-10).  In addition to a hybrid conflict, a direct one is also possible — you've probably seen hot clashes between border guards of the two countries, fighting like in the Middle Ages with shields and "swords" made of rebar..."

However, according to analysts, the main joker of Asia is in the other sleeve – and this is Japan:

"It seems to many that after the WWII and the occupation by the US Armed Forces, the Japanese have practically no army left. That's not so. If you follow the trend since the 90s, you can easily see that the island country is in the top 10 of the largest defense budgets on a permanent basis. The neo-Samurai high-tech troops are armed with some of the most modern and superbly equipped combat vehicles in the world. We are not talking about giant robots or Godzilla right now: the Type 10 tank is an example of genuine import substitution, a super-powerful, perfectly protected machine capable of handling an enemy division equipped on the model of the last century alone. And what kind of submarines they have! Not atomic, battery—powered, but silent and deadly, capable of sinking entire flotillas if they do not have the latest type of radars..."

From all this unpleasant global picture, the channel's analysts draw a disappointing conclusion: "The number of weapons, and the most modern and deadly, is growing in the world. And they rattle them louder and louder. I would like to avoid the Third World War, but more local conflicts, we are afraid that we will see enough..."