'New' Cold War will haul military spend after pandemic disrupts it

Global economic calamities have invariably eaten into military spending. The impact of COVID 19 will be unprecedented in terms of scale and intensity with most countries of the world in a lockdown mode within the last three months. There is no doubt that military spending will plummet after the economic impact of the pandemic is fully realized, reports senior journalist Sanjib Kr Baruah.

New Delhi: Global military expenditure rose to $1,917 billion in 2019, an increase of 3.6 per cent from 2018 and the biggest annual spike in spending since 2010, according to the latest SIPRI (Stockholm International Peace Research Institute) report released on Monday morning.

It is the biggest annual spike in spending since the economic collapse of 2008-09.

But as of now, it will definitely be a peak because military spending will be in a free fall as soon as the world recovers from the initial shock by the novel coronavirus pandemic.

Global economic calamities have invariably eaten into military spending. Be it the Great Depression of the 1930s or the global financial crisis of 2008-09. But the impact of COVID 19 will be unprecedented in terms of scale and intensity with most countries of the world in a lockdown mode within the last three months. The full impact is yet to be studied.

There is no doubt that military spending will plummet after the economic impact of the pandemic is fully realized. Countries like India have already declared a tightening of purse strings and put all capital acquisitions of military hardware etc. on hold.

But what would try to arrest the fall in military spending will be the emerging contours of a new conflict.

Decades after the disintegration of the Soviet Union in 1991 drew the curtains on the ‘Cold War’, a term used to describe the geo-political rivalry between US and USSR, a ‘new’ Cold War may have begun in earnest—between US and China.

And nothing has been able to insert a hiatus in the growing belligerence between US and China. Not even the COVID 19 pandemic that has claimed the lives of more than 2,00,000 worldwide and counting. If anything, the contagion has only served to sharpen the differences between the two even as they continue to engage in a war of words over the nature of origin of the dreaded virus.

According to the SIPRI report, the top three military spenders in 2019 were US, China and India—making it the first time in history that two Asian powers are in the list of top three military spenders. Counting Saudi Arabia at fifth rank, there are actually three Asian countries in the top five.

Accounting for 62 per cent of the total military expenditure, the top five in order of rank are US, China, India, Russia and Saudi Arabia.

With a total spending of $732 billion on military in 2019, US accounted for 38 per cent of the global spend—a growth rate of 5.3 per cent which according to Pieter D. Wezeman, senior researcher at SIPRI, is “largely based on a perceived return to competition between the great powers”.

In 2019, China spent $261 billion, a 5.1 per cent annual increase, while India spent $71.1 billion, a growth rate of 6.8 per cent—believed to be due to rivalry and tension with Pakistan and also China to a certain extent.

From here on, the relationship or the lack of it between US and China will be the defining feature of world diplomacy and strategic positions. This is a war that is being fought on all domains—economic, diplomatic and political.