Ukraine war: tumbling into an unsafe world

 

Four months have passed since Russia invaded its neighbour Ukraine on Feb 24, and the war continues to rage without an end in sight.

It’s yet another instance of man’s inability to live at peace with his neighbours.

Russia prefers to call it “special military operations”, the Europeans are calling it (Russian president Vladimir) “Putin’s war” while most others call it an invasion. What we call it doesn’t matter to the lives being lost or savaged, for war ends in death and destruction.

As in all wars, some leaders decide to go to war for one reason or another while sitting in protective comfort at home or some secretive place while ordinary people and soldiers die or are injured. What a tragedy.

But today’s column is not about the war in Ukraine. It is about the consequences of this conflict on peace and security.

I’m afraid many countries will increase their defence budgets to buy more weapons just in case. I’m afraid it might spiral into another arms race. I’m afraid more nations may turn towards nuclear weapons.

And we certainly don’t need that. The world is, in many ways, already unsafe and facing huge challenges. It doesn’t need an escalation in security tensions.

War hawks in various countries, including the US, Europe and China, are using Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as a reason to spend more money on defence, and make or purchase more arms.

US president Joe Biden has proposed a 4% increase for the Pentagon, and Russia – which spends about US$62 billion or 4% of its gross domestic product (GDP) on the military – is also pouring more money into the war effort.

According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), Washington spent US$778 billion on its armed forces in 2021 – the largest military expenditure in the world and more than the next 10 highest-spending countries combined. China, its rival in the Pacific, ranked second at US$252 billion, followed by India at US$73 billion, Russia at US$62 billion and the United Kingdom at US$59 billion.

Germany, in a major policy shift, plans to increase its defence spending to more than 2% of its GDP. Chancellor Olaf Scholz said on Feb 27: “We will have to invest more in the security of our country to protect our freedom and democracy.”

Scholz said Germany would transfer 100 million euros from its 2022 budget for military spending. A Reuters report said NATO statistics placed Germany’s spending on defence at an estimated 1.53% of its GDP in 2021.

Germany, by the way, is the fourth largest exporter of arms in the world. From January to mid-December 2019, arms sales reached US$8.8 billion, according to its economy ministry as reported by German broadcaster DW.

The largest exporters of arms are the US, Russia, France, Germany and China, in that order. These five countries accounted for 75% of all international arms deliveries between 2014 and 2018. The US alone controlled 36% of the global arms trade, with Russia coming in second with 21%. France contributed 7%, Germany 6% and China 5%.

Data on global military spending published in April by SIPRI shows that total global military expenditure had increased by 0.7% in real terms in 2021, to reach US$2,113 billion – an all-time record.

It was the seventh consecutive year that spending had increased. The five largest spenders in 2021, it said, were the US, China, India, the UK and Russia. They accounted for 62% of expenditure on weapons.

Dr Diego Lopes da Silva, senior researcher with SIPRI’s military expenditure and arms production programme said: “Even amid the economic fallout of the Covid-19 pandemic, world military spending hit record levels. There was a slowdown in the rate of real-terms growth due to inflation. In nominal terms, however, military spending grew by 6.1%.”

Even before it invaded Ukraine, Russia had increased its military expenditure. In fact, says the SIPRI report, in 2021 it increased its arms spending by 2.9% to US$65.9 billion while building up its forces along the Ukrainian border. The money amounted to 4.1% of GDP in 2021.

Ukraine too, while facing off against Russia, had increased its military spending. SIPRI says Ukraine’s military spending rose by 72% since the annexation of Crimea by Russia in 2014. It notes that although military spending fell in 2021 to US$5.9 billion, it still accounted for 3.2% of the country’s GDP.

Russia has shown that the mere possession of nuclear warheads and a threat to use it is enough to control the actions of other countries. In Ukraine, Russia is holding the US and NATO nations at bay with such a threat.

In invading Ukraine, President Putin  warned other countries that they would “face consequences greater than any of you have faced in history” if they intervened. He then ordered  Russian “nuclear forces” to be put on heightened alert. A government spokesperson later said Russia would only consider using nuclear weapons if there was an “existential threat” to it.

But the threat of nuclear weapons being deployed is in the air. And dangerously so.

Reuters reported that on June 25, President Putin told Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko that Russia would provide Belarus, which supports Putin, with nuclear-capable missile systems.

According to the report, Lukashenko asked Putin to help Belarus mount a “symmetrical response” to what he said were nuclear-armed flights by the US-led NATO alliance near Belarus’ borders.

Putin, saying there was no need at present for a symmetrical response, suggested that Belarus’ Russian-built Su-25 jets could be upgraded in Russian factories and that Russia would “transfer Iskander-M tactical missile systems to Belarus, which can use ballistic and cruise missiles, both in conventional and nuclear versions”.

Last month, Russia sold nuclear-capable Iskander missiles and S-400 missile systems to Belarus.

What if something goes wrong in the protracted war in Ukraine and nuclear weapons are deployed? No one – not even those uninvolved in such a conflict – will be spared the indescribable death and destruction that will follow. It’s horrendous to even think about it.

Currently eight countries acknowledge their nuclear capabilities: the US, Russia, China, UK, France, Pakistan, India and North Korea. Israel has nuclear power but has not acknowledged it. In total, according to an AP report, these countries have about 13,000 nuclear weapons.

What is to stop some other country from also desiring to have nuclear weapons, seeing as how Russia is using its nuclear capability to keep the US and NATO at bay?

The problem is, despite knowing the amount of death and destruction that conflicts cause, leaders of countries engage in them for one reason or another, although sometimes it can be justified in the name of self-defence.

Armed conflicts were ravaging several countries even before 2022 began. Conflicts in such nations as Yemen, Syria, Myanmar, Afghanistan, Mali, Ethiopia, South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo continue unabated.

But now that war is raging in Ukraine – which is being more widely reported than any of the other conflicts – and fears have been further stoked, we can expect to see governments spending more on weapons.

It is possible that some other countries may want to join the nuclear arms club in the next few years.

All this, to put it mildly, is not good for world peace. It’s scary. It is also taking money away from other, better uses for their own people and the world, especially at a time when the world is reeling under the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic and its consequent economic woes.

The world has become decidedly more unsafe. And the frustrating thing is that you and I can’t do much to reverse the trend.- FMT

The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of MMKtT.