According to the SIPRI, global military spending continued to grow in 2021, reaching an all-time high of $2.1 trillion after seven years of spending growth
Global, EU, and NATO military spending
According to data on global military spending published by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), global military expenditure continued to grow in 2021, reaching an all-time high of two-point-one trillion US dollars after seven years of spending growth. In the second year of the pandemic, world military spending increased by zero-point-seven percent in real terms.
The United Kingdom moved up two ranks and became the fourth-largest spender in 2021, while France moved up two positions to become the sixth-largest spender. US military spending totaled $801 billion in 2021, while total military expenditure in Europe amounted to $418 billion, three percent higher than in 2020 and nineteen percent higher than in 2012.
European Union’s (EU) defense spending rose
The European Defence Agency (EDA) Defence Data report for 2020-2021, released on Thursday, 8 December 2022, shows that the European Union’s (EU) defense spending rose to a new high of €214 billion in 2021, marking a six percent increase on 2020 and surpassing €200 billion for the first time.
Investments on the procurement of defense equipment, research, and development increased by sixteen percent, reaching a record €52 billion. Out of the eighteen member states who increased spending, six raised it by ten percent or more.
On Wednesday, 14 December 2022, the North Atlantic Council, the chief political decision-making body of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), agreed on the organization’s civil and military budgets for 2023. On this occasion, the North Atlantic Council set the military budget at one-point-ninety-six billion Euros, a twenty-five-point-eight percent increase compared to the previous year.
The Fiscal 2023 National Defense Authorization Act
On Thursday, December 2023, with a 350 to 80 vote, the House passed the Fiscal 2023 National Defense Authorization Act, authorizing $858 billion for national defense. This funding is $80 billion higher than that approved in FY22.
«What we’re seeing is a globalized increase in militarism. We’ve seen in Europe that it’s being driven by arms companies, by corporate lobbyists working on behalf of the arms companies, and have the ear of people in power in Brussels. They’re managing to shift policy towards more and more money being made available for the military. Europe is being led by the trends we’re seeing in the United States, which has been the dominant global power for decades. US domination is increasingly being challenged by the rise of China and the economic power it holds. Much of the increase in military spending is around measuring a state’s worth by its military might». Explained Niamh Ni Bhriain, coordinator of TNI’s War and Pacification program.
Are Western leaders using the invasion of Ukraine to justify military spending increases?
Following Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine, multiple NATO and European nations announced plans to increase their defense budgets. Various public figures supported such increases, citing the war’s threat as their cause.
The European Union’s Strategic Compass for Security and Defence, released on 21 March 2022 by the Council of the European Union, details the EU’s action plan to strengthen its defense by 2030 with investments in defense capabilities and technologies at the EU and a national level playing a crucial part.
The planned increase in European defense spending does not represent a change of direction in long-term trends, as defense funding has been growing in recent years in various European countries.
NATO military expenditure
According to the report Smoke Screen: How states are using the war in Ukraine to drive a new arms race, published by Stop Wapenhandel and the Transnational Institute in November 2022, even before the invasion, collectively, NATO military expenditure was 17 times higher than Russia’s. The USA’s military spending alone makes up thirty-eight percent of the world’s total.
According to projections by McKinsey & Company, even if Russia had not invaded Ukraine, defense spending in Europe would have increased by fourteen percent between 2021 and 2026, rising from €296 billion to €337 billion.
«The arms industry has used the war in Ukraine to boost its image and sell its image as a provider of security and safety, saying that we need the arms companies to keep us safe and a strong defense industry for Europe to be kept safe. We have seen that message before Ukraine, but it’s much easier to go public with that now than it was before the war».
The arms industry its relationship with power and influence on policy
The relationship of mutual benefit between a nation’s military, the arms industry, and the government is often referred to as the military–industrial complex (MIC). This expression became widespread after former US president Eisenhower’s Farewell Address to the Nation of 1961.
Then and now, the arms industry benefits from its closeness and influence on the political sphere. Funds injected into the military line the arms industry’s pockets, the use of war-frenzied rhetoric by political figures boost its image, and the easing of restrictions on arms exports facilitates the lucrative flow of arms exports that fuel conflicts and aid regimes and enable violent repression.
Militarization runs rampant and military budgets grow
«The arms industry has been very successful at securing funding. They are also trying to influence arms export policies in a way that would allow them to have free rein around influencing and promoting the export of arms outside of the EU».
As militarization runs rampant and military budgets grow, the arms industry profits. According to SIPRI, the sales of arms and military services by the 100 largest companies in the industry reached $592 billion in 2021. This number marks a one-point-nine percent increase compared with the previous year in real terms.
The participation of governments and their officials in the arms trade takes various forms. In the UK, the government has an organization working within the Department for International Trade, the UK Defence and Security Exports, which facilitates the expiration of arms from British companies.
Officials can profit from the arms industry through stock trading
In September 2022, the New York Times reported that between 2019 and 2021, 97 congress members, their spouses or dependent children, engaged in the trade of financial assets that could generate conflicts of interest. Among these are congress members who traded defense stocks while part of committees building US national security policy.
According to the US organization OpenSecrets.org, during the 2020 campaign cycle, individuals and political action committees connected to the defense sector contributed fifty million US Dollars to political candidates and committees. Defense sector contributions have continued.
An analysis by the same organization found that forty-five senators who secured one-point-eight billion US Dollars in military construction earmarks in late December 2022 have received fifty-one percent more money on average from the sector compared to their colleagues during the 2022 election cycle.
«At a personal level, politicians and states, a lot of them have invested in arms companies, and they will get a good return on their investments if they prioritize militarism».
How are the lines between military and civil research getting blurred in the EU?
The European Investment Bank, through its initiative the ‘Strategic European Security Initiative’, aims to mobilize investment of up to six billion Euros for dual-use security and defense technologies, space, and cybersecurity.
The question of what’s military and what’s civil is constantly blurred. In the new kinds of research around tech, you will often see a civilian purpose, but it can be re-modeled or re-manufactured to have a military function. Said Niamh Ni Bhriain
«This grey area is being used to push through initiatives that will get funding that won’t have to reach a threshold where they would be held to a higher standard if they’re going to be used for military purposes».
How are people affected by these investments?
At a time in which people feel the effects of a global pandemic, a cost of living crisis, the climate crisis, and in many big centers, a housing crisis, leaders should prioritize social and climate guarantee people fundamental but too often denied rights such as access to healthcare, education, housing, food, and a liveable planet.
According to the European Court of Auditors (Eca), though the Commission announced that the EU met the target spending at least twenty percent of its 2014-2020 budget on climate action, with €216 billion invested in climate spending, the auditors have found that the reported spending was not always relevant to climate action and climate reporting was overstated by at least seventy-two billion Euros.
Rich countries’ goal to mobilize 100 billion USD joint per year by 2020 in support of climate action in low-income countries highly affected by climate has not been met. In 1991, the island nation of Vanuatu came forward with a proposal for an insurance scheme for countries impacted by the consequences of sea level rise funded by the nations responsible for the lion’s share of climate change. It took thirty-one years for rich countries to agree to the creation of a Loss and Damage fund. According to calculations shared by TNI, military spending by Annex II countries is at least thirty times as high as their actual climate finance spending.
Niamh Ni Bhriain
Coordinating TNI’s War and Pacification Programme, Niamh Ni Bhriain holds an LLM in International Human Rights Law from the Irish Centre for Human Rights at the National University of Ireland Galway (NUIG).
