Arms race continues

Conventional wisdom would have it that an arms race forms part of a cold war. Ironically, with the Cold War between the US and the now defunct Soviet Union long over, the arms race has never been more intense than it is now.

There is no longer a Soviet threat with thousands of nuclear weapons targeted at the US and jets, tanks and millions of soldiers ready to attack western Europe. But after a short period of military downsizing since the fall of the Berlin Wall, the arms race has resumed.

It's quite irrational. After all, the threat posed by Al Qaida does not compare to that posed by the once mighty Soviet military. And if 9/11 has taught us anything it is that in asymmetrical warfare, terrorist attacks cannot be prevented through a military build-up.

But then again arms races are always irrational. It was just as irrational for the super powers to amass thousands of nuclear weapons as a deterrent when a few hundred would surely have been enough.

Since 2001, military expenditures have continued to increase. Global military spending is now estimated at roughly $1.35 trillion (Dh4.96 trillion), half of which is spent by the United States. US military spending is of course linked to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but has increased by 65 per cent in the past 10 years.

Eastern European countries, which still see Russia as a threat and have been pushed by the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation to modernise their armies, have increased their budgets by 162 per cent.

China has just made public that it will increase its defence budget by nearly 15 per cent this year. In 2008, the figure was 17 per cent.

The increase in spending has been fairly steady for the past 10 years and is devoted to making soldiers' lives more comfortable and to improve military technology.

The US has been quick to criticise Chinese military spending, saying it could lead to a new arms race.

This is rich coming from them. Even with the latest increase, Chinese military expenditure is around $60 billion, representing more or less 10 per cent of the US budget, and is roughly the same as that of Japan, where military spending is also on the rise.

In any case, Beijing justifies its military spending by arguing that it is required to prevent Taiwanese independence.

Military expenditures are also on the rise in Latin America. Under President Hugo Chavez, Venezuela has increased its military budget by 46 per cent in recent times.

But at less than $2 billion, it is far from posing a genuine threat to the US, despite what former president George W. Bush might have said. The biggest military expenditure in this region is that of Brazil at $13 billion.

With the surge in Afghanistan, it is highly unlikely that world military expenditures - which are largely driven by the US - will decrease any time soon, but there is a ray of hope when it comes to nuclear weapons.

Historically, efforts towards arms control focus on nuclear arsenals, rather than conventional ones. At the end of the Cold War, the strategic arsenals of both superpowers had increased to 50,000, half of which were deployed while the other half was held in reserve. This was much more than was needed for pure deterrence.

Since the fall of the Soviet Union, Moscow and Washington have gone from limiting the number of nuclear weapons to agreements on reductions.

The Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (Start) signed on July 31, 1991, barred its signatories from deploying more than 6,000 nuclear warheads.

Start II was signed on January 3, 1993, but never came into force. Since then, no real progress has been made, partly as a result of Russian suspicion over US plans for a missile defence system.

US President Barack Obama, however, seems eager to push for a continued reduction in nuclear weapons and there are signs he may cancel plans for missile defence - which would have been countered by Russian missiles deployed in Kaliningrad.

Obama appears to be intent on improving the US relationship with Russia, which can only be good news for those who hope for nuclear disarmament.

Dr Pascal Boniface is the founder and director of the Institut de Relations Internationales et Strategiques.