{"id":29913,"date":"2025-06-19T00:45:42","date_gmt":"2025-06-19T00:45:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/allanhardingmackay.ca\/courtpainter\/?p=29913"},"modified":"2025-06-19T01:07:45","modified_gmt":"2025-06-19T01:07:45","slug":"warbucks-new-global-arms-race-faster-smarter-more-dangerous-and-more-expensive-than-ever","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/allanhardingmackay.ca\/courtpainter\/?p=29913","title":{"rendered":"Warbucks…\u00a0new global arms race: faster, smarter, more dangerous and more expensive than ever"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Court Painter periodically reviews the latest in the evergreen<\/strong> war economy\u2014lest we get too distracted by peace and prosperity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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GZERO Daily<\/strong> June 9,2025
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The New Global Arms Race: Who\u2019s Buying, Who\u2019s Selling, What\u2019s at Sta<\/a>ke<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Welcome to the new global arms race: faster, smarter, more dangerous and more expensive than ever. In 2024, world military spending surged to a record $2.7 trillion<\/a>, the steepest annual increase since the Cold War’s end, driven largely by European, Asian and Middle Eastern nations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Who’s buying?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Faced with threats from Russia, Europe has ramped up defense budgets<\/a>, with Poland’s spending growing by 31% to $38 billion and Sweden\u2019s by 34% to $12 billion in its first year of NATO membership. Germany increased military expenditure by 28% to $88.5 billion, making it the fourth-largest spender globally and rearming the nation that precipitated the two major world wars of the last century.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the Middle East, Israel’s military spending soared by 65% per cent to $46.5 billion, the largest annual rise since 1967, amid its war with Hamas in Gaza and conflict with Hezbollah in South Lebanon. In Asia<\/a>, China spent 7% more on its military in 2024, adding an estimated $314 billion, raising fears of an imminent operation against Taiwan, which boosted its military spending by 1.8% in 2024 to $16.5 billion. Fellow Asia-Pacific power Japan saw its military budget rise by 21% to $55.3 billion, its largest annual increase since 1952.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Who’s selling?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Traditional arms exporters like the United States, France, Russia, China, and Germany continue to dominate the market. However, emerging players<\/a> such as India, Turkey, and Israel are increasing their share. Notably, Israel’s defense exports<\/a>reached a record $14.8 billion in 2024, with Europe accounting for 54% of sales, up from 35% the previous year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What\u2019s on the wish list?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Today\u2019s arms race is not just about quantity, but technology. Nations are investing heavily in next-generation weapons, including drones, hypersonic missiles, artificial intelligence, cyber capabilities, and space-based systems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the US, President Donald Trump\u2019s<\/strong> desire for a \u201cGolden Dome\u201d missile defence system akin to Israel\u2019s \u201cIron Dome\u201d would add $175 billion to Washington\u2019s arms budget over the next three years. It would also require the cooperation of neighboring Canada, at a price of either $61 billion or 51st statehood \u2013 Prime Minister Mark Carney<\/strong> has made clear that the second option is not on the table.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the other end of the spectrum, however, Ukraine’s recent “Pearl Harbor moment” attack on Russian strategic bomber airfields was carried out with a fleet of $300 consumer-level drones, raising questions about what technologies are most valuable and effective for 20th century warfare. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The political tradeoff: guns or butter<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

All of this military spending will put a dent in national budgets, possibly requiring cuts to social benefits<\/a>, increased debt<\/a>, or fewer government services<\/a>. If voters aren’t convinced that national defense is worth the tradeoff, the Great Rearming could trigger a significant popular backlash in the coming years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Court Painter periodically reviews the latest in the evergreen war economy\u2014lest we get too distracted by peace and prosperity. GZERO Daily June 9,2025 The New Global Arms Race: Who\u2019s Buying, Who\u2019s Selling, What\u2019s at Stake Welcome to the new global arms race: faster, smarter, more dangerous and more expensive than ever. In 2024, world military … Continue reading “Warbucks…\u00a0new global arms race: faster, smarter, more dangerous and more expensive than ever”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"gallery","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29913","post","type-post","status-publish","format-gallery","hentry","category-images","post_format-post-format-gallery"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/allanhardingmackay.ca\/courtpainter\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29913","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/allanhardingmackay.ca\/courtpainter\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/allanhardingmackay.ca\/courtpainter\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/allanhardingmackay.ca\/courtpainter\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/allanhardingmackay.ca\/courtpainter\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=29913"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/allanhardingmackay.ca\/courtpainter\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29913\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29979,"href":"https:\/\/allanhardingmackay.ca\/courtpainter\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29913\/revisions\/29979"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/allanhardingmackay.ca\/courtpainter\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=29913"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/allanhardingmackay.ca\/courtpainter\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=29913"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/allanhardingmackay.ca\/courtpainter\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=29913"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}