Complex simplicity of military spending
Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) has published a progress report on the state of global trade. weapons and weapons costs. According to the data in it, in 2014, in the global volume of military spending, Russia accounts for 4,8%, which puts it in third place after the United States (34%) and China (12%). At the same time, according to the report, our country's military expenditures increased last year by 2013% compared to 8,1 and amounted to 84,5 billion dollars, or 4,5% of GDP. At the same time, the institute researchers stipulate that "Russia planned this increase even before the crisis in Ukraine." In addition, due to the reduction in oil revenues, the country's defense budget was adjusted downward by 5%.
Reduced their costs and the United States. Possessing the largest military expenditures in the world (almost 3 times Chinese ones), they reduced their allocations for armed forces by 2014% in 6,5 year. This was done as one of the measures to combat the budget deficit determined by the legislators in accordance with the Budget Control Act of 2011. “Nevertheless, according to SIPRI researchers, in this area the United States continues to be at a historically high level, which almost corresponds in real terms to the peak level of the end of 80's.” Total for military purposes was spent by Washington 610 billion, or 3,5% of GDP. It is expected that in 2015, cuts in the military budget will continue, but not so dramatically. After reaching the highest level in 2010, army spending fell in real terms by 19,8%.
China's military spending, according to SIPRI estimates, kept pace with the development of its economy, consistently maintaining over the past decade a percentage indicator in relation to GDP - from 2 to 2,2%. In absolute terms, the figure increased by 9,7% and amounted to 216 billion.
As noted in the report, in Ukraine 2014 increased by 23% in the year and amounted, according to preliminary estimates, to 4 billion "green". "This estimate probably does not include all the costs of the war, and the final figure may be higher," the document says. In the 2015 year, Ukraine, researchers say, plans to double the cost of armaments.
FIGURES FOR REFLECTION
The SIPRI report contains many other interesting figures, observations and conclusions. For example, it noted that global military budgets have been reduced for the third year in a row.
Governments of all countries spent about 2 trillion dollars for military purposes. More precisely, 1 trillion 776 billion, which is 0,4% less than in 2013 year. The percentage is small, but optimistic, especially since it makes up only 2,4% of global GDP. True, if we compare this figure to the expenditures of the United States and Russia in relation to their GDP, then this comparison will not be in favor of either Washington or Moscow. Especially considering the difference in the volumes of their gross domestic product.
Another observation, which, as it seems to the author of this material, is emphasized by SIPRI researchers. The fact that military spending on the background of the Ukrainian crisis increases those states that are in close proximity to the borders of Russia. Namely, the countries of Central Europe, the Baltic States and Scandinavia (for example, Poland and Estonia spend 10,4 billion, respectively, and 430 million, respectively - 1,9% and 2% of GDP). And in other countries, even despite the calls of the NATO leadership to increase their contribution to the overall defense to 2% of GDP, no one is in a hurry to do it.
It seems (this thought belongs to the journalist, and not to the researchers of SIPRI) that the leading Western states and their leaders, despite the campaign launched in their own media to intimidate the population with “Russian aggression and Russian nuclear threat,” actually do not believe in it and feel quite comfortable behind their backs at the threat of Eastern European neighbors. And they don’t rush their financial contribution to the North Atlantic Alliance to the required percentage. The richest countries in Europe - France, Germany, Italy and Spain - have the smallest defense spending in relation to their GDP.
The authors of the report, Sam Perlo-Freeman and Jan Grebe, stipulate that they take data for their materials, according to the tradition adopted by the Stockholm Peace Research Institute, from open sources, for example, from state budgets with their official defense spending. And although the specific indicators of 2014 of the year do not allow making any far-reaching conclusions, the tendencies caused by the Ukrainian crisis are already noticeable. At the same time, they caution against hasty interpretation of the document. “We should not directly link such development with the policy of Russia,” says Jan Grebe. “In many countries, a qualitative improvement in the armed forces was a common measure of modernization for them.”
This statement is quite true both to the countries of Eastern Europe, which continue to replace the old Soviet weapons with military equipment, produced by enterprises of NATO states, and to Russia. After long years of a certain stagnation, it began research and development work on the process of state and military testing of new weapons and launching them into mass production. Everyone could see the first samples of this military vehicle at the Victory Parade 9 of May in Moscow on Red Square. This is the new medium tank T-14 on the basis of the same unified tracked platform “Armata”, the new infantry fighting vehicle and the new armored personnel carrier on the same platform, the unified tracked infantry fighting vehicles and armored personnel carriers “Kurganets-25”, wheeled armored personnel carrier “Boomerang”, tracked armored personnel carriers paratroopers "Shell", off-road trucks and armor protection "Typhoon", strategic mobile missile system RS-24 "Yars" and other machines, airplanes and helicopters. All of this technology, the authors of the SIPRI report are right, began to be developed at the end of the first decade of this century, and only now is the time for its deployment to the troops, and hence the increase in the cost of its purchase. That has nothing to do with the civil war in Ukraine.
Nevertheless, the Ukrainian crisis, which led to the fratricidal war in the south-east of this country and in which many Western countries are somehow involved and, in its own way, of course, Russia, could not but lead to an increase in military spending - as direct, and indirect, even indirect.
FOCUS ON UKRAINIAN CRISIS
Politicians and generals of NATO countries accuse Russia that it is leading a so-called hybrid war in Ukraine. This means that in order to achieve its goals in this war (in their opinion, not to allow Kiev to become a member of the North Atlantic Alliance and the European Union, to keep Independence Square in the sphere of influence of Moscow with all the ensuing consequences), it uses all possible political, diplomatic, economic, financial , military, informational, psychological and special methods.
We will not argue now who and against whom leads a hybrid war. Moscow against Kiev, Brussels and Washington, or the whole "trinity" against Moscow. The author of this material is deeply convinced that the policy and program of the Eastern Partnership, developed by the European Union with the support and participation of the United States with an emphasis on Ukraine, the Maidan, on which they were soloists, which were fueled by leading politicians from Washington, Berlin, Warsaw and Vilnius, were supported by the Nazis from Right Sector "and their nominees Turchinov, Yatsenyuk and Poroshenko, who sent troops to subdue the recalcitrant Donbass, all this was the result of a hybrid war that the West organized only to tear the Independent Square from Russia squeeze out the Russian Black Sea Fleet from the Crimea and Sevastopol and take its place on the peninsula, in the underbelly of the Russian Federation, with its military bases. But now is not about that.
It’s just that, in the opinion of a military journalist, it’s impossible to consider or, more precisely, it’s not entirely correct to consider the expenses for the armed forces of a European, and not only European, country belonging to the Alliance or having nothing to do with it, only by the official budget expenses. and on open sources in the media. Are informational and psychological campaigns aimed at demonizing the Russian leadership and the Russian armed forces, allegedly waving a nuclear club in front of European citizens, not part of this hybrid war? Should the costs of this campaign be included in defense expenditures or not? Or do they pass through another department - not a military one, but a propaganda one? But there are no official ministries of information and propaganda in most Western countries, and work in this direction is underway. Especially against our country. Yes, what!
Do we need to include in these expenses sanctions that Washington declared against Moscow, and under its pressure - the EU countries and Kiev, which to some extent affected the production of Russian military products? Not only did they haunt themselves to the states themselves and their defense enterprises, which actively cooperated with the Russian Ministry of Defense, deprived them of their legitimate earnings, such as, for example, several leading German companies, including Rheinmetall, or DCNS, which built in France Nazera for Russia, two helicopter carriers, and now will be forced to return her more than a billion euros. In addition, Moscow’s retaliatory sanctions against those EU countries that short-sightedly obeyed Washington’s dictate led to the loss of local producers of meat, dairy and agricultural products.
ACCOUNTS FOR HYBRID OPERATIONS
And one more question. And how much does the last year’s September summit of the North Atlantic Alliance in Wales, which officially announced a decisive opposition to Moscow on all fronts, cost the sum of the European Union and NATO countries - increased the number of exercises in the Baltic States, Poland, in the air over the Baltic Sea and in the sea areas of the same Baltic Sea? , The Norwegian and Barents Seas? The landing of American tankers in the port of Riga? Maneuvers of the armies of the Scandinavian countries in the Arctic with the participation of troops from the United States, Great Britain, the Netherlands, neutral Switzerland, Germany and France, which began on May 25 and last until June June 5? 115 airplanes of various purpose take part in them directly at the Russian air and sea borders, and 90 will be in the air at the same time, and 3600 people are personnel. Are these expenses included in diminishing / increasing military budgets of the countries studied by SIPRI or not? The question is what is called a backfill.
Do SIPRI scientists count the expenses of Western countries on conducting special operations and cyber operations? The fact that some Russian hackers broke into closed sites of the North Atlantic Alliance or the Pentagon, we occasionally read in the press. For some reason, there are no leaks about the fact that the same operations are carried out against our state and military organizations by experts from the US and NATO cyber war.
I guess we talk about them somehow not very well. And in Brussels and Washington argue that they are only protected. What to believe is impossible.
I am writing these notes not to blame the SIPRI researchers for the unreliability or incompleteness of the report that they recently published. I am convinced of their scientific integrity and objectivity, which in principle is inherent in the Stockholm Institute, its employees and partners. Simply, in the author’s opinion, modern military statistics, for all its usefulness and necessity for various purposes, are not always capable of reflecting in its entirety all the complex accounting of war and military expenses.
On the army and victory in battle, in competition, in political confrontation, there are a lot of complex and invisible to the ordinary eye factors. Only an integrated analysis of their interdependence and interaction can suggest a more or less objective answer to the problem posed. And even then not always. Apparently, because it is an area of more multi-valued calculations.
Information