Mohammad Jamil
TOTAL global military expenditure rose to $1917 billion in 2019, according to new data from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). The five largest spenders in 2019, which accounted for 62% of expenditure, were the United States, China, India, Russia and Saudi Arabia. This is the first time that two Asian states are among the top three military spenders. Military spending by the United States grew by 5.3% to a total of $732 billion in 2019 and accounted for 38% of global military spending. The increase in US spending in 2019 alone was equivalent to the entirety of Germany’s military expenditure for that year. In 2019 China and India were second and third largest military spenders in the world. China’s military expenditure with 5.1 % increase was $261 billion as compared with 2018, while India’s grew by 6.8% to $71.1 billion.
Siemon T Wezeman, SIPRI Senior Researcher said that India’s tension and rivalry with both Pakistan and China were among the major drivers for its increased military spending. In addition to China and India, Japan ($47.6 billion) and South Korea ($43.9 billion) were the next largest military spenders in Asia and Oceania. In Europe, Germany’s military spending rose by 10% in 2019, to $49.3 billion. This was the largest increase in spending among the top 15 military spenders in 2019. “The growth in German military spending can partly be explained by the perception of an increased threat from Russia, shared by many North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) member states,” says Diego Lopes da Silva, Researcher at SIPRI. However, military spending by France and the UK remained relatively stable. In 2019 Russia was the fourth-largest spender in the world and increased its military expenditure by 4.5% to $65.1 billion.
The moot question is why India has increased military spending when the economy has tanked, unemployment is rife, and more and more people are being pushed below the meanly defined line? Indian government figures released in May 2019 showed India’s economy grew at a much-lower-than-expected 5.8 % in the first three months of the year. That marked a sharp fall from the previous quarter, when growth clocked in at 6.6%. The unemployment rate rose to a multi-year high of 6.1 % in the 2017-18. The disappointing growth figures are reflective of the fact that India was no longer the world’s fastest-growing economy; in fact it had ceded that title to China, where the economy grew 6.4 % in the first quarter. The economic slowdown and high unemployment put pressure on Modi’s government and the central bank to stimulate the economy to boost growth and create more jobs.
Weaker consumer demand and slower growth in investment were blamed for the slowdown in India’s economy. Private investment grew 7.2% in the March quarter, down from 8.4% in the previous quarter, while investment growth slowed to 3.6% from 10.6%, the data showed. Economists said growth could slow further in the current quarter, the first of the fiscal year, citing weakening global growth as a factor leading to this decline, which turned out to be true. The slowdown led to pressures for fiscal stimulus, including tax cuts on fuel products to boost consumption, said N.R. Bhanumurthy, an economist at the National Institute of Public Finance and Policy, a Delhi-based think-tank. The Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation also revised its estimate for growth in the fiscal year ending March 31, 2019 forecasting it to be 6.8% from a previously projected 07%.
Several indicators – automobile sales, rail freight, petroleum product consumption, domestic air traffic and imports – indicate a slowdown in domestic consumption. The farm sector contracted 0.1% in the March quarter 2019 compared with 2.7% growth in the previous quarter, while manufacturing grew 3.1%, slower than 6.7% in the previous quarter. Corporate earnings hit a six-quarter low growth rate of 10.7% during January-March 2019 on weakening consumer sentiment and softening commodity prices, ICRA, the Indian arm of the ratings agency Moody’s, said citing a sample of more than 300 companies. Yet Indian Government continued with its buying spree of defence equipment. In December 2018, the then Navy Chief Admiral Sunil Lanba said India launched the third and most reliable part of the nuclear triad with the first deterrence patrol of nuclear submarine INS Arihant. But China is much ahead of India, as regards nuclear submarines.
Lanba had said the deployment of the INS Arihant has been one of the key highlights for the navy in 2018 that led to the expansion of India’s nuclear capability. Addressing the annual Navy Day press conference, he said the Navy is now planning to add around 56 warships and submarines; it is in the process of adding a new aircraft carrier. “The Navy is planning to add 56 warships and submarines to increase its capacity. It will be in addition to 32 warships under construction, he said. In January 2020, Israel Aerospace Industries and India’s Bharat Electronics Limited signed a memorandum of understanding to establish a new centre for technical and maintenance support for India’s air defence systems. In addition, IAI on February 5 signed a strategic collaboration memorandum with Indian firms Hindustan Aeronautics Limited and Dynamitic Technologies Limited to work on UAVs that will be made in India. The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), a Swedish think tank, estimates that India alone accounted for 9.5% of global weapons imports for the five years through 2018, behind only Saudi Arabia. India’s defence budget for the fiscal year 2019-20 ending March stood at $70 billion, up 5.2% from a year earlier.
—The writer is a senior journalist based in Lahore.
