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Clearly, each side is perfectly comfortable engaging in limited military action under the nuclear umbrella. We will measure our success not only by the battles we win, but also by the wars we end. Right now, all eyes are on Washington. But who's actually watching Europe at the moment?
to the Middle East now and more than 50,000 people have been killed in the Gaza Strip since the war began. That's according to the territory's Hamas-run health ministry.
I'm Venetia Rainey and this is Battle Lines. It's Monday, 28th of April, 2025. Today sees Canadians go to the polls in a closely watched election that's been turned inside out by Donald Trump's aggressive stance towards his northern neighbour. Instead of covering that today, we'll be covering the results and their significance in a special episode this Friday. We'll be looking at Trump's first 100 days in power and Roland and I will be joined by our new US editor, Rob Crilley, who's currently in Canada. So don't miss that.
Also part of that discussion will, of course, be the ever tantalising prospect of a peace deal in Ukraine.
If you can't wait that long and you want a full analysis of what's going on in that jaw-dropping picture of Trump and Zelensky meeting on the sidelines of the Pope's funeral in the Vatican, do tune in to our sister podcast, Ukraine The Latest. Wherever you look, we're living in a world of increasing conflict and tensions. And that's certainly the conclusion of the highly respected Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, SIPRI. In its new annual report on global military expenditure, it found an unprecedented rise in spending, the steepest since the end of the Cold War.
Later on, I'll be speaking to one of the researchers behind the report about who the biggest spenders are and what's driving the increase. At fifth place, spending just over $86 billion on its military in 2024, is India. And worryingly, that country is currently on the cusp of war with long-time foe and neighbour, Pakistan. Tensions between the two nuclear states have reached a fever pitch in the wake of a brutal attack last week that killed 25 Indian tourists and a local guide in the disputed region of
Kashmir. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has accused the Pakistani government of being behind the attack and he's taken a number of aggressive measures against Islamabad, including expelling diplomats and revoking a decades-old water-sharing agreement. Indian soldiers have since arrested more than 1,500 Kashmiris and they've been exchanging fire with Pakistani troops for several days at the dividing border in Kashmir known as the Line of Control.
Now, it's not the first time that tensions over Kashmir have boiled over, but Modi is being urged to go further than before with his military response. And the consensus seems to be that it's when, not if. To help explain why this is such a sensitive issue and what might happen next, I'm joined by Michael Kugelman, a South Asia analyst.
Michael, can you start by walking us through exactly what happened last week to spark this row? So yes, last week Indian tourists, or should I say mostly Indian tourists along with one Nepalese tourist, were targeted by gunmen. They were
killed execution style. According to witnesses, they were singled out for their religion, for being Hindus. And one of the things that stood out about this attack was the sheer brutality. There is a legacy of violence and militancy in Kashmir, but it's very rare for civilians to be targeted, including tourists in this case. And this is actually the most deadly attack on civilians in
in India since the 2008 Mumbai terrorist attack. So it was just an attack that has really shocked India and there's understandably a range of emotions that have been playing out since then. What do we know about the armed group believed to be behind the attack? And is there any truth to India's claim that Pakistan have been funding them? This is India's position and this is how India has justified its decision to blame Pakistan for this attack.
In truth, there's relatively little that's known about this group. It is a new group that emerged since India decided in 2019 to revoke the special autonomous status of India-administered Kashmir. India has claimed that it is linked to a Pakistani terror group, Lashkar-e-Taiba. It's described as a proxy for Lashkar-e-Taiba. Of course, we all know, or most of us know, LAT. This is the group that was behind the Mumbai terrorist attacks.
However, Pakistan has indicated that there's no connection, that this group has no connection to L.E.T., no connection to Pakistan. I think that those of us that are trying to figure out what's going on here are really still trying to get a better sense as to what this group is all about. And if you look at the last serious crisis between India and Pakistan, one that led to a brief military exchange, 2019, in that case, a very known prominent group, Jaish-e-Mohammed,
claim responsibility. So this is different because it's a group that's very little known that had claimed responsibility. And then, now this is an important data point to put out there, the other day, this group, the Resistance Front of Kashmir, it denied responsibility. And it basically said that it was being framed. So it claimed responsibility and then denied responsibility? Yeah.
It said that it never claimed responsibility and that the whole thing was essentially fake. It blamed India for this. So clearly a lot of misinformation swirling around. I heard Pakistan's defense minister speaking on Sky News and claiming that this was a false flag attack by India. Is that Pakistan's official position? How have they explained this attack?
Well, I mean, it seems to be. And if you look at a statement that Pakistan issued soon after the attack, it indirectly accused India of staging the attack itself by saying that India had exploited an incident and stage managed it. So that's, I mean, I do know that there are many in Pakistan that believe that India stages as a false flag. This is an accusation that Pakistanis have made against India for these types of things in the
pass as well. So in that sense, it's not a surprise that that accusation would be put out there. On top of it being obviously a brutal massacre, and you allude to some of the elements there that people were being checked for their religion. India has alleged that some of the victims had their trousers pulled down. I don't know how much veracity there is to those allegations. But the fact that all of this happened in Kashmir obviously adds further fuel to the fire. Can you just explain for our listeners the historical background to the sensitivity around this region?
Yeah, it's a very rest of region in the sense that it has been a disputed region since the independence of India and Pakistan. Each side administers part of it, though each side claims all of it. And it has led to multiple wars between the two countries. It's not the only reason why the relationship between India and Pakistan is so fraught, though it's a major one. And
you know, you hear very frequently claims made by each side that essentially are threatening to take back the parts of Kashmir that they don't control. And, you know, it is notable many in India pointed out that just a few days before this attack, the army chief in Pakistan, and of course, the army chief of Pakistan is the most powerful figure in Pakistan. He gave a speech in which he describes Kashmir as Pakistan's jugular vein. This is something that every
Pakistani leader has said at one point or the other, going back to Pakistan's independence leader, Jinnah. And this is very provocative language as seen from India. But at the same time, India has often hinted, sometimes not quite as overtly, about its desire to take back Pakistan-administered Kashmir, which Pakistan regards as Azad Kashmir. You mentioned that it dates all the way back to Pakistan's independence. And I just want to make that clear to our listeners that
This region has been disputed ever since the partition of India and Pakistan, right?
Yes, absolutely. That's correct. So it's a longstanding dispute that really is interwoven with the founding narratives of Pakistan and India going back to partition, which we all know was an incredibly traumatic, deadly event. And you also said that there have been wars over this region before. In 2016 and 2019, there were attacks in both those years, and India responded with airstrikes, first at the border and then further into Pakistan. How significant were those escalations? Yeah.
You know, the formal, the hot wars fought between India and Pakistan have been before each country became, uh, formally a nuclear state. Uh,
And that was in the late 1990s. Since then, there have continued to be some conflicts, but they've been much more limited in that sense that each size nuclear weapons has thankfully served as a deterrent. There still have been some incidents. The two you mentioned, the 2016 crisis and 2019 were triggered by attacks in India and India's retaliations.
They were serious in the sense that these are nuclear rivals, right? I think that if these were two countries that were not nuclear armed, you know, a limited military conflict, sure, it's worrisome, but, you know, it wouldn't have triggered the type of alarm that these have because of the fact that they both have nuclear weapons. So both of these cases, 2016, 2019, they were very brief. They wrapped up fairly soon. The 2019 one,
was, I think, for many of us, the most serious that we've seen of these types of incidents after each country became a nuclear state, just because you had some unprecedented developments. So, you know, there was an attack in India, Minister Kashmir, that killed more than 40 Indian troops. India retaliated by carrying out airstrikes that went across the line of control, which is the first time that India had targeted Pakistani territory outside of the disputed area since 1971.
And that then prompted Pakistan to retaliate. You had a dogfight between the aircraft of both countries and it eventually wrapped up. But a lot of people were very concerned at that point.
In this case, we'll see. I mean, we could talk about possibilities. But yeah, again, keeping in mind that these are both nuclear-armed countries and have been at loggerheads since 1947, you can understand why one would be so concerned, even if you're only seeing limited forms of military action take place. Clearly, each side is perfectly comfortable engaging in limited military action under the nuclear umbrella.
I want to come on to that threat of the nuclear conflict and, as you say, how India might respond this time around in a second. But just to go back a bit, so since that 2019 attack, India has orchestrated a massive crackdown on Kashmiris, trying to quell secessionist sentiments and create what it considers a peaceful, neutralised, new Kashmir. And that's in air quotes. Do you think this latest attack is a sign that Modi's policy has failed?
Yes, and I think that was the very intent, or at least one of the motivations, of those that were behind this attack. It's true that in 2019, India...
essentially removed the special autonomous status of Kashmir, which in some ways was symbolic because Kashmir didn't really enjoy significant amounts of freedom before that, but it still had this special autonomous status that was removed and that was followed by significant levels of clampdowns in Kashmir. It's always been a highly securitized region, one of the most
highly militarized in the world, in fact, for many years. But you had significant levels of clampdown soon after India made that move. However, it is true that since 2019, Kashmir has been relatively, and I emphasize the word relatively, relatively stable. You have not seen high levels of violence and high levels of volatility as you have in the past. And so that's been very important for India as it has used that to project this narrative that Kashmir has been normalized and that normalcy is restored. And the way
India's government defines normalcy as essentially stability, peace, prosperity, and you had started to see surges of tourism, high levels of tourists, most of them from India, going to the region. And that's important because that's a big part of Kashmir's economy, for the regional economy, that's very important.
And yet what you have here, right? These were not just civilians that were targeted last week. They were tourists. So clearly those behind this attack wanted to puncture this narrative and
promoted by the Indian state that normalcy has been restored in Kashmir. And if you have so many tourists going to Kashmir, that suggests they feel comfortable going there. And India's government can point to that, that it's been successful. And the other thing I'd point out here is the timing. The attack happened right as the height of the tourist season was beginning. The weather started to warm up. The weather is getting nicer. This is the time of year when you have more people
more tourists coming to the region. So I think in that sense, it really is a big blow to the tourism industry and by extension, a blow to this notion that normalcy has been restored to Kashmir. Before we come on to the hypotheticals of how India might respond, one of the ways that they have responded already is by revoking a critical water sharing treaty over the Indus River. And that's provoked a
furious response from Pakistan. Prime Minister Shabazz Sharif said that any attempt to cut Pakistan's water share would be interpreted as an act of war. The chairman of the Pakistan People's Party, Bilal Wal Bhutto Zidari, said that either water will flow into this river or their blood. So very hostile rhetoric. How significant is that move by India? In the immediate term, it's a big deal, but only symbolically. And I say that because this has never happened before.
India has in the past, particularly in 2016, signaled that it might be willing to pull out of the treaty and suspend it, but it had not followed through. The fact that it has is a big blow because it's never happened before.
However, amid all this tough talk and savor rattling, there's been some rhetoric on social media that Pakistan is going to run dry, that water is going to stop flowing into Pakistan. That's not true. That's not the way it works. For that to actually happen, India would need to
do a number of things, including construct new water infrastructure that currently doesn't exist, such as dams that could cut off the flow of water to Pakistan. However, the psychological blow is significant. And I think this is one reason that you had the prime minister say that India following up on this would be an act of war because Pakistan is a water insecure country.
It has been for many years because of, quite frankly, poor public policies that essentially incentivize people to waste water, but also more recently because of climate change effects. Pakistan is deeply vulnerable to climate change. So it's got a lot of water insecurity. Because of its geography, it's the lower riparian vis-a-vis India, which means that water flows downstream from India into Pakistan. And so Pakistan knows that if India is in a position where it no longer has to be held to the stipulations of the Indus Waters Treaty,
then it could be in a lot of trouble down the road. So this means that India can now build dams that stop water from flowing into Pakistan. India can store more water than it used to be allowed to by the Indus Waters Treaty. That could stop water from flowing into Pakistan. That could have very significant impacts for agriculture in Pakistan and more. You know, the water that flowed into Pakistan, the Indus and some of its tributaries,
you know, it accounts for a significant majority of Pakistan's water needs. So this is why I think over the longer term, this could be really significant. And, you know, many observers have described water as an existential threat to Pakistan down the road, not now, but later, because, you know, Pakistan could literally run out of water. And I think the fear is that this move by India could hasten that worst case outcome. The other other
point I'd make here, water has always been a very delicate issue, though one that has also been exploited, I would argue. Many in Pakistan believe that India has already been violating the Indus Waters Treaty in recent years, and that's contributed to Pakistan's poor water security.
There have even been terrorists, including members of Lashkar-e-Taiba, that in previous years have essentially used this water issue as a pretext to threaten attacks on Pakistan. So we'll see how that plays out in the coming months and years. More in the short term, we know that Modi is currently considering military options. Pakistan's defense minister, Khawaja Asif, told Sky News' Yalda Hakim that the Kashmir Rao could lead to all-out war with India. Let's hear a clip of that. It would be a major response.
If it's an all-out attack or something like that, then obviously there will be an all-out war. And that's what I wanted to get to. We're talking about two nuclear powers. Should the world be worried about this moment? Yes, I think so. The clash between two nuclear powers is always worrisome. How likely do you think all-out war is?
Well, fortunately, I know this has been a very, you know, a very somber discussion. I think it's unlikely that we'll have an all out war. I think we need to keep in mind that the Pakistani messaging on this front, you know, warning of, you know, of all out war and so on, that this is, I think, in part meant to attract global attention to this crisis in the hopes that there will be a country or countries that is willing to mediate and try to deescalate. I mean, we could talk about this. That has happened in the past, including U.S. mediation.
What is most likely is some form of Indian military response. It could take various forms, which we could go into if you'd like. But the nuclear realities will, I think, serve as a deterrent. I think that the fears of nuclear escalation are real.
But I think unlikely. So, you know, what happened in 2019, Indian staged airstrikes that it claimed targeted terrorists, even though Pakistan and many critics said that India actually missed and just bombed a few trees. I think that in this case, assuming India wants to stage military action, and I think it does in some form, it's going to be very careful. It would not want to be susceptible to that criticism that it missed because that made India look bad the last time around.
One of the main things it's doing is trying to figure out what is going on with those behind this group, who it thinks is behind this group. Do they have enablers? Do they have assets, infrastructure in Pakistan? Obviously, no.
If India carries out a military strike or any type of military action in Pakistan, the escalation risks go up. I mean, to this point, Indian security forces have been very active. They've been burning homes of what they claim are the families of the militants behind this in Kashmir.
They've been doing things like that, but nothing in Pakistan to this point. One of the scenarios that Pakistan fears is that India could try to stake some type of claim for Pakistan-administered Kashmir by staging limited military action there. To me, that seems a bit less likely because I think the focus here for India would be targeting the terrorists, trying to degrade the terrorists that they claim were behind this.
If India does use military action, I suspect that Pakistan would retaliate. It would not look weak. And that could also take various forms. But I don't think that we would need to – I don't think we would be in a position where you have to worry about an all-out war. One reason for that –
I do think there would be international mediation, if not immediately, but if India were to launch a strike, some type of strike, if Pakistan were to retaliate, I think at that point you'd have actors intervene. There is a precedent of the US intervening in the past in these crises, sometimes successfully.
But I think these days we would also look to most likely some of the Arab gold factors, particularly the Saudis and the Qataris. These are countries that have very good relations with both Pakistan and India. Qatar has emerged as a mediator extraordinaire over the last few years. It's done a lot of that. It's also mediated between India and Pakistan.
I think that while we can't count on mediation necessarily right now, and quite frankly, messaging from top US officials suggests that, you know, they may just stay back and support any type of retaliation India chooses to undertake, viewing it as a necessary counterterrorism step. But if things do heat up,
That's when I think that we could see the mediation. One other point I'd make is that Modi has, the Indian prime minister has, or he likes to be projected as a peaceful type. And one thing that he's been doing ever since the Russian invasion of Ukraine
is to say to everyone that'll listen, including at one point Putin at a regional conference, that this is not an era of war. India supports diplomacy, dialogue, so on and so forth. While Modi, I think, would certainly want to act tough and hit back at Pakistan, as India thinks Pakistan is behind this,
I don't think that he would want to go so far that, you know, he starts to be viewed as a warmonger or anything like that by an international community that is largely sided with India so far in this crisis. Yeah. And you mentioned the role of the US. Last week, Trump said that he stands with India against terrorism. But when he was asked about the Kashmir attack on Air Force One, he was a little bit more dismissive. Let's hear a clip of that. Close to India and very close to Pakistan, as you know. And
They've had that fight for a thousand years in Kashmir. Kashmir's been going on for a thousand years, probably longer than that. It was a bad one yesterday, that's a bad one. But they're gonna figure it out one way or the other. I'm sure that this, I know both leaders, this great tension between Pakistan and India.
He played down the tensions and said Pakistan and India would work it out. You've written a really interesting piece about how it would get quite complicated for the US if a conflict did erupt because the US would struggle to balance the competing interests of these two countries. Can you explain that a bit more?
Yeah. So, I mean, we've seen that the U.S. has been in solidarity with India, and I think that it sees eye to eye with India when it comes to terrorist threats. So given what happened last Tuesday, I think that the U.S. would very much be behind an Indian decision to retaliate. And, you know, the U.S. and India have a very strong relationship, which is driven in part by shared views on counterterrorism. That's been the case for quite some time. And
Before the China factor emerged as a key reason why the US and India are working together so much, it was issues of counterterrorism.
The US-India relationship is strong, but the US also has a, it has, I mean, in theory, or formally, it has an alliance with Pakistan. It's the only US ally in South Asia. It's actually a fairly fragile relationship, but we have seen the Trump administration during its early time in power, this time around, signaling a desire to work with Pakistan on certain things, particularly cooperation on tracking down terrorists in Pakistan that have threatened or targeted Americans.
The U.S. may not want to put itself in a position where it's essentially signaling carte blanche to India for doing whatever it would want to do in Pakistan, so to speak. But beyond that, there's the broader issue, which I think is the biggest problem.
consideration when it comes to how the US look at this, US interests would not be served by an India Pakistan war. And that's always been the case. And this is the main reason why we've seen US mediation in some of these disputes before. So that's what I that's what I meant. And thanks for for mentioning the piece. It was in the Times of India. So I think on one hand,
Trump and others in the administration will want to, you know, signal all support that they can to India to show solidarity and so on. But, you know, if things heat up and if we have an Indian retaliation, especially if there's a Pakistani counter retaliation, that's when I think the administration might feel that it wants to try to step in in some way. But, you know, that said, there's a lot going on in the world now. And, you know, the administration is focused on so many things abroad and at home that
It's been trying to – I mean Trump says he wants to help end the wars in Gaza and Ukraine. One might think he would want to try to help end a brewing conflict in the subcontinent though clearly as we could all agree, the stakes are so high and it would be such an incredibly complex and challenging negotiation between India and Pakistan.
And given the stakes in particular, that these are two countries with nuclear weapons. So that's why I think that US mediation would be great. I think that would be a good thing. But I think it would be great if other countries could step in too, including the ones we mentioned before. And just finally, you mentioned China. In terms of the broader geopolitical picture, what role are they playing here? What's their attitude to this conflict?
Well, you know, it's interesting that very soon after the attack last week, the Chinese ambassador in India posted an X essentially condemning the attack. And that's significant given that, you know, China is India's rival, longtime strategic competitor.
But then just the other day, you had a very different message from Beijing in which it essentially said that it supports Pakistan, sort of reasserting friendship, partnership. China and Pakistan have a very deep alliance. China has been an arms supplier to Pakistan for many years. What's also interesting here, though, is that in recent months, we have seen very slowly and quietly, but nonetheless consistently, efforts on the part of India and China to forge some type of rapprochement.
They signed a border deal. They've got a disputed border as well, a much larger one than the India-Pakistan one. They signed a border deal last year and they resumed direct flights earlier this year. They're trying to patch things up, even if modestly, which indeed does raise some questions as to how China sees this playing out. China, like the US and so many other countries, does not want to see a war. China has significant numbers of investments and assets and interest in Pakistan and
And, you know, as I said before, it's trying to ease its tensions with India, which is, in my view, mainly driven by a desire to engage more commercially with India and deploy more investment capital there. So it doesn't want a war. You know, some have suggested that China could be a mediator. I don't know about that. I think that the trust that India has in China is not
there where it would see China as a viable mediator given its deep partnership with Pakistan. But I think that Beijing could be one of those sort of very strategic actors that could be there and perhaps could be utilized in some way, so to speak, diplomatically. But I don't know if it
in the sense of a formal mediator, it may be better for it to take a backseat and let the Saudis, the Qataris, and perhaps the Americans take care of that. Great. Thank you so much for joining us. That's Michael Kugelman, a South Asia analyst. Coming up after the break, why is the world rearming at a record rate?
Welcome back.
Global military spending has risen by nearly 10%, an unprecedented increase that's the steepest since the end of the Cold War. That's according to a new report out today by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, or SIPRI for short. According to the report, defence spending now accounts for an average of 2.5% of global GDP.
The five biggest spenders in the world are the US, which shelled out a whopping £997 billion on defence in 2024, followed by China with an estimated £314 billion, and then Russia, Germany, and as we've heard, India.
To dig further into the results, I'm joined by Diego Lopez de Silva, Senior Researcher on Military Expenditure and Arms Production at CIPRI. Welcome to Battlelands, Diego. Can you start by talking us through the report's main conclusions? I guess the main one would be that we had the biggest increase in military spending since at least the end of the Cold War.
And I think that is quite a reflection of the worsening security conditions around the world. Of course, we talk more about the war in Ukraine, the war in Gaza, but at this point, we have dozens of ongoing armed conflicts around the world. We have multiple sources of tensions, of threat perceptions. So it's really something that at this point is widespread. Of course, beyond the level we had
more than 100 countries increasing their military spending in 2024. So that really shows you that it's not just something taking place in one region or for a few countries. It's really widespread. We'll dig into all of those results in a bit more detail, but let's just start with the top five countries.
US, China, Russia, Germany, and India. Just beginning with those top two, US and China, they account for half of the world's military expenditure. What can you tell us about how they're spending compared in 2024? Well, the US still remains by far the largest spender. If you really go through the numbers, you're going to see that they're really thinking about
geopolitical competition with China. You're thinking about nuclear modernization. They're thinking about missile defeat.
So they're really investing in those areas. But it really has to do with how they perceive the world at this moment. You can see that a part of it is, of course, and this partly explains the increases in the past few years, it has to do with the aid to Ukraine. If you look at the documents and you compare it to the budgets, you're going to see that this is very much targeted, you know, as a reference to China and to Russia as well. For China, it's a really interesting point.
point in our data is that China has been increasing its military spending without interruptions for the past 30 years. So you see that it's really a long-term commitment to military modernization across domains. So you see that this is very much on par with its economic growth because it's a share of GDP has maintained relatively the same throughout the years. But you see that if you plot it, you're going to see a very stable increase
over the years. And what's China mainly spending on? What's driving this military expenditure rise? Well, it's really across domains. What they really want is really to narrow the gap between, as they say, their military capabilities and the world's leading military capabilities.
So they're going to have across domains investments in their military. So it's going to be something wide. And how much transparency is there around the data for you guys to gather stuff like this? I know that's something that you noted on Russia's military expenditure that you note it's probably a lot higher in reality. Is that true for someone like China, maybe even the US as well? Yeah, so for a few countries, we have to adapt. So for instance, for China, our own estimates
is higher than the estimate you would get from the Chinese government. And then that's because according to our definitions, we would add things that are not under the Ministry of Defense from other parts of the budget. But we understand that these are for a military purpose. So we add them. For a few countries, we deduct them because we see that maybe this police force that is under the Ministry of Defense does not perform any military activity. So we would deduct.
But this would vary a lot in terms of transparency. Sometimes you would find an aggregate number for the Ministry of Defense. Sometimes you're going to find a budget with a lot of detail and disaggregation so you can have really insight into what the country is spending. But that varies a lot. But as you said, in the case of Russia, for instance, we've seen that
after the envision of creating 2022, transparency has really worsened for that. So more and more parts of the budget are going to sort of classified confidential. And we have some times to make estimates to try to understand that. Russia's spending is one of the biggest increases, 38% since 2023. What can you tell us about what we think that's going on primarily? Well, it has to do a lot with
fostering arms production, domestic arms production. It's of course, arms acquisition in that sense as well. So huge part of that money is going there. What I think is interesting to highlight also about Russia is that ever since the war started, there has been this expectation that eventually such a high military spending would really hinder Russia's economic performance.
And every year we see those analysis kind of appearing. And so far, this hasn't been the case. If you look at debt levels, if you look at inflation, they are at, so to speak, at acceptable levels still.
If you compare that with Ukraine, you're going to see that Ukraine spends more than 30% of its GDP in its military. You're going to see that all of its tax revenues are going to the military. And of course, the other parts of the budget are also funded through aid. And of course, for 2024, the increase was really just above 2%.
So the total for Russia would be, according to our estimate, $149 billion in 2024. And compared to Ukraine, Ukraine is around $65 billion. Of course, if you add military aid to Ukraine, and if you count that as Ukrainian military spending, this will...
boosted to 125 billion. That will make it equivalent to the fourth largest spender in the world. But of course, we add the figures for military aid to the donor country. So everything that was military aid,
from the US to Ukraine, we put that under the number four for the US. But if you were to do the opposite, this would make Ukraine with 125 billion military spending. Yeah. And just to spell those out to our listeners again, Russia spending increased 38% since 2023 and Ukraine's 2%. That
That is mirrored in a lot of the other results of countries that have seen big rises in expenditure in Europe, Poland, Netherlands, Sweden, Romania, very high, Czechia, all in the 30s or higher. But there's a few other results that I want to pick out for our listeners. One is Israel, which has seen a 65% increase since 2023.
There's an obvious reason for what's driving that, the Gaza war. Can you dig into the details of that a bit more for us? Yeah, for sure. So we can see a really big increase for Israel, of course, since the war started. Immediately after the October attacks, even in that year, the increase was enough to really boost the estimates for the whole year. So now with the continuation of that, we see that the increase has continued at a very large pace. What is interesting to point out is that
Although the war has spread, you know, if you look at Lebanon, of course, although you can see that the word has spread and tensions with Iran, attacks between Iran and Israel, you see that most of the increases, of course, or really the bulk of it is really Israel. We're not seeing widespread increases across the region in the Middle East.
We're seeing, of course, in Lebanon and Israel, but not in the other countries yet. And I think that's something that provides some sort of nuance to discussions about a regional war in the Middle East. So looking at that data, I guess that provides some sort of interesting nuance to that narrative. Yeah. And your report highlights one country that's actually seen its defense spending fall in contrast to the global trend, Iran, right?
Why is that? That's really inflation. In nominal values, Iran has increased its military spending. But of course, this has to do with just the very dire economic situation that Iran finds itself in, partly due, of course, to the sanctions, partly due to domestic issues as well. But just if you think about oil and the oil revenues and the impact that the sanctions may have on that, that's
that takes a big toll already of Iranian economic performance. If you think about if you don't really sell much oil, of course, you're going to have less foreign reserves that may affect not only your deficit to pay for state activities, but also, of course, how strong your own currency is. And when you add up the need to print more money to cover the deficit because you don't have a lot of oil export revenues,
that affects inflation, then that will affect military spending in real terms. So really, the economic situation of Iran really constrain its military spending by a lot. There's one more result that I want to pick out, and that's Mexico, which saw a 39% increase in military spending since 2023. What's behind that? In 2024, that was an exceptional year, I would say, because for Mexico, the Navy was involved in some infrastructure projects.
In Mexico, the military has some role to perform at least nominally in the development of the country, in the economic development of the country. And of course, they will be involved in some infrastructure projects sometimes. And in 2024, there was quite an investment in that. But over the past few years, and even for 2024, what has really boosted Mexico's military spending was the use of
not the military itself, but of a militarized police force,
that is de facto military, to fight organized crime. And that's the National Guard. It was created in 2019. In 2024, it was under the formerly the Ministry of Defense and the Armed Forces. But ever since its creation, we have added that to military spending, to Mexico's military spending, because the whole personnel, the training, the weaponry, the engagement, the deployment was really military in nature. So we always added that to Mexico's military spending.
And ever since its creation, the budget was only growing and growing. And that really had an effect since 2020. Just finally, is there anything that we should note about the UK? More generally, not only about the UK, but just for European countries.
We're seeing a very big increase, 17% in 2024. If I'm not mistaken, for over the past 10 years, it was over 80% an increase. So you see, I think, in Europe, a really shift in perception.
about what is European security. And you see that countries are beginning to invest more and more, and they're making pledges to continue to increase their military spending. I think there is some sort of revision of what the behavior was in the 1990s with the declining military spending, the whole idea of the peace dividends, even the response after 2014, after the annexation of Crimea, you would not see a very big increase in European military spending after that.
Now, I think there is a widespread perception that their military capabilities were, to a certain extent, neglected, and they need to make up for it now. The bulk of the increase in 2024 was really because of the increases in Europe. There are the biggest economies, the biggest spenders as well. Many of them are there. You'll see the big impact that the war in Ukraine had.
had in just their perception. And I think this somehow says something about the coming years as well. I think because of the shift in perception and the increases in all the, let's say, the institutional arrangements that are being made to, you know,
continue with the increases. You see Germany with a special fund. You see Poland also creating off-budget mechanisms for that. You see the UK and the EU making defense collaboration pacts and agreements. You see that all things are kind of taking shape and creating momentum in
for the coming years to... for military spending to keep increasing. So it's always hard, of course, to make those predictions. But as we see now, we see that the increases are really gaining momentum. And it's safe to assume that at least for the coming years, for the immediate coming years, even if the war...
And Ukraine right now stops, they reach an agreement, a ceasefire. It's very likely that they will continue to increase their military spending. How sustainable do you think these rises are for these economies? That's a really good question. The increases are quite substantial. The immediate question is how they're going to fund this.
If you look at, for instance, at Germany, they created a special fund. It's $100 billion, but it's time bound. So eventually they're either going to run out of money or they're going to reach the deadline. How are they going to keep up after that?
It's going to be a substantial amount of money that they need to find it somewhere. So there are a few possible options for those countries to do that that will affect the sustainability of those increases. They may choose to increase their debt, for instance. This may have effects on macroeconomic stability. They may choose to print more money, which can affect inflation. They may choose to increase taxation, and that in and of itself will have consequences
heterogeneous consequences if you have more progressive taxation you can have one sort of consequence more aggressive taxation you can have consequences on income inequality as well or you can just cut elsewhere you can cut health or or education or international aid such as in the case of uk so we expect that the consequences and the sustainability of those increases will be different
for each country according to how they choose to increase their military spending and to fund it. Of course, matters of political coalitions also affect that quite as well, elections. So that can be very heterogeneous. What it's safe to say at the moment is that the consequences of those increases are
will be felt well beyond the military domain. We're going to talk about economic growth. We're going to talk about inflation, of course. We're going to talk about what other areas will be affected by cuts, just the international standing of countries if they choose to cut some sort of overseas financing. So we're looking at something that will have
wide-ranging impacts, not only within the military domain. What does the Institute feel are the sort of longer-term implications of this rise in military spending? I know you mentioned the sort of knock-on impact on economies and our shifting mindsets, but I guess I'm thinking in terms of conflict. Do you feel that we're entering another period of hot war? I think we're entering a period where countries conceive the possibility of wars as something more likely.
In the 90s, we had this idea of, although, of course, there were many other wars happening. This is a very much European narrative that we have a world now of cooperation wars are behind us. If you look at the 1990s, there are so many civil wars and also countries against countries as well. But still, there was this perception that these type of power politics was behind the
And this type of geopolitical thinking was behind. And if we can reach a peaceful resolution of disputes through multilateralism, through institutions, of course, the answer, if that is the case or not nowadays, I'm not going to be the one to give. But I think that countries are beginning to formulate a position about it.
Even if they still believe in them, they're being more cautious about just relying on international institutions for that. And it's really infectious, so to speak. If one country increases its military spending, the other one will feel, well, it's a very fundamental thing in international politics. It's just that you may increase your military spending or military capabilities because you want to defend yourself with good intentions. But I happen to know if that is the case or not.
So just to be safe, I'll also do it. I'll also increase it. And that creates a sort of wave of responses. And that's pretty much what we see in 2024. We see over 100 countries doing that. And once this starts, it's very hard to reverse back to what it was before. So I think in that sense, this is where we are right now. I think countries are shifting dramatically.
their perceptions about how much they can get through cooperation, I would say. Great. Thank you so much. That's Diego Lopez de Silva from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. That's all for today's episode. I'll be back again on Friday with a special edition looking at Trump's 100 days in power and his impact on the world and global security. Until then, goodbye.
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