New aircraft carrier is no reflection of China’s military aggression, as a study of military spending makes clear

Dan Steinbock says a more careful study of global military spending paints a different picture than the headlines suggest

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Dan Steinbock

Published: 6:00pm, 1 May 2017Updated: 7:49pm, 1 May 2017

The Trump administration is planning a massive Reagan-style rearmament and is requesting US$54 billion for the next year – an almost 10 per cent increase in a single year. Illustration: Craig Stephens

When China recently launched its first domestically built aircraft carrier, The New York Times noted that it was being celebrated as “a milestone in President Xi Jinping’s drive to extend China’s military reach far beyond its shores”. When the first reports surfaced in early 2016, the Washington Post reported that a study had warned, “By 2030, the South China Sea will be ‘virtually a Chinese lake’.”

The US Navy commissioned its first aircraft carrier in 1922. Today, it has 19 of the 36 plying waters around the world. The same goes for overseas military bases. While China’s first overseas military base in Djibouti has been portrayed as a world threat, the US has almost 40 “named bases” around the world, military deployments in more than 150 countries, and over 300,000 of its personnel abroad.

Chinese military base in Djibouti necessary to protect key trade routes

What about military expenditure? The conventional narrative is that China has become assertive, while the West is ignoring its defence needs. This view is backed by the newly released report by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (Sipri), which suggests that, in the past decade, military spending in China and Russia has increased 118 per cent and 87 per cent respectively. America remains the greatest military spender, but its expenditure has fallen almost 5 per cent in the past decade.

Yet, the realities are more nuanced. After the end of the cold war, many observers expected a “peace premium” and a significant drop in military expenditure. In reality, defence spending increased from the mid-1990s to the early 2010s. Then, expenditure levelled off, due to stagnation in advanced economies and the fall of oil prices in oil-exporting countries, many of which are major military spenders.

A US soldier holds the national flag ahead of a handover ceremony at Leatherneck Camp in Lashkar Gah in the Afghan province of Helmand on Saturday. The US has almost 40 “named bases” around the world, military deployments in more than 150 countries, and over 300,000 of its personnel abroad. Photo: AFP

The new list of top 10 military spenders includes the US (US$611 billion), China (US$215 billion), Russia (US$69 billion), Saudi Arabia, India, the core EU economies, Japan and South Korea. Together, they account for three-quarters of the total. Yet, Washington spends more dollars per year on its military than the next seven biggest spenders combined.

There is a deep gap between current realities and perceptions of military spending