Friday, March 29

The futility of increasing military spending

Making hot political decisions is always dangerous and you can make a big mistake. If it is also a structural issue, it can be irreversible and difficult to rectify. This seems to me to be what is happening in some European countries, such as Spain, which have decided to increase their military spending, at least to 2% of GDP. According to official NATO data, in 2021 there were 10 countries of the Organization that already had spending above 2%, and 19 below. According to NATO’s way of calculating, because in reality much more is spent than what is said in the statistics, Spain spent 1.02% of GDP in that year, with 12,208 million euros. If you want to raise it to 2%, it would mean an expense of 24,000 million euros. What does it mean, at this time of so many social needs in Spain, to increase annual military spending by 12,000 million more than what we already spend? Are we aware of what could be done with that money? Is it really essential?

I think not, both in Spain and in other countries. Russia has no intention of invading us, nor most of the countries in Europe either. The Baltic countries, which are the most frightened, already spend more than 2%. The questions, then, are: What supplementary and positive contribution would it be to increase this budget? Who would benefit? Would we perhaps be safer than now? Would it help Ukraine and the other countries around Russia? What would we spend so much money on? To buy more weapons? What type? To do what? To defend ourselves from whom?

These questions are not normally asked when Ministry of Defense budgets are approved. There is no tradition of asking for explanations about the usefulness of buying so many tanks, planes, armored personnel carriers or whatever. It has never been done, and I’m afraid it won’t now. It has always been done out of inertia, to satisfy the different bodies of the armed forces, or to keep the unions of the companies that are dedicated to building war material happy, whether for Spain or for export to other countries. Remember the pressure of the workers of the Spanish naval industry, not so long ago, not to stop the manufacture of ships for Arabia, which was in the middle of a war with Yemen. I am sorry to say it, but the unions have always been the main allies of the arms manufacturers and merchants, since they have never considered reconverting this industry, which would allow jobs to be maintained, but manufacturing products for civilian use.

There are decisions that are being considered lightly, so as not to look bad in the face of the Atlanticist euphoria of the moment, without thinking that they will not go back later. It is not about being an antimilitarist purist or a naive pacifist in the face of a cruel war, but about asking the pertinent questions and asking for explanations from those who must make political decisions, starting with the parties with parliamentary representation. If this handful of billions has to be spent, it must be explained very well and well-reasoned explanations given about this expense, not simply to show off and make a good impression on the allies. Since I was young, and I am talking about decades, I have been hearing the 2% of GDP refrain, that we Europeans do not spend enough on military matters, that all the weight falls on the United States, etc. They are empty speeches made by the organic intellectuals of cold war Atlanticism and strategists linked to the arms industry, not by serious analysts who have always proposed a security architecture in Europe that was inclusive and that required less military spending. As they have not been heeded at the time, we now find ourselves with dead ends. Therefore, and although we cannot stop this war immediately, let us not bless or simply accept some decisions that will end up bringing us more insecurity and conflict in the future, even if they are disguised as solidarity towards the peoples who are suffering.



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