The Biggest Military Budgets As A Share Of GDP

by 

Niall McCarthy,

Apr 28, 2020

https://www.statista.com/chart/3591/the-biggest-military-budgets-as-a-percentage-of-gdp/

In 2019, total global military expenditure rose 3.6 percent to $1.9 trillion, according to new data from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). It has reached its highest level (inflation-adjusted) since 1988 as well as being 7.2 percent higher than in 2010. U.S. military spending grew for the second year in succession after seven years of consecutive decline. Total U.S. spending last year was $732 billion, nearly as much as the next 10 spenders combined.

Despite increasing its defense budget for the 25th year in succession, China came a distant second for military spending last year with an estimated $261 billion - 85 percent higher than its expenditure in 2010. India ($71.1 billion) and Russia ($65.1 billion) followed while Saudi Arabia ($61.9 billion) experienced a 16 percent decline in its military spending, placing it fifth in last year's spending table. When it comes to military budgets as a share of GDP, however, the situation is very different indeed.

Despite its decrease in spending, the military still accounted for 8 percent of Saudi Arabia's GDP in 2019, the highest share out of the top-15 spenders in SIPRI's analysis. By contrast, the $732 billion spent by Washington "only" accounted for 3.4 percent of U.S. GDP. Elsewhere, Russia's increases in spending on its armed forces pushed its share to 3.9 percent while Germany's was 1.3 percent.

What Would Happen If Kim Jong Un Died?

Rumors of his demise could be exaggerated, but the issue of succession is a critical one, especially for Trump.

APRIL 22, 2020

TED GALEN CARPENTER

https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/what-would-happen-if-kim-jong-un-died/

News reports supposedly based on the U.S. intelligence information that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un was “gravely ill” following surgery briefly created a flurry of speculation on Tuesday. Kim’s absence from public events in recent weeks, including an anniversary celebration marking the funeral of his late grandfather, the founder of the North Korean state, fueled these rumors. The speculation was tamped down a bit when the South Korean government stated that it had no evidence to corroborate reports that the 36-year-old head of the Kim dynasty was indeed close to death.

When asked at his daily COVID-19 press conference Tuesday, President Trump said he “didn’t know” about Kim’s current state, but “I wish him well.” As of Wednesday morning, the North Korean state media has remained silent on his whereabouts.

Despite the unknowns, the incident should generate greater discussion about the North Korean regime and Washington’s policy toward the country. The Kim family’s domination of North Korea’s political affairs for more than seven decades has caused experts to view the governmental system as a communist absolute monarchy. And like all such monarchies, the issue of succession is exceptionally important. When Kim’s grandfather, Kim Il-sung, died, there was some doubt as to whether the system would survive, even though his son, Kim Jong-il, had been the elder Kim’s deputy and heir apparent for years. On that occasion, the succession proved to be orderly and uneventful.

When Kim Jong-il died, speculation in the West was much greater than Kim Jong-un was very unlikely to hang on to power. At age 28 when he became the country’s supreme leader, he clearly lacked the experience, gravitas, and the reputation of his father, much less his grandfather—a prominent hero of the armed resistance against the Japanese occupation in World War II. The conventional wisdom was that the powerful North Korean military would either oust Kim Jong-un outright or use him as a figurehead. That did not happen. The youngest Kim proved to be even more ruthless than his predecessors in consolidating power.

This time, though, there appears to be a major potential power vacuum if Kim dies. His younger sister, Kim Yo-jong, is likely to be his successor, and she has achieved an increasingly high profile as his chief adviser over the past several years. Although she seemed to fall out of favor temporarily following the fading of the once-promising rapprochement with the United States (an indication that she was an advocate of that approach), she has recently returned to prominence in a top leadership position. 

But the obstacles to Kim Yo-jong’s ability to retain power would be even greater than they were for her brother when he became the country’s supreme leader. Not only is she very young, at 31, but there is a gender issue in heavily patriarchal Korean culture. Although she might have the same surprisingly ruthless and effective survival skills as her sibling, it is equally possible that the Kim monarchy will finally come to an end. 

There are several problems with Washington’s approach to relations with North Korea. Prior to the Trump administration, it would have been an overstatement to say the United States had a meaningful relationship of any sort with Pyongyang. U.S. policy consisted of trying to totally isolate the country diplomatically and economically, making demands that the government abandon its nuclear program, and hope that as extreme poverty persisted, the regime would ultimately collapse.

To his credit, Donald Trump at least opened a dialogue with Pyongyang. However, the new policy was extremely tenuous, since it was built on little more than a wary personal relationship between the president and Kim Jong-un. Worse, the United States still retained its utterly unrealistic demand that North Korea commits to complete denuclearization. For a variety of reasons, including the belief that a nuclear arsenal is the only reliable way to deter the United States from someday attempting to pursue a forcible regime-change strategy, as it did against Iraq, Libya, and other nonnuclear adversaries, Pyongyang is unlikely ever to capitulate to that demand. As a result, negotiations on the nuclear issue and other matters have gone nowhere for more than a year.

The United States should abandon its demand for denuclearization and work to normalize diplomatic and economic relations with North Korea. In exchange for a pullback of some North Korean forces from the Demilitarized Zone with South Korea, Washington should lift most sanctions and negotiate a treaty formally ending the Korean War. Equally important, the United States should recognize the North Korean government and establish formal diplomatic relations.

The latter step would be especially beneficial for long-term U.S. policy. Establishing an embassy in Pyongyang and consulates in other North Korean cities would be a bonanza for Washington’s intelligence capabilities. Currently, the United States is heavily dependent on South Korea for information about the North. Although that is not a terrible situation, it is not optimal either. No two countries, even close allies, have identical policy agendas and priorities. It would be beneficial for the United States to have its own robust intelligence on developments inside North Korea that could then be crosschecked with Seoul’s assessments.

No matter what truth there is to rumors about Kim Jong-un’s health, Washington should seek to expand its relationship with Pyongyang and put it on a less personal foundation. It’s nearly impossible to predict the future of the North Korean regime. Communist governments in North Korea and other countries have had a frustrating ability to retain power for a long time, despite their brutality and monumental economic incompetence. Indeed, U.S. experts during the 1990s and beyond confidently predicted the imminent collapse of the North Korean dictatorship. Clearly, those forecasts were erroneous.

However, as the demise of regimes in the Soviet bloc demonstrated, they also can unravel with shocking suddenness. Rather than pursuing a crystal ball approach to such matters, we should seek to be better informed and better prepared however the situation in Pyongyang evolves. That goal requires normalizing relations with North Korea.

Ted Galen Carpenter, a senior fellow in security studies at the Cato Institute and a contributing editor The American Conservative is the author of 12 books and more than 850 articles on international affairs. He is the co-author of The Korean Conundrum: America’s Troubled Relations with North and South Korea (Palgrave Macmillan, 2004).

Pompeo an enemy to world peace: Global Times editorial

Source: Global Times Published: 2020/4/26 

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in recent days has launched a string of violent attacks on China. He accused China of causing enormous losses to the US and the world by "not sharing the information they had" again in an interview with Fox News on April 23, saying the Chinese government will "pay a price for what they did." One day earlier, he blasted China for taking advantage of a pandemic to "bully" neighbors and called on other nations to hold China to account. 

Pompeo targeted the Communist Party of China (CPC) in his remarks. He is the senior US official who's the most active in attacking the CPC, which reflects extreme hostility against socialist China and reveals his malicious goal to push the US and China into a strategic rivalry.

The White House and the Republican Party have formulated a strategy to win the November presidential election by shifting the blame to China to divert domestic US attention. Pompeo is adding fuel to the blame game by attacking the ruling party of China. 

The former top intelligence official is steering the US Department of State into becoming the Central Intelligence Agency. He is playing with fire, making the 21st century an era of major power confrontation and undermining the foundations for peace. Despite being the chief diplomat of the US, he totally betrayed the basic responsibility with which he is entrusted to promote international understanding. He has become the enemy of world peace. 

The US, as the world's superpower, has special responsibility for world peace. It's a pity that at a time when the world is facing turbulence and great uncertainties from the novel coronavirus, the position of secretary of state has been occupied by a person of a sinister nature. Pompeo is poisoning US diplomacy with his personal hatred of the Chinese political system, which will worsen the global situation. 

It's well-known that China-US relations will have a profound influence on the nature of international relations in the 21st century. Deteriorating China-US relations will erode foundations for world peace and stability. What Pompeo is doing now is undermining such a foundation.  

Geopolitics cannot dominate the world anymore. Pompeo and his like are desperately pulling the world backward. They are unable to handle a diverse and complicated new century and so they attempt to resume the Cold War. They can only "realize their ambition" in polarized confrontation. 

We want to tell Pompeo that any attempt to drive a wedge between the CPC and the Chinese people is delusional. It's foolish for him to do so at this time. Under the leadership of the CPC, China quickly controlled the epidemic after the outbreak, while the Chinese people witnessed the US medical system collapsed with a climbing death toll that meant a much higher cost in lives than China. Chinese society and politics come in an era full of unprecedented confidence and the Washington elites have completely failed at their attempts to fool the Chinese.

Most of the public around the world are very aware of the political tricks of politicians like Pompeo. How many people in the world experiencing waves of outbreaks can believe that worsening outbreaks around them are not because of domestic reasons but entirely from China? Some Western politicians and media who follow Washington's appeal to hype China-bashing are primarily profit-driven, and how many of them can truly believe their own hyperbole?

Lies may fulfill Pompeo's personal ambition, but they will never accomplish the US dreams to be "great again." Pompeo is not only a figure harmful to world peace, but also should be listed as the worst US secretary of state in its history.

Please Tell The Establishment That U.S. Hegemony Is Over

Our dominance in the world is in the rearview, yet Trump and other pols refuse to get the message.

APRIL 23, 2020

DANIEL LARISON

https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/somebody-tell-the-establishment-that-american-hegemony-is-over/

More than 10 years ago, the columnist Charles Krauthammer asserted that American “decline is a choice,” and argued tendentiously that Barack Obama had chosen it. Yet looking back over the last decade, it has become increasingly obvious that this decline has occurred irrespective of what political leaders in Washington want.

The truth is that decline was never a choice, but the U.S. can decide how it can respond to it. We can continue chasing after the vanished, empty glory of the “unipolar moment” with bromides of American exceptionalism. We can continue to delude ourselves into thinking that the military might make up for all our other weaknesses. Or we can choose to adapt to a changing world by prudently husbanding our resources and putting them to uses more productive than policing the world.

There was a brief period during the 1990s and early 2000s when the U.S. could claim to be the world’s hegemonic power. America had no near-peer rivals; it was at the height of its influence across most of the globe. That status, however, was always a transitory one and was lost quickly thanks to self-inflicted wounds in Iraq and the natural growth of other powers that began to compete for influence. While America remains the most powerful state in the world, it no longer dominates as it did 20 years ago. And there can be no recapturing what was lost.

Alexander Cooley and Dan Nexon explore these matters in their new book, Exit From Hegemony: The Unraveling of the American Global Order. They make a strong case for distinguishing between the old hegemonic order and the larger international order of which it is a part. As they put it, “global international order is not synonymous with American hegemony.” They also make careful distinctions between the different components of what is often simply called the “liberal international order”: political liberalism, economic liberalism, and liberal intergovernmentalism. The first involves the protection of rights, the second open economic exchange, and the third the form of the international order that recognizes legally equal sovereign states. Cooley and Nexon note that both critics and defenders of the “liberal international order” tend to assume that all three come as a “package deal,” but point out that these parts do not necessarily reinforce each other and do not have to coexist.

While the authors are quite critical of Trump’s foreign policy, they don’t pin the decline of the old order solely on him. They argue that hegemonic unraveling takes place when the hegemon loses its monopoly over patronage and “more states can compete when it comes to providing economic, security, diplomatic, and other goods.” The U.S. has been losing ground for the better part of the last 20 years, much of it unavoidable as other states grew wealthier and sought to wield greater influence. The authors make a persuasive case that the “exit” from hegemony is already taking place and has been for some time.

Many defenders of U.S. hegemony insists that the “liberal international order” depends on it. That has never made much sense. For one, the continued maintenance of American hegemony frequently conflicts with the rules of international order. The hegemon reserves the right to interfere anywhere it wants and tramples on the sovereignty and legal rights of other states as it sees fit. In practice, the U.S. has frequently acted as more of a rogue in its efforts to “enforce” order than many of the states it likes to condemn. The most vocal defenders of the U.S. hegemony are unsurprisingly some of the biggest opponents of international law—at least when it gets in their way. Cooley and Nexon make a very important observation related to this in their discussion of the role of revisionist powers in the world today:

But the key point is that we need to be extremely careful that we don’t conflate “revisionism” with opposition to the United States. The desire to undermine hegemony and replace it with a multipolar system entails revisionism with respect to the distribution of power, but it may or may not be revisionist with respect to various elements of international architecture or infrastructure.

The core of the book is a survey of three different sources for the unraveling of U.S. hegemony: major powers, weaker states, and transnational “counter-order” movements. Cooley and Nexon trace how Russia and China have become increasingly effective at wielding influence over many smaller states through patronage and the creation of parallel institutions and projects such as the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), and the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). They discuss a number of weaker states that have begun hedging their bets by seeking patronage from these major powers as well as the U.S. Where once America had a “near monopoly” on such patronage, this has ceased to be the case. They also track the role of “counter-order” movements, especially nationalist and populist groups, in bringing pressure to bear on their national governments and cooperating across borders to challenge international institutions. Finally, they spell out how the U.S. itself has contributed to the erosion of its own position through reckless policies dating back at least to the invasion of Iraq.

The conventional response to the unraveling of America’s hegemony here at home has been either a retreat into nostalgia with simplistic paeans to the wonders of the “liberal international order” that ignore the failures of that earlier era or an intensified commitment to hard-power dominance in the form of ever-increasing military budgets (or some combination of the two). Cooley and Nexon contend that the Trump administration has opted for the second of these responses. Citing the president’s emphasis on maintaining military dominance and his support for exorbitant military spending, they say “it suggests an approach to hegemony more dependent upon military instruments, and thus on the ability (and willingness) of the United States to continue extremely high defense spending. It depends on the wager that the United States both can and should substitute raw military power for its hegemonic infrastructure.” That not only points to what Barry Posen has called “illiberal hegemony,” but also leads to a foreign policy that is even more militarized and unchecked by international law.

Cooley and Nexon make a compelling observation about how Trump’s demand for more allied military spending differs from normal calls for burden-sharing. Normally, burden-sharing advocates call on allies to spend more so the U.S. can spend less.

But that isn’t Trump’s position at all. His administration pressures allied governments to increase their spending while showing no desire to curtail the Pentagon budget:

Retrenchment entails some combination of shedding international security commitments and shifting defense burdens onto allies and partners. This allows the retrenching power, in principle, to redirect military spending toward domestic priorities, particularly those critical to long-term productivity and economic growth. In the current American context, this means making long-overdue investments in transportation infrastructure, increasing educational spending to develop human capital, and ramping up support for research and development. This rationale makes substantially less sense if retrenchment policies do not produce reductions in defense spending–which is why Trump’s aggressive, public, and coercive push for burden-sharing seems odd. Recall that Trump and his supporters want, and have already implemented, increases in the military budget. There is no indication that the Trump administration would change defense spending if, for example, Germany or South Korea increased their own military spending or more heavily subsidized American bases.

The coronavirus pandemic has exposed how misguided our priorities as a nation have been. There is now a chance to change course, but that will require our leaders to shift their thinking. The U.S. hegemony is already on its way out; now Americans need to decide what our role in the world will look like afterward. Warmed-over platitudes about “leadership” won’t suffice and throwing more money at the Pentagon is a dead end. The way forward is a strategy of retrenchment, restraint, and renewal.

Daniel Larison is a senior editor at TAC, where he also keeps a solo blog. He has been published in the New York Times Book Review, Dallas Morning News, World Politics Review, Politico Magazine, Orthodox Life, Front Porch Republic, The American Scene, and Culture11, and was a columnist for The Week. He holds a Ph.D. in history from the University of Chicago and resides in Lancaster, PA. Follow him on Twitter

Underlying Conditions

Bram Wispelwey and Amaya Al-Orzza

18 APRIL 2020

https://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2020/april/underlying-conditions?utm_campaign

At nearly 18 percent officially, and probably higher, the prevalence of diabetes among Palestinian refugees in the West Bank is one of the highest in the world. The official rate in Gaza is 16 percent. Among adult citizens of Israel, it’s 7.2 per cent. The disease suppresses the immune system, among other complications, and can spiral dangerously out of control when combined with an infection, such as the coronavirus that causes Covid-19. Diabetic patients with Covid-19 in China had a 1 in 14 chance of dying, more than triple that of the general population.

Decades of living in overcrowded refugee camps and a rapid transition to cheap and readily available high-calorie foods, in part a result of the neoliberal economic changes that came with the Oslo Accords, have led to an explosive increase in obesity and diabetes among Palestinians. As in other parts of the world, the prevalence of the disease is linked to land dispossession, structural violence, colonial domination, and oppression. In the United States, diabetes is nearly twice as common in the Indigenous and African American populations as it is among non-Hispanic whites. Other examples from around the world confirm the connection between historical oppression and chronic diseases.

Israel’s military occupation, and a neocolonial aid regime with ever-tightening donor restrictions, have contributed to a fragmented and underfunded health system that makes Palestinians more susceptible to a pandemic. With some of the highest population densities in the world, social distancing in refugee camps is nearly impossible. There are fewer than 120 ventilators in public hospitals for the 3.2 million people in the West Bank, and only 65 ICU beds for the two million in Gaza, of which 26 are available for Covid-19 patients. The toll of an outbreak would be catastrophic if it reached the scale currently seen in Europe and the US.

Despite the urgency of the situation, the response from accountable bodies has been anemic at best and at worst openly hostile. Israel, as the occupying power, has a responsibility to ensure the adequate provision of medical supplies and the proper functioning of hospitals and health services in the occupied territory. The Israeli government and Palestinian security services announced that they would co-operate for the pandemic, but the actions on the ground tell a different story. Israeli occupying forces have confiscated building materials for a Palestinian field clinic, shut down a Covid-19 the testing facility in East Jerusalem, and intensified the military securitization of the West Bank, including the complete blockading of Bethlehem following a Covid-19 outbreak in early March.

The international community has responded largely with silence. Israeli and Egyptian closures and restrictions make it almost impossible for UNRWA, the UN agency responsible for the wellbeing of Palestinian refugees, to provide proper medical services during the Covid-19 crisis. Earlier this month it was forced to suspend food aid to Gaza and cannot service refugee camps in Bethlehem properly because of the lockdown. Qatar announced the provision of $150 million in humanitarian aid to Gaza at the end of March, but the Strip has run out of testing kits and Western states have failed either to provide meaningful support or to challenge Israeli restrictions.

Palestinians in camps have therefore resorted to community-based responses to protect themselves. Popular Committees and local organizations have taken the lead, and in some cases, employees have donated their salaries to cover the costs of camp-wide Covid-19 prevention measures. In Aida and Azza refugee camps in Bethlehem, young refugees trained as community health workers (CHWs) to fight the diabetes epidemic have now organized themselves in response to Covid-19.

This type of frontline health action – community members with no formal clinical qualifications who are rapidly hired, trained, and equipped to tackle the threat – has proven effective in other epidemics. With lessons learned from the Ebola outbreak, CHWs are active around the world, especially in countries with doctor and nurse shortages. They promote social distancing, the early detection of cases and contact tracing, and help with patient testing and care when symptoms develop.

Working under the occupation, the CHWs in Aida and Azza have produced a video and pamphlets detailing ways to minimize the risk of contracting Covid-19. They call their patients daily and arrange for the safe delivery of life-saving diabetes medication.

These young refugees are demonstrating the ingenuity and steadfastness that has kept Palestinian dreams of a better future alive for decades, despite constant setbacks and a crushing military occupation. They require urgent support to maintain stocks of personal protective equipment and perform effective crisis management, but we mustn’t lose sight of the underlying conditions that have placed Palestinians at such risk from a pandemic. Covid-19 makes clear that the health of Palestinians is intrinsically linked to their liberation. Any successful intervention will have to focus on supporting and strengthening existing community-led initiatives while working to end the root causes of poor health: military occupation, land dispossession, discrimination, and denial of reparations.

Ex-colonialists should prepare for China’s counterpunch

By Mu Lu Source: Global Times Published: 2020/4/22

As of Wednesday, the total confirmed COVID-19 cases around the world have topped 2.5 million, with the US and European countries being the hardest hit, while the US alone has reported over 825,000 infection cases. What are leaders and politicians of these countries doing when their homelands are suffering from the coronavirus? Are they busy flattening the curve? Given the reports of Western media outlets, this seems to not be there focus, as they are sparing more efforts to duck the responsibilities for their inability. 

Over the past month, some Western politicians have been shouting more loudly than ever to demand compensation from China, as if they will manage to call white for black with their political hysteria. Since the pandemic became increasingly severer day by day in Europe and particularly in the US, some Western countries that dominate the world's public opinion have been engaging in a ridiculous show of 1,000 ways to slander China. 

To steal the spotlight, a batch of Western politicians dare say anything they want and pass any legislation they wish regardless of truth or facts. They have thoroughly interpreted their deep-rooted pirate-style mentality and how it works.

These politicians have accused China of so-called disinformation and delay in information sharing, while they have been neglecting what China has been trying to share with them from the very beginning and warn them out of goodwill. 

From the moves of US senators such as Tom Cotton and Josh Hawley to Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt, we can see the ghosts of Western imperialists and colonialists who raided around the world, burning and looting with guns and cannons. 

What if these Western countries are treated with their very own pirate-style mentality? They shall be held accountable for what humanity is suffering in the past decades, even centuries. A great number of Westerners seem to have forgotten how they managed to quickly complete the original accumulation of capital and embark on the road of leading the world's development. In the Age of Discovery, Western civilization has spread across the world and the traditional powers seized a huge amount of resources in that process. Meanwhile, diseases such as cholera, malaria, yellow fever, and smallpox brought by the West's explorers doomed aborigines in the new continents. 

The 1918 influenza pandemic, the most severe pandemic in recent history, infected an estimated total of 500 million people or one-third of the world's population at that time. The number of deaths was estimated to be at least 50 million worldwide. Some suggest the virus originated from Kansas, where it was identified in military personnel in spring 1918; while some believe New York City was the origin. If we adopt the West's above-mentioned mentality here, how dare the US not compensate for the rest of the world for its failure of containing the virus within its borders?

If such a mentality is justified, has the US compensated the world or at least apologized after the 2009 H1N1 influenza pandemic that originated from the country and resulted in an estimated range of deaths from between 151,700 and 575,400 people during the very first year the virus circulated?

There is no logic and no rationale that China has to bear infamy and compensate for mistakes it has never made. Is it that in the mind of many Westerners Chinese are born inferior to white people, so they never believe the Chinese can do anything better than them?

Things have changed in the world we are living in. Long gone are the good old times of imperialists and colonialists. If some people still uphold their political hysteria, they had better be prepared for China's counterpunch.