Latest news with #armscontrol
SBS Australia
2 days ago
- Business
- SBS Australia
Growing alarm over China's expanding military posture dominates Shangri-La Dialogue
In Singapore, tensions and alliances were on full display at the Shangri-La Dialogue, a major security summit that has become the most important defence forum in the Asia-Pacific. Growing alarm over China's expanding military posture and its nuclear ambitions. The strongest warnings came from Australia's Defence Minister, Richard Marles, who says China's rapid nuclear expansion and military buildup is reshaping the region's security landscape. 'We are invested in shaping the geostrategic environment. China's decision to pursue rapid nuclear modernisation and expansion, which aims, in part, to reach parity with or surpass the United States, is another reason the future of strategic arms control must be revitalised.' He also has warned of the dangers of weapons of mass destruction, saying arms control frameworks need to be strengthened to keep up with growing risks and advances in technology across the Pacific and elsewhere. "China's decision to pursue rapid nuclear modernisation and expansion, which aims in part to reach parity with or surpass the United States, is another reason the future of strategic arms control must be revitalised. We also have to counter the grim, potentially imminent, possibility of another wave of global nuclear proliferation as states seek security in a new age of imperial ambition." The remarks came after United States Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth reaffirmed America's commitment to the Indo-Pacific, describing it as a strategic priority. He issued this stark warning. "It has to be clear to all that Beijing is credibly preparing to potentially use military force to alter the balance of power in the Indo-Pacific. We know. It's public that (Chinese President) Xi (Jinping) has ordered his military to be capable of invading Taiwan by 2027. The PLA is building the military needed to do it, training for it everyday and rehearsing for the real deal. ... Any attempt by Communist China to conquer Taiwan by force would result in devastating consequences for the Indo-Pacific and the world." At the same forum, Mr Hegseth urged nations across the region to ramp up their defence spending, suggesting a benchmark of five per cent of GDP, in line with recent NATO commitments. In response, Mr Marles acknowledged the indispensable role of the United States, but stressed that the responsibility can't lie with Washington alone. "The commitment underscored by U-S Secretary of Defense Hegseth today, that the Indo-Pacific is the United States strategic priority is deeply welcomed. Reality is that there is no effective balance of power in this region, absent the United States. But we cannot leave it to the United States alone. Other countries must contribute to this balance as well and that includes Australia." That commitment was reinforced in a high-level trilateral meeting between defence chiefs from the US, Australia and Japan. Held on the sidelines of the summit, the meeting saw the three allies agree to expand their joint military exercises and strengthen cooperation on defence technology. 'This trilateral work is truly critical to deterring China and maintaining peace and strength in the Indo-Pacific. America's alliances with Japan and Australia are built on common values, common shared interests, and common sense. ... We're also streamlining rotational deployments in Australia and Japan while enhancing our combined strategic planning.' But not everyone at the summit welcomed the rhetoric. Beijing's representative, Rear Admiral Hu Gangfeng, struck back at the growing alignment between Western and regional powers, accusing them of fear-mongering and misrepresentation. 'We do not accept groundless accusations against China. Some of the claims are completely fabricated, some distort facts, and some are cases of a thief crying 'stop thief.' These actions are nothing more than attempts to provoke trouble, incite division, and stir up confrontation to destabilise the Asia-Pacific region. This goes against the trend of the times, lacks popular support, and is bound to fail.' China's Defence Minister Dong Jun was notably absent from this year's conference, in what was seen as a diplomatic snub amid rising tensions over U-S tariffs and growing defence ties between Washington, Canberra, and Tokyo. President Emmanuel Macron made it clear that while France supports strategic autonomy, it cannot promise military involvement in any potential conflict involving China in the Pacific. 'Our role is not to be a substitute to anybody, but our role is to work for ourselves to improve our strategic autonomy, meaning our own capacity to protect our sole, but through the cooperation we have to help the ASEAN countries to do the same for themselves, and to reduce on both sides our dependencies. And we have to do it at a time when there is an increase in the threats and the strategic risks.' Mr Macron also used his address to call for a ceasefire in Gaza and mutual recognition of a Palestinian state.
News.com.au
3 days ago
- General
- News.com.au
‘Daunting, grim': Deputy PM's warning on China's nuclear goals
Beijing's nuclear ambitions and Chinese military build up create daunting and grim challenges across the Asia-Pacific, Australia's Deputy Prime Minister has warned. Defence Minister Richard Marles used a speech at a summit in Singapore to reiterate alarm bells over Chinese and Russian nuclear weapons. 'China's decision to pursue rapid nuclear modernisation and expansion, which aims in part to reach parity with or surpass the United States, is another reason the future of strategic arms control must be revitalised,' Mr Marles said in a speech on Saturday. 'And that is a difficult and daunting project. 'We also have to counter the grim, potentially imminent, possibility of another wave of global nuclear proliferation as states seek security in a new age of imperial ambition.' Mr Marles made the speech at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, Shangri-La Dialogue conference in Singapore on Saturday. The annual conference attracts defence ministers, senior military and security officials and diplomats from across the Asia Pacific; it is the pre-eminent regional security forum. Beijing has not sent its National Defence Minister Dong Jun, instead sending a lower-level academic delegation. Last year's forum resulted in a meeting between Mr Dong and then-US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin. In his speech on Saturday, while acknowledging the US as a nuclear superpower, Mr Marles said arms controls needed to be strengthened. 'Russia suspended its participation in the last remaining binding bilateral arms control treaty between the United States and Russia in 2023,' he said. 'This leaves no legally binding limits on the strategic nuclear arsenals of the two largest nuclear powers for the first time since 1972. 'New technologies like cyber, the weaponisation of space, and the ability to integrate nuclear weapons with autonomous systems means traditional arms control frameworks are being surpassed without any established method of control to supplement them.'
Forbes
4 days ago
- Business
- Forbes
Global Military Spending Surges As Arms Control Mechanisms Collapse
At the North Atlantic Treaty Organization summit last year in Washington D.C., the corresponding press release noted that arms control, disarmament, and non-proliferation remained critical to achieving the organization's security objectives. With the war in Ukraine still going strong, global trends in military spending are not reflecting these objectives. A range of escalating security challenges has triggered destabilizing arms races worldwide. Global military spending reached $2.7 trillion in 2024, representing a 9.4% jump in real terms from 2023. Unsurprisingly, Ukraine and Russia have dramatically boosted their military budgets. Ukraine's military spending surged 640% between 2021 and 2022, according to while Russia's rose by 31%. In 2024, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute released a report showing that Ukraine allocates $64.7 billion — roughly 24% of its gross domestic product — to defense, whereas Russia spends about $149 billion, or 7% of its GDP. But the arms build-up is not limited to Russia and Ukraine. Over the past decade, more than 100 countries have expanded their defense budgets. Including Russia, European military spending climbed 17% to $693 billion in 2024, the same SIPRI report found. With the exception of Malta, all European countries increased their military spending in 2024. Meanwhile, U.S. President Donald Trump announced a military budget of almost a trillion dollars for 2026, including at least $175 billion for a Golden Dome Defense System— a layered missile shield designed to protect the U.S. from long-range and hypersonic missiles, which travel at over five times the speed of sound. In response to the news, Beijing called the Golden Dome 'deeply destabilising in nature.' Yet for the last two decades China has been investing in hypersonic weapons— which follow unpredictable paths and can be maneuvered mid-flight, making them difficult to intercept. China's military modernization, marked by three decades of consecutive growth, saw spending rise 7% to $314 billion in 2024. This surge sharply contrasts with global trends in military spending several decades ago. From 1983 to 1993, world military expenditures dropped over 40% in proportion to GDP, from 5.7% to 3.3% of world GDP. The 1990s remain the decade with the fewest state-based conflict deaths since the 1950s, raising questions about the causal relationship between military spending and conflict. Today's arms race unfolds after the repeated failure of critical arms control agreements. The last remaining treaty between the U.S. and Russia on nuclear weapons is New START, which was signed by then leaders Barack Obama and Dmitry Medvedev in April of 2010. Though an agreement was made in March of 2021 to extend the treaty, after Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February of 2022 and Russia's subsequent refusal to submit to on-site inspections several months later, Moscow officially stopped participating in the treaty the following February. Russia also withdrew from the Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty in May of 2023 (which bans nuclear test explosions) and the Conventional Armed Forces in Europe Treaty in November 2023. Even as U.S. President Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin continue to engage in talks about the war in Ukraine, the status of New START (which expires in 2026) and its future replacement remain unknown. Russia has rejected any nuclear arms control talks with the U.S. arguing that the West would first have to change its 'anti-Russian attitudes.' This wasn't the first time that Russia reneged on an arms' control agreement. One of the notable cases was Russia's development of the Novator 9M729 (first test fired in 2014), a cruise missile which has a range of 2,500 km, which violated the landmark 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty. The INF prohibited the US and Russia (then the Soviet Union) from developing and deploying ground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles with a range between 500 and 5,500km, eliminating an entire category of nuclear weapons. As concerns about Russia's pursuit of ground-based missiles persisted, the U.S. withdrew from the INF in 2019. Russia's INF breaches likely spurred NATO and its allies to enhance their own long range strike capabilities. The U.S. and Germany announced in 2024 that Germany would host ground based medium range missiles (including SM-6, Tomahawk missiles, and hypersonic weapons) which can target Russia directly by 2026. Though these missiles are designed to only carry conventional warheads, they sparked a reaction from Moscow that additional nuclear tipped medium range missiles could be deployed. Russia further alarmed the West by unveiling an intermediate range ballistic missile called the Oreshnik in Dnipro, Ukraine – capable of carrying six nuclear tipped warheads and striking European capitals within 12 to 16 minutes. Meanwhile France, Germany and Poland signed a letter of intent committing to agree to jointly produce their own medium-range missiles, with a range over 500 km. As for the U.S., in addition to its investment in the Golden Dome, Washington. is accumulating an arsenal of ground-launched strike systems with ranges exceeding 500 kilometres, and working to become a hypersonic missile superpower over concerns of China's rising power. This arms race between the U.S. in China is especially concerning given that there is no bilateral arms control agreement, and alongside Russia, neither country has ratified the 1996 Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty. While China signed the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of nuclear weapons in 1992 (the U.S. and the Soviet Union signed in 1968), it does not adhere to the spirit of the treaty, having increased its nuclear arsenal considerably. By 2030, the PRC will potentially possess over 1,000 operational warheads, while Russia and the U.S. each possess over 5,000. With arms' control talks increasingly sidelined, the arms race of the 21st century is not only more expensive than during the Cold War, but potentially more dangerous.
Asharq Al-Awsat
6 days ago
- Business
- Asharq Al-Awsat
Lebanon: Hezbollah Displeased with Salam's Stances
Relations between Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam and Hezbollah were shaken after the PM said in a TV statement this week that he rejected to stay silent over illegitimate arms. The head of Hezbollah's parliamentary committee, Mohammed Raad, who headed a delegation to meet with President Joseph Aoun in Baabda Palace on Monday said: 'I don't want to comment on his (Salam's) statement to preserve what remains of cordiality.' Salam said in a TV interview on Monday night that he 'rejected to stay silent on arms staying out of state control' adding that 'the era of the Iranian revolution's export has come to an end.' Raad's comment, which came in response to a reporter's question, raised questions marks about relations between the Iran-backed party and Salam who, along with the President, has insisted on establishing a state monopoly on the control of arms. But Hezbollah's dissatisfaction goes beyond the issue of arms – the party has resented strict measures taken at Beirut's Rafik Hariri International Airport that have prevented the transfer of cash to it, in addition to the delay in reconstruction following the latest war with Israel. According to political analyst Kassem Kassir, Aoun's stance on dialogue and the rejection of foreign pressure is better than that of the Prime Minister. 'It's obvious that it (Hezbollah) is displeased with the PM, and that his latest comments made things worse,' Kassir told Asharq Al-Awsat. But Raad did not want to snap back at Salam 'to keep channels of communication between the two sides open.' Yet, ministerial sources told Asharq Al-Awsat that Salam 'has come with a specific mission to carry out reforms and salvage the country, including limiting weapons to state control, in order to regain the confidence of the Lebanese people and the world, and attract investments and assistance that would not materialize' in the presence of such arms. Asked about ties between Hezbollah and Salam, the sources denied that relations have taken a turn for the worse. 'Yet, there is non-permanent communication between Salam and the party.'
Al Jazeera
25-05-2025
- Business
- Al Jazeera
How desperate is Iran for a deal with the US?
With a battered economy and a restless population, Iran is as desperate as the United States to come together, Johns Hopkins University Professor Vali Nasr argues. Nasr told host Steve Clemons that US President Donald Trump's administration is eager to reach an arms control deal with Iran, and Iran is eager to grow economically. 'Both of them have arrived, after 40 some years, at a juncture where they need to change the direction of their relationship,' Nasr said. Join the conversation on Nasr's latest book, Iran's Grand Strategy: A Political History, which explains how Iran's anti-Americanism 'is not ideological or theological'.
