Latest news with #militarybuildup
Globe and Mail
4 days ago
- Business
- Globe and Mail
Australia warns against China military buildup as U.S. calls on Canberra to spend more
Australia's top defence official has called on China to provide more transparency around its 'extraordinary military buildup,' as Washington urged Canberra to increase its own military budget to counter Beijing. Speaking Sunday at the Shangri-La Dialogue, an annual gathering in Singapore of top Asia-Pacific military officials, Australian Defence Minister Richard Marles said China had not provided other countries in the region any 'strategic reassurance' around the massive expansion of the People's Liberation Army in recent years. 'What we have seen from China is the single biggest increase in military capability and buildup in a conventional sense, by any country since the end of the Second World War,' Mr. Marles said. 'That is one of the key features of the complexity of the strategic landscape, which all of us face within the region and which is faced around the world.' This is happening 'without a clear strategic intent on the part of China,' he said, adding Canberra and its allies want to see 'strategic transparency and strategic reassurance' from Beijing about why it needs to have 'such an extraordinary military buildup.' Opinion: Reversing a trade deficit with China is no simple matter – just ask Queen Victoria Mr. Marles's comments come as Australia, like many U.S. allies, is facing pressure from Washington to spend more militarily. In a statement Friday, the Pentagon said U.S. Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth had urged Canberra to 'increase its defence spending to 3.5 per cent of its GDP as soon as possible.' Australia has previously committed to spending upward of 2.3 per cent of its GDP on defence by 2033, and on Monday the country's Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, pushed back against Washington, saying 'what you should do in defence is decide what you need, your capability, and then provide for it.' 'That's what my government is doing,' he said. Speaking to reporters over the weekend, Mr. Marles said 'there are a lot of competing demands on public money,' but defended his government as having 'engaged in the biggest increase in defence spending in the history of peacetime Australia.' While the U.S. has taken a more isolationist role under President Donald Trump, particularly in Europe, where it has pulled back from supporting Ukraine and put pressure on partners to massively increase spending on their own defence, Mr. Hegseth has sought to reassure allies in Asia that Washington is still committed to confronting China. 'We do not seek conflict with Communist China. We will not instigate nor seek to subjugate or humiliate,' Mr. Hegseth said in a speech in Singapore. 'But we will not be pushed out of this critical region. And we will not let our allies and partners be subordinated and intimidated.' Opinion: Strengthening Canada's relationship with Taiwan is a crucial piece of our geopolitical puzzle Pointing to Chinese military expansion in the South China Sea and repeated threats to invade democratic Taiwan, Mr. Hegseth said there was no doubt Beijing 'seeks to become a hegemonic power in Asia.' 'We cannot look away, and we cannot ignore it. China's behaviour towards its neighbours and the world is a wake-up call,' he said. 'President Trump has also said that Communist China will not invade Taiwan on his watch. So, our goal is to prevent war, to make the costs too high, and peace the only option. And we will do this with a strong shield of deterrence, forged together with you – America's great allies and defence partners. Together, we will show what it means to execute peace through strength.' The Shangri-La Dialogue is typically an opportunity for the U.S. defence secretary to meet his Chinese counterpart, but Beijing kept a low profile at this year's event and Defence Minister Dong Jun did not attend in person. China's reasoning for this is unclear. While tensions have been high with Washington under Mr. Trump, Beijing has also recently renewed a crackdown on corruption at the top ranks of the PLA, with several top military officials indicted or disappearing from view in recent months. A spokesman for the Chinese military, Zhang Xiaogang, did respond to Mr. Hegseth's speech Sunday, saying the U.S. official's remarks were 'filled with deeply ingrained hegemonic logic, bullying behaviour, and Cold War mentality.' 'China has always been a guardian and promoter of peace and development in the Asia-Pacific region,' Mr. Zhang added. 'The Chinese military will work together with regional countries to jointly oppose hegemonism that harms the Asia-Pacific, to oppose the introduction of geopolitical conflicts into the Asia-Pacific, and resist any country or force creating chaos.'
The Guardian
29-05-2025
- Business
- The Guardian
Nato rearmament could increase emissions by 200m tonnes a year, study finds
A global military buildup poses an existential threat to climate goals, according to researchers who say the rearmament planned by Nato alone could increase greenhouse gas emissions by almost 200m tonnes a year. With the world embroiled in the highest number of armed conflicts since the second world war, countries have embarked on military spending sprees, collectively totalling a record $2.46tn in 2023. For every dollar invested in new hardware, there is not only a corresponding carbon cost but also an opportunity cost to potential climate action, critics say. This is on top of the huge death toll resulting from armed conflicts. 'There is a real concern around the way that we are prioritising short-term security and sacrificing long-term security,' said Ellie Kinney, a researcher with the Conflict and Environment Observatory and a co-author of the study, shared exclusively with the Guardian. 'Because of this kind of lack-of-informed approach that we're taking, you're investing in hard military security now, increasing global emissions for that reason, and worsening the climate crisis further down the line.' That in turn is only likely to lead to further violence, with climate change itself now increasingly seen as a driver of conflict, albeit indirectly. In Sudan's Darfur region, conflict was linked to competition over scarce resources after prolonged droughts and desertification. In the Arctic, receding sea ice is leading to tensions over who should control newly accessible oil, gas and critical mineral resources. Few militaries are transparent about the scale of their fossil fuel use, but researchers have estimated that collectively they are already responsible for 5.5% of global greenhouse gas emissions. That figure is expected to rise as tensions escalate in a number of regions and as the US, for decades the world's biggest military spender, indicates that it expects its Nato allies to devote significantly more resources to their armed forces. According to the Global Peace Index, militarisation increased in 108 countries in 2023. With 92 countries involved in armed conflict, in places ranging from Ukraine and Gaza to South Sudan and DRC, with tensions seething between China and the US over Taiwan, and with the frozen conflict between India and Pakistan flaring, governments fearful of war are investing heavily in their militaries. In Europe, the increase has been particularly dramatic: between 2021 and 2024, EU states' weapons spending rose by more than 30%, according to the International Institute for Economics and Peace. In March, the EU, disconcerted by Donald Trump's cutting of military aid and diplomatic support for Ukraine, indicated this would go further, with proposals for a further €800bn spend across the bloc outlined in a plan called 'ReArm Europe'. In analysis for the UN Office for Disarmament Affairs, Kinney and colleagues looked at the potential impact of increased militarisation on meeting climate goals. What they found was sobering: the likely increase in emissions from Nato's remilitarisation alone would be the equivalent of adding the cost of a country as large and populous as Pakistan to the world's remaining carbon budget. 'Our analysis specifically looks at the impact on sustainable development goal 13, which is climate action – to take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts,' Kinney said. 'And what our analysis finds, looking at the various sub-targets of that … [is] that there is a real threat to global climate action caused by global increase in military spending.' Of all functions of states, militaries are almost uniquely carbon-intensive. 'First of all, with the equipment that they purchase, which is mainly a lot of steel and aluminium, which is very carbon-intensive to produce,' said Lennard de Klerk, of the Initiative on the GHG Accounting of War, another co-author of the study. 'Secondly is during operations, armies are very mobile. And in order to move around they use fossil fuels – that's diesel for ground operations and kerosene for air operations. Or for maritime operations it's mainly diesel as well, if they're not nuclear-driven.' Given the secrecy that usually surrounds militaries and their operations, it is difficult to know just how much greenhouse gases they are emitting. Only Nato countries report enough of their emissions for scientists to attempt an estimate. Sign up to Down to Earth The planet's most important stories. Get all the week's environment news - the good, the bad and the essential after newsletter promotion 'We took Nato because they are the most transparent in terms of spending. So it's not that we particularly want to focus on Nato, but simply because they have more data available,' De Klerk said. The researchers calculated by how much greenhouse gas emissions would increase if Nato countries excluding the US – since it already spends far more than the others – made a two percentage point increase in the share of GDP they devoted to their militaries. Such an increase is already under way, with many countries in Europe significantly increasing military spending in response to the crisis in Ukraine. Although Nato countries have publicly committed to increasing spending to 2% of GDP, the researchers say the ReArm Europe plan could lead to an eventual rise to 3.5%, from about 1.5% in 2020. The researchers assumed a similar eventual increase in Nato members that are not members of the EU, such as the UK. Borrowing methodology from a recent paper that argued each percentage point increase in the share of GDP devoted to military spending would lead to an increase in national emissions of between 0.9% and 2%, they estimated that a two percentage point spending shock would lead to an increase across the bloc of between 87 and 194 megatonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) a year. The researchers say that not only would such a huge increase in emissions supercharge climate breakdown but the increase in global temperatures would hurt the economy. Recent estimates of the social cost of carbon – a monetary indicator of the damage of CO2 emitted – put it at $1,347/tCO2e, suggesting the annual cost of Nato's military buildup could be as much as $264bn a year. And that is only a fraction of the true carbon cost of militarisation, Kinney points out. 'The calculation in the paper, it's 31 countries – that only represents 9% of total world emissions. If you consider … the impact of that, there's a lot of the world that we haven't taken into consideration of this specific calculation.' The analysis notes that spending more money on militaries also reduces resources available for policies aimed at mitigating climate change. This already seems to be the case, with the UK, for example, funding its increase in spending by reducing its overseas aid budget – a move mirrored in Belgium, France and the Netherlands. 'This increase in military spending is impacting the kind of core trust that is necessary for multilateralism,' Kinney said. 'At Cop29, global south countries like Cuba in particular pointed out the hypocrisy in the room of states being willing to spend increasing amounts on their military spending, but offering … completely, unacceptably low climate finance commitments.' The Guardian has contacted Nato for comment.
Washington Post
22-05-2025
- Politics
- Washington Post
Japan's air force confirms the deaths of 2 crew in a training plane crash
TOKYO — Japan's air force chief on Thursday confirmed the deaths of two service members whose training aircraft crashed last week. The T-4 plane with two aboard crashed into a reservoir minutes after takeoff from Komaki Air Base in the central Japanese prefecture of Aichi on May 14. Air Self-Defense Force Chief of Staff Gen. Hiroaki Uchikura told reporters Thursday that autopsies showed that the two, aged 29 and 31 years, died two minutes after takeoff. The cause of the crash is under investigation. The air force grounded all remaining 196 of the training planes for emergency inspection . The crash is the latest in a series of defense aircraft accidents in recent years and comes at a time when Japan is accelerating a military buildup to deter China's growing influence in the region. Japan has doubled its defense spending, raising concern that funding for weapons may be prioritized over safety.
The Independent
22-05-2025
- Politics
- The Independent
Japan's air force confirms the deaths of 2 crew in a training plane crash
Japan's air force chief on Thursday confirmed the deaths of two service members whose training aircraft crashed last week. The T-4 plane with two aboard crashed into a reservoir minutes after takeoff from Komaki Air Base in the central Japanese prefecture of Aichi on May 14. Air Self-Defense Force Chief of Staff Gen. Hiroaki Uchikura told reporters Thursday that autopsies showed that the two, aged 29 and 31 years, died two minutes after takeoff. The cause of the crash is under investigation. The air force grounded all remaining 196 of the training planes for emergency inspection. The crash is the latest in a series of defense aircraft accidents in recent years and comes at a time when Japan is accelerating a military buildup to deter China's growing influence in the region. Japan has doubled its defense spending, raising concern that funding for weapons may be prioritized over safety.
NHK
08-05-2025
- Politics
- NHK
What North Korea's ballistic missile launches mean
North Korea's latest missile launches are part of a wider military buildup, as the country nears the end of its five-year national defense plan.
