How to get more bang for the buck in Western defence budgets.

 

"The world is tooling up. The peace dividend it has enjoyed since the end of the cold war—releasing wads of cash from defence to spend on other things—is ending. Now comes the new "war tax". Our simulations suggest global defence spending may rise by $200bn-$700bn a year, or 9-32%. Blame fraught geopolitics—especially events in Ukraine and China's sabre-rattling at Taiwan.

America and China are locked in a race for military ascendancy in Asia. European countries are scrambling to meet nato's target of spending 2% of gdp on defence. Poland is aiming for 4% and wants to double its armed forces. Japan's defence budget will rise by at least two-thirds by 2027, which may make it the world's third-largest spender. Australia is developing pricey nuclear-powered submarines with America and Britain.

Yet for Western governments, finding money for arms will not be easy. They must pay interest on debts and cope with fiscal pressures that did not exist in the 1980s, such as the need to care for ageing populations and curb climate change. Furthermore, as in the cold-war era, there is a risk that cash is blown on good-but-exorbitant equipment, thanks to red tape and cronyism. How to get the best value from defence spending in the 2020s?

The events in Ukraine offers some pointers. The first priority for Western governments is to restock depleted arsenals and boost the factories that make shells and missiles. Conflict eats up vast amounts of ammunition. Ukraine has been firing roughly as many 155mm artillery shells in a month as America can produce in a year. In a war with China over Taiwan, America could run out of vital anti-ship missiles within days. Increasing output requires certainty for industry, in the form of multi-year contracts, and much work to find and clear production bottlenecks.

Next, governments should shake up procurement processes and disrupt the cosy structure of the defence industry. Western weapons have shown their value in Ukraine, and the conflict ought to be a "battle lab" for new ideas. Yet procurement is still woefully slow and costly. New entrants, notably dynamic tech firms, could end the oligopoly of the big contractors.

SpaceX, a satellite firm, has broken the hold of big, stodgy rivals and slashed the cost of putting objects into orbit. 

Its Starlink constellation of communication satellites has proved invaluable to Ukrainian forces. 

More Silicon Valley firms are helping with the fusion and analysis of data to create a "kill web": a network of scattered "sensors" and "shooters" that is more powerful than any single weapon. 

Governments should welcome the flow of venture capital into experimental defence startups, and accept that some failures are inevitable.

Finally, Western countries need to create more of a single market for defence that boosts economies of scale and competition. Common standards, which nato can help set, are one part of this. With its tutti-frutti arsenal of donated weapons, Ukraine knows all about the incompatibilities of Western kit: British tanks have rifled guns, so they cannot fire ammunition made for smooth-bored German and American ones. American tanks run on petrol; European ones on diesel. Given the growing importance of data in weaponry, open-architecture software that allows kit to "plug and play" should be helpful.

Creating an integrated market also means resisting protectionism. Europe got into a needless twist—and wasted time—over French attempts to exclude non-European firms from the eu's scheme to deliver 1m artillery shells to Ukraine in a year. Even mighty America could benefit from more co-operation. It has one supplier of rocket motors for many missiles; buying from trusted allies would make its supply chains more resilient. In an unruly world, liberal democracies must figure out how to bolster their security despite other pressing demands on the public purse. 

The best way is to embrace innovation, and ruthlessly pursue efficiency and scale.” [1]

·  ·  · 1. "How to get more bang for the buck in Western defence budgets." The Economist, 27 May 2023, p. NA.

Roma krito. Ar šiuolaikiniai Vakarai paseks šiuo pavyzdžiu?

 „Kodėl griūna imperijos. Johnas Rapley ir Peteris Heatheris. Jeilio universiteto leidykla; 200 puslapių; 27 USD. Allenas Lane'as; 20 svarų

 

     DEKLAINIZMAS vėl madoje. Blogėjant Amerikos ir Kinijos santykiams, vis populiarėja tyrinėti ankstesnių hegemonijos amžių pabaigą. Daugėja knygų, pranašaujančių nesustabdomą autokratinių stipruolių iškilimą ir demokratijos mirtį. Daug kalbama apie „Tukidido spąstus“: kylančios ir nusistovėjusios galios susidūrimo neišvengiamumą, kai Atėnai metė iššūkį Spartai V amžiuje prieš Kristų.

 

     Šioje provokuojančioje trumpoje knygoje šis požiūris pritaikomas naujoviškai. Jame palyginami Vakarai 1999-aisiais, jų pasitikėjimo zenite, ir Roma lygiai 1600 metų anksčiau, 399-aisiais – likus vos dešimtmečiams iki imperijos žlugimo.

 

     Įdomiausia istorijos dalis susijusi su Roma. Politinis ekonomistas Johnas Rapley ir istorikas Peteris Heatheris nesutinka su nuo Edwardo Gibbono laikų žinomos analizės apie imperiją, kuri palaipsniui nyksta beveik nuo pat jos įkūrimo, valdant Augustui. Jie tvirtina, kad Roma buvo tokia pat stipri, kaip niekad, penktojo amžiaus sandūroje. Žinoma, plačią ir kartais niūrią imperiją laikė daugiausia talentingų pašaliečių kooptacija, didelę galią perduodant valdžią stipriems vadams ir sudarant sandorius su potencialiais priešais. Vis dėlto per dešimtmetį Roma ištraukė savo legionus iš Didžiosios Britanijos (autoriai šį pasitraukimą vadina pirmuoju „Brexitu“). Mažiau, nei po šimtmečio, paskutinis Vakarų imperatorius Romulas Augustulas dingo.

 

     Kas nutiko? Knygoje kalbama apie svetimas jėgas, kurioms atsispirti tapo vis sunkiau. Silpnėjančioje imperijos pakraštyje vietiniai didvyriai pradėjo draugauti su gotais, ostrogotais, vestgotais, hunais, vandalais ir kitais. Vieno imperatoriaus sesuo net ištekėjo už vestgotų lyderio (matyt, savo noru) ir susilaukė sūnaus su rimtomis imperatoriškomis pretenzijomis.

 

Kaip Gibonas stengėsi paaiškinti prieš 250 metų, Rytų imperija, įsikūrusi Konstantinopolyje, tęsėsi beveik kitą tūkstantmetį. Tačiau ji taip pat silpnėjo ir nuolat prarado savo teritorijas, iš pradžių dėl brangių karų prieš Persiją, o vėliau – islamo ir osmanų iškilimo metu.

 

     Bėgant amžiams, Vakarų Europa atsigavo, pirmiausia valdant Karoliui Didžiajam, o vėliau dar įspūdingiau, kai išplatino savo galią (ir savo imperijas) po daugumą žinomo pasaulio. Autoriai kelia klausimą, ar, nepaisant akivaizdaus dominavimo dar XXI amžiaus sandūroje, Vakarai dabar nenumaldomai eina ta pačia kryptimi, kaip ir penktojo amžiaus Roma. Jie atkreipia dėmesį į tokias problemas, kaip didėjanti skolų našta, brangios gerovės valstybės, sumažėjęs produktyvumo augimas, demografinis nuosmukis ir masinė imigracija. Jie mato didelius iššūkius Vakarams dėl Azijos augimo, ypač Kinijos ir Indijos, taip pat iš antivakarietiškų jėgų, tokių, kaip Rusija ir Afrikos iškilimas.

 

     Tačiau analogija su Romos nuosmukiu ir žlugimu galiausiai neįtikina. Likęs pasaulis neabejotinai vejasi Vakarus tiek ekonomine, tiek demografine prasme. Kinijos ekonomika netrukus gali būti didesnė, nei Amerikos. 1914 m. Europa sudarė ketvirtadalį pasaulio gyventojų, tačiau šiandien – mažiau, nei dešimtadalis. Imigracija, ypač iš Afrikos ir Lotynų Amerikos, yra politinis išbandymas. Populizmas žengia į žygį.

 

     Nepaisant to, pasauliniu mastu sunku įsivaizduoti rimtą karinį varžovą JAV ir jų Europos sąjungininkų įtakai. Kinija trapi ir jos augimas smarkiai lėtėja. Indija yra politiškai pikta. Vakarai tvirtai laikosi geriausių technologijų ir tyrimų. Ir nors Europos ekonominės perspektyvos gali būti miglotos, Amerikos produktyvumas palieka daugumą konkurentų dulkėse.

 

     Declinistai mėgsta cituoti George'ą Bernardą Shaw, kurio posakis apie didžiųjų jėgų laikinumą juokingai priminė Anglijos kaimą: „Roma griuvo. Babilonas griuvo. Ateis Hindhead eilė“. Kyla pagunda taip galvoti. Tačiau bent jau kol kas neaišku, kada Vakarai paseks pavyzdžiu, jei iš viso kada nors." [1]

 

·  ·  ·1.  "Rome fell. Will the modern-day West follow suit?" The Economist, 27 May 2023, p. NA.

Rome fell. Will the modern-day West follow suit?

"Why Empires Fall. By John Rapley and Peter Heather. Yale University Press; 200 pages; $27. Allen Lane; £20

DECLINISM is in fashion again. As relations between America and China worsen, studying the ends of earlier ages of hegemony becomes more popular. Books predicting the unstoppable rise of autocratic strongmen and the death of democracy proliferate. There is much talk of the "Thucydides trap": the inevitability of a clash between a rising power and an established one, as Athens challenged Sparta in the fifth century bc.

This provocative short book adapts this approach with a novel twist. It draws a comparison between the West in 1999, the zenith of its confidence, and Rome exactly 1,600 years earlier, in 399—just decades before the empire's collapse.

The most interesting part of the story concerns Rome. John Rapley, a political economist, and Peter Heather, a historian, dissent from the analysis familiar since Edward Gibbon of an empire in gradual decline almost from its inception under Augustus. Rome, they argue, was as strong as ever at the turn of the fifth century ad. An admittedly extensive and sometimes rickety empire was held together mainly by co-opting talented outsiders, devolving extensive power to strong commanders and doing deals with potential enemies. Yet within a decade Rome had pulled its legions out of Britain (the authors dub this withdrawal the first Brexit). Less than a century later, the last western emperor, Romulus Augustulus, was gone.

What went wrong? The book dwells on foreign forces that became ever harder to resist. At the empire's weakening periphery, local bigwigs began throwing in their lot with Goths, Ostrogoths, Visigoths, Huns, Vandals and the rest. The sister of one emperor even married a Visigoth leader (apparently voluntarily) and produced a son with serious imperial claims. As Gibbon laboured to explain 250 years ago, the eastern empire based in Constantinople continued for almost another millennium. But it, too, was weakening and steadily losing territory, initially through costly wars against Persia and later with the rise of Islam and the Ottomans.

Over the centuries western Europe recovered, first under Charlemagne and later even more spectacularly when it spread its power (and its own empires) across most of the known world. The question the authors pose is whether, despite its apparent dominance as recently as the turn of the 21st century, the West is now inexorably heading in the same direction as Rome in the fifth. They point to such issues as rising debt burdens, costly welfare states, depressed productivity growth, demographic decline and mass immigration. They see big challenges to the West from the growth of Asia, particularly China and India, and also from anti-Western powers such as Russia and the rise of Africa.

Yet the analogy with Rome's decline and fall is ultimately unconvincing. The rest of the world is certainly catching up with the West, both economically and demographically. China's economy may soon be bigger than America's. Europe accounted for a quarter of the global population in 1914, but has less than a tenth today. Immigration, especially from Africa and Latin America, is politically testing. Populism is on the march.

All the same, on a global scale it is hard to envisage a serious military rival to the clout of the United States and its European allies. China is brittle and its growth is slowing sharply. India is politically rancorous. The West's grip on the best technology and research is firm. And though Europe's economic prospects may be cloudy, American productivity leaves most competitors in the dust.

Declinists like to cite George Bernard Shaw, whose dictum on the transience of great powers jokily invoked an English village: "Rome fell. Babylon fell. Hindhead's turn will come." It is tempting to think that way. But for now, at least, it is not obvious when, if ever, the West will follow suit.” [1]

·  ·  ·1.  "Rome fell. Will the modern-day West follow suit?" The Economist, 27 May 2023, p. NA.