The return of great power competition across the globe is forcing countries to adapt, spurring major changes to alignment and spending from Europe to the Indo-Pacific to the Middle East.<\/p>\n
The change is everywhere on the map \u2014 but most evident in countries like Sweden and Japan as the nations make dramatic changes to meet rising threats from Russia and China.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve described the security environment as the most dangerous I\u2019ve seen in 40 years in uniform,\u201d said U.S. Adm. John Aquilino, head of Indo-Pacific Command,\u00a0before the House Armed Services Committee\u00a0this month.<\/p>\n
The rise of new tensions has driven up defense spending worldwide. In an\u00a0annual report this year, the International Institute for Strategic Studies found defense spending was up 9 percent worldwide last year, reaching $2.2 trillion.<\/p>\n
In a breakdown by country, a majority of nations increased defense spending from 2021 to 2023.<\/p>\n
European countries collectively drove spending up from about $350 billion in 2021 to more than $388 billion in 2023, while Asian nations bumped that from more than $500 billion to higher than $510 billion in the same time frame.<\/p>\n
The spending bumps go hand-in-hand with public opinion. A\u00a0November Ipsos poll\u00a0of 30 countries found 84 percent of people believe the world is becoming more dangerous, up from 74 percent in 2018 (the poll was conducted before the Israel-Hamas war).<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think we\u2019re days away from World War III, but I do think that the world is becoming more unstable,\u201d said Joseph Shelzi, an analyst at the Soufan Group, a global security and intelligence firm.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a higher risk now, like peer adversaries engaging in high intensity conflict. We see that playing out now in Ukraine, and we see the possibility for that to play out in the streets of Taiwan.\u201d<\/p>\n
Russia brings war to Europe
\nIn Europe, the threat from Russia has grown significantly since Russian forces invaded Ukraine in 2022. And it has become more acute with the war dragging into a long conflict that increasingly favors Moscow.<\/p>\n
Smaller Baltic nations have pushed to bolster defenses against a potential, future Russian attack.<\/p>\n
Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, who have been warning of a Russian military buildup on par with the Soviet Union, agreed this year to build a common defense line made up of bunkers and other defense structures.<\/p>\n
Further north, Finland and Sweden joined the Western security alliance NATO following Russia\u2019s invasion.<\/p>\n
Sweden abandoned a policy of more than 200 years of neutrality to officially join forces with Western allies in NATO this month. Stockholm stuck with that policy of neutrality through World War I, World War II and the Cold War.<\/p>\n
But Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said the inclusion of Sweden into NATO this year was a \u201cnatural\u201d step to take.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are joining NATO to even better defend what we are and what we believe in: our freedom and our democracy,\u201d Kristersson\u00a0said in an address\u00a0after inclusion into NATO. \u201cThis is an epoch-making event for our country.\u201d<\/p>\n
Minna \u00c5lander, a nonresident fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA), said it was \u201chuge\u201d for Sweden to join NATO. She said it was the result of a dangerous security environment with more uncertainty than even during the Cold War.<\/p>\n
\u201cDuring the Cold War, at least towards the end of it, you had a system\u201d with reliable rules, she said. \u201cThe post-Cold War norms don\u2019t seem to apply anymore in many places. But you also don\u2019t yet have new rules for the game [and] that\u2019s what\u2019s so dangerous about this moment right now.\u201d<\/p>\n
Finland, which shares an 800-mile border with Russia, also motivated Sweden to act by applying to the alliance, said Shelzi from the Soufan Group.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s concrete and you see it on the map today,\u201d he continued. \u201cRussia has brought war back to Europe and so this has been a wake-up call for European leaders throughout Europe.\u201d<\/p>\n
NATO members are also pledging to increase defense spending to meet the 2 percent of economic output target, a point of contention as nations other than the U.S. have historically not met that goal and for years relied on Washington for security.<\/p>\n
Although a record number of NATO members are expected to meet the target in 2024 \u2014 18 members \u2014 the riff over defense spending reached new levels this year. Former President Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee for the 2024 presidential election, said he would let Russia do \u201cwhatever the hell they want\u201d to countries that did not pay up in NATO.<\/p>\n
\u00c5lander, from CEPA, said there was a \u201ctotal shockwave\u201d in Europe after Trump\u2019s comments, leading to a recommitment to meeting defense spending and ensuring individual national security, with some countries seeing the U.S. as a potential threat in the future if a hostile president abandons them.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis isn\u2019t really a Trump problem. It\u2019s a much more longer-term problem with the volatility of American domestic politics and how that has started to swing foreign policy as well,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Along with NATO, the European Union recognizes the need for countries to boost their security and has called to increase collaboration on security challenges and ramp up defense spending.<\/p>\n
European Council President Charles Michel called for a \u201creal paradigm shift in relation to our security and defense\u201d\u00a0in a letter\u00a0this month.<\/p>\n
\u201cNow that we are facing the biggest security threat since the Second World War, it is high time we take radical and concrete steps to be defense-ready and put the EU\u2019s economy on a \u2018war footing,\u201d Michel wrote.<\/p>\n
Some analysts see the U.S. and European military buildup as escalation rather than an effort aimed at securing peace.<\/p>\n
Phyllis Bennis, director of the new internationalism project at the progressive Institute for Policy Studies, warned against \u201ca massive escalation of power\u201d through NATO and urged the implementation of more treaties that reduce the deployment of arms.<\/p>\n
\u2018We need a new structure for Europe that\u2019s not defined solely or primarily as a security, military structure,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Bennis said that structure could be modeled off the Conventional Armed Forces in Europe treaty, which Russia withdrew from last year. The Cold War-era treaty had restricted the number of conventional arms and forces in Europe.<\/p>\n
The U.S. \u201cgovernment should be trying to negotiate with Russia on things that are bilateral between the U.S. and Russia,\u201d she said. \u201cThat could go a long way to reducing some of the tension. \u2026 You have to start somewhere because the alternative is permanent war.\u201d<\/p>\n
US-China competition roils Indo-Pacific
\nOn the other side of the world, the U.S. and China are pushing to outcompete each other in the Indo-Pacific as a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan looms. And North Korea has grown more\u00a0belligerent toward the U.S. and its ally South Korea.<\/p>\n
Washington is building alliances in the region and bolstering the U.S. presence as it tries to deter Beijing from invading Taiwan, potentially in 2027, the date that Chinese leader Xi Jinping has told his forces to be ready.<\/p>\n
Last year, the U.S. agreed with the Philippines to open four new bases on the island, while the White House in 2023 also\u00a0cemented an agreement\u00a0with Vietnam to deepen defense cooperation. There are also growing ties with Palau, Malaysia and Singapore.<\/p>\n
The U.S. in 2021 forged a major new Indo-Pacific pact with Australia and the U.K., known as AUKUS, which aims to deliver nuclear-powered submarines to Canberra and increase advanced weapon development between all three nations.<\/p>\n
But perhaps the most important ally for the U.S. in the region is Japan, which is emerging as a major partner to confront the threat from China and North Korea.<\/p>\n
Tokyo has shifted away from pacifist defense policy enacted after World War II, now planning to double its defense budget by 2027 to potentially become the third largest military spender behind the U.S. and China.<\/p>\n
Japan has also changed rules to allow for the export of lethal weapons and has released a strategy calling for the development of a counterstrike capability, another significant change from World War II-era policy that prohibited offensive military actions.<\/p>\n
A Japanese Ministry of Defense official\u00a0told The Hill this month\u00a0that the shift in policy was necessary to increase deterrence and \u201cto stop the intention of aggression.\u201d<\/p>\n
John Hemmings, senior director of Indo-Pacific foreign and security policy program at the Pacific Forum, said the diminishing influence of a pro-Beijing Japanese faction, along with a new generation more detached from the World War II-era Japanese empire, who have also grown up during the rise of China, has driven change in Tokyo.<\/p>\n
\u201cOver time, that support has become internally more military facing,\u201d Hemmings said, and \u201cthe China threat became much more popular.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hemmings also noted that the U.S., Japan and South Korea set up a new trilateral alliance last year at Camp David, with Tokyo and Seoul settling historic differences to create a stronger relationship. He said Japan is growing into a powerful U.S. ally.<\/p>\n
\u201cJapan is becoming an enabler for U.S. alignment efforts,\u201d Hemmings said. \u201cA lot of critics will say they\u2019re merely puppets of the United States. I don\u2019t think that at all. If anything, I think Japan has been the intellectual leadership within the Indo Pacific concept.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tensions explode in Middle East
\nIn the volatile Middle East, the threat from Iran is growing as experts are\u00a0warning of a major regional war\u00a0between Tehran, its proxies and their longtime foe Israel.<\/p>\n
Tensions in the Middle East exploded last year amid a major war between Israel, the most important regional U.S. ally, and the Iran-backed Palestinian militant group Hamas in Gaza.<\/p>\n
The Gaza conflict is driving Israel and the Iranian-backed Hezbollah military and political group in Lebanon closer to an all-out war, with both sides exchanging frequent artillery and rocket fire over the border.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are moving towards a greater conflict with Iran,\u201d said Alp Sevimlisoy, a millennium fellow at the Atlantic Council. \u201cIt\u2019s very likely in the next few years that we will have to take direct military action against Iran.\u201d<\/p>\n
The deadly Hamas attacks on southern Israel on Oct. 7, which triggered the ongoing war, left more than 1,100 dead with another 250 kidnapped, traumatizing the nation and forcing Israel to seek enhanced security around Gaza and in the north around Lebanon.<\/p>\n
For Israel, having the threat of both Hamas and Hezbollah \u2014 and the wider problem of Iran, which also has proxies in Iraq, Syria and Yemen \u2014 close to home is becoming more and more unacceptable.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are fighting an axis, not a single enemy,\u201d Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant\u00a0told The Wall Street Journal\u00a0in January. \u201cIran is building up military power around Israel in order to use it.\u201d<\/p>\n
The most immediate threat from Hezbollah could escalate to all-out war in the near future as Israel tries to resolve the border crisis. That could spark a regional, if not worldwide, crisis,\u00a0according to a new\u00a0Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS)\u00a0report.<\/p>\n
\u201cA war [between Israel and Hezbollah] could dramatically raise tensions with populations across the Middle East and beyond\u2014including in the United States and Europe\u2014and lead to increased attacks by Iranian-backed groups against Israel, the United States, and commercial targets in the region and littoral areas,\u201d CSIS concluded.<\/p>\n
Sevimlisoy, from the Atlantic Council, said the U.S. may look to solidify its alliance with Arab nations in the region in preparation for a war with Iran.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is now an era that concerns alliances and coalitions,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat we should be working towards are certainly conflict plans against Iran, together with our allies in the Gulf in the Middle East, in the event that Iran either chooses to heighten the use of its proxies in many of the countries where we see a lot of chaos at present, or in the event that Iran decides to utilize its position by nuclear weapons to challenge the hegemony of either the U.S. or the national security of individual Gulf countries.\u201d<\/p>\n
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