Amid historic levels of forced displacement due to armed conflict, G7 countries’ military spending has hit record highs.
Archived version: https://archive.ph/22pTI
That is not exactly surprising when the USA is in the group. Might as well only talk about them considering how extremely shifted it is.
Like looking at 5 people, one is a millionaire and 4 homeless, and taking about how they have above average income.
Additionally, this is total military spending vs foreign humanitarian support. So giving food to children in Gaza counts, but feeding the homeless in your own country does not.
I still agree with the conclusion, but the headline is kinda rage bait.
It doesn’t say it’s only foreign humanitarian support. It’s humanitarian aid for wars and disasters, which is literally the definition of humanitarian aid
Humanitarian aid generally refers to the provision of immediate, short-term relief in crisis situations, such as food, water, shelter, and medical care. Humanitarian assistance, on the other hand, encompasses a broader range of activities, including longer-term support for recovery, rehabilitation, and capacity building. Humanitarian aid is distinct from development aid, which seeks to address underlying socioeconomic factors.
What you are talking about is social welfare which isn’t the same thing at all.
Interesting that there is a fine difference between humanitarian aid and humanitarian assistance. I doubt many journalist are this strict about their wording, but good to know nonetheless.
Social welfare provides the exact same things (housing, food, medicine) but instead of some disaster zone somewhere it’s for disadvantaged citizens in your own country. Of course, the logistics are massively different, as well as the timeframe during which the services are provided. But it’s still basically the same thing: help other humans with fundamental necessities.
So I would disagree with your claim that it “isn’t the same thing at all”. It differs in some details, but the central service and fundamental reasoning is the same.
Weapons tend to be more expensive than wells.
That’s even deceiving since most of that foreign aid is military aid that has to be spent on the giving country’s arms.
American foreign aid is just a subsidy for domestic industry.
And yet somehow Ukraine is still suffering materiel and ammo shortages …
Because all the future conflicts that where prepared for where low intensity high tech skirmishes, or curb stomping terrorists in caves.
Too many people in the decision tree believed that high intensity positional warfare that uses over 10k shells a day where a thing of the past.
Just look at the stats of south Korea’s artillery stockpiles. They know how to party.
- 5600 artillery pieces of various calibers of which ~4k 155mm artillery
- 200k a year production of 155mm
- stockpiles to engage with north Korea
If you want to field even 20pct of the artillery at war strength 800 artillery pieces that each fire 10 shells a day. That would be 8K shells a day.
If you calculate for a 90 day engagement you would need a stockpile of 720.000 shells. Based on the fact north Korea supplied several million shells to Russia, and south Korea loaned 500k shells to the US, you can imagine the stockpile south Korea has will also be several million shells. But in Europe, ammo stockpiles run dry with 2 weeks of bombing Libya.
And it is not as if military leadership was not yelling about this. But the peace dividend was spent on other stuff than war stocks. While Russia stocked it’s war machine (and funded super yachts).
We all have to thank our lucky stars for the corruption in Russia… because if they would have spent effectively and organized effectively and actually trained. They would have rolled up to the Polish border.
I am aware of the history. But idiots spent 2 years on reddit OMG NATO GDP100X RUSSIA. GG send them challenger rheeee, W by fall of 23.
Most of the “bad” decisions were made by people currently in charge today with in last 3 years.
Sane voices were talking about setting up production… but they were drowned out by US defense contractor overcharging DoD on stale equipment AND THEY DID NOT HAVE MONEY TO GET ARTILLERY PRODUCTION GOING BECAUSE THAT REQUIRES INVESTMENTS. 🤡 private sector welfare queens jfc
While limp EU4 were too busy waffling, Germany had to have their pipeline blown up before they gave their pathetic geopoltical rhetoric and start at least pretending to be an strategic ally.
This was all happening when Russia was mobilizing their war economy. Maybe Putin is onto something…
It’s. The. Capitalism.
All those bloodthirsty dictators won’t prop up themselves.
Hegemony is costly.
