If there’s an arms race in the region, it’s a contest with just one participant: China. While it’s too early to factor in recent tensions, as China’s rise has reshaped the region over the past two decades, East and Southeast Asian states don’t seem to have reacted by building up their own militaries. Yet as of 2012, military expenditures in East and Southeast Asia are at the lowest they’ve been in 25 years - and very likely the lowest they’ve been in 50 years (although data before 1988 is questionable). Meanwhile, the United States is in the midst of a well-publicized “pivot” to East Asia, and continues to beef up its military deployments to the region. China spars regularly with Japan over ownership of a group of disputed islands, and with several Southeast Asian countries over other sparsely inhabited rocks in the South China Sea. Over the last few months, North Korea has tested missiles and threatened the United States with nuclear war. (All data comes from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, the most dependable source for worldwide military data, which began publishing its global military figures in 1988.)Īre tensions high in Asia? It certainly appears so.
In 1988, as the Cold War was winding down, the six major Southeast Asian states spent an average of almost 3.5 percent of GDP on military expenditures. The best way to measure military expenditures is as a percentage of total GDP, because this reflects how much a country could potentially spend.
In times of external threat, military priorities take precedence over domestic ones, like social and economic services in times of relative peace, countries devote a greater share of their economy to domestic priorities. Military expenditures reflect states' threat perceptions, and reveal how they are planning for both immediate and long-term contingencies. If there's an arms race in the region, it's a contest with just one participant: China. While it's too early to factor in recent tensions, as China's rise has reshaped the region over the past two decades, East and Southeast Asian states don't seem to have reacted by building up their own militaries. Yet as of 2012, military expenditures in East and Southeast Asia are at the lowest they've been in 25 years - and very likely the lowest they've been in 50 years (although data before 1988 is questionable). Meanwhile, the United States is in the midst of a well-publicized "pivot" to East Asia, and continues to beef up its military deployments to the region. Are tensions high in Asia? It certainly appears so.
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