Nations across the globe are increasing military budgets, strengthening alliances, and forming new alliances, all in preparation for a massive global conflict.
Germany, in addition to increased annual military expenditures has also announced an additional one time or lump sum of 107 million Euros (roughly $106 billion) to beef-up its military infrastructure. Sweden, which after 200 years of non alliance, has, along with Finland, applied for NATO membership. Sweden announced its intention to increase its military budget by 64% by 2028. Japan plans to double its military budget by the same year. The U.S. has increased its military budget by 30% since 2016. India increased its military budget 10% over the past year, China by 7.1% during the same period. Five European Union members have increased their military budgets by 20% or more during the past year. “Peace on Earth, Goodwill toward Men”
Australia, the United Kingdom, and the US, in 2021, formed a new military alliance, (AUKUS), to strengthen its presence in the Indo-Pacific region, this to counter China’s growing influence in the region. Alongside this effort, the alliance has been pressuring small island nations within the region to step in line or face serious consequences.
A separate military alliance, the Quad, initiated in 2007 consists of Australia, India, Japan, and the U.S., initially floundered, but was revived under Trump in 2017, again, in order to counter China’s growing influence in the Indo-Pacific region. Australia has agreed to an increased U.S. military presence on the northern portion of its continent, and has agreed to purchase a fleet of nuclear submarines from the U.S. “Peace on Earth, Goodwill toward Men”
Meanwhile the war rages on in Ukraine with little U.S. domestic pressure to bring this nonsense to an end. Russian soldiers die daily by the hundreds, Ukrainian soldiers probably die in somewhat lesser, but no less tragic, numbers; civilians will freeze to death this winter due to Russian strikes on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure. When the war is all said and done, a negotiated solution will come about which will likely leave Crimea in Russian hands and there will be greater autonomy in Ukraine’s largely Russian speaking eastern territory. This is what was originally agreed upon in the 2014 Minsk agreements, admittedly agreed to by Ukraine’s President Poroshenko solely to buy time for Ukraine to build its military forces in order to fight the Russians at a later date.
The two advantages that Ukraine will likely derive from all of this is that at war’s end, Ukraine will likely become a NATO member and it will be granted full membership in the European Union, two achievements which Russia mightily tried to prevent. “Peace on Earth, Goodwill toward Men”
If Americans were paying close attention to all of this instead of crowding into shopping malls exhaling and inhaling COVID air, promoting environmental damaging excessive consumption, while adding unnecessarily to inflationary pressures, they might be able to manage a protest which would bring this war to an end now, rather than a year, or two, or three years down the road, which, short of nuclear war, will likely bring about the same results: Crimea in Russian hands, greater autonomy in the eastern territories, Ukraine in NATO and the Europe Union.
Let’s be clear, it is only through western support, primarily U.S. support, that Ukraine remains in the battle. The American people have the power to bring this war to an end through the threat of withdrawal of support. We’ll see if “Peace on Earth, Goodwill toward Men” is a genuine sentiment or merely the commodification of an idea which boosts Christmas sales and manufactures cheer in an otherwise mostly cheerless world.