“COVID-19” Pandemic: Rethinking Defence Spending in Bulgaria

This paper investigates defence spending in Bulgaria in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. It analyses military expenditures on both regional and national scales and tries to compare the post-financial and economic crisis period of the first decade of the 21st century to the current pandemic situation. The paper argues that it is unlikely that the ever evolving threat landscape will lead to a significant decrease in defence spending, while requiring its rethinking in Bulgaria with a focus on investments in technologies and related activities. Due to the ongoing pandemic and the fact that relatively little time has passed since its emergence, part of the conclusions drawn are primarily prospective in nature.

Greek GDP growth in 2022 will rely on EU recovery aid

Significance The economic rebound from a 9% contraction in 2020 is mainly being driven by strong domestic demand supported by accommodative fiscal policies and higher-than-expected tourism revenues. However, the deteriorating epidemiological situation in Greece, and new COVID-19 variants expanding into Europe -- possibly resistant to vaccines -- pose risks to future growth prospects. Impacts Persistent supply-chain disruptions will slow down expansion in industrial output in 2022. Winding down the fiscal stimulus will narrow the primary budget deficit from 7.6% of GDP in 2021 to an estimated 1.2% in 2022. The primary budget deficit will widen in 2022-23 thanks to front-loading defence spending. Greater penetration of digital services is a positive side-effect of the pandemic. A deceleration in bank credit issuance could restrict corporate investment in 2022.

Development and Transformation of the Indian Nuclear Doctrine

Indian rationale for developing nuclear weapons is embedded in Article 51 of United Nations (UN) Charter. After analyzing the changes in Indian defence procurements, a huge defence spending and public statements issued by the former and incumbent Indian government official authors presume India is changing its nuclear posture. New Delhi is discarding earlier publicly stated No-First Use (NFU) posture with ready or super ready status. It is replacing Credible Minimum Deterrent (CMD) posture with overkill capacity. India revived earlier announced Cold Start Doctrine (CSD). The objective of this paper is to review changes in Indian nuclear doctrine and capabilities and implications for Pakistan security. However a qualitative method is used for the completion of this research. Paramount aim of nuclear signaling is to avoid outbreak of violence. The findings of this paper include dividing Indian strategic community into leftists/rightists. Further, abovementioned changes can result in Indian preemptive strike against Pakistan or inadvertent or unauthorized use of nuclear weapons. The region is ripe for nuclear exchange. South Asia is nuclear flashpoint. In conclusion, Pakistan needs to expedite its diplomatic efforts to highlight changes introduced by India. Islamabad should follow North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) strategy to solidify its conventional and nuclear armed force structure to deter militarily powerful enemy

Defence Spending and Sovereign Debt in Greece: A Long-Term Historical Perspective

The paper sets out to examine the military spending-public debt nexus in the case of Greece. Unlike previous studies that exclusively focus their analyses in the post-WWII period, the empirical investigation conducted herein covers almost the entire two hundred years of the modern Greek state. The estimations using an ARDL framework cover the period 1848–2018 as well as sub-periods therein. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first paper to approach this issue in the case of Greece with such a long-term perspective. In broad terms, the findings do not unearth a statistically traceable effect of defence expenditures on public debt accumulation. The results indicate that this was very much driven by debt dynamics and the need to draw funds to service existing loans. This finding is consistent across both the entire period under scrutiny here as well as the various sub-periods.

Defence Spending and Economic Growth in South Africa: Evidence from Cointegration and Co-Feature Analysis

The paper revisits the causality relationship between defence spending and economic growth for South Africa during the period 1960–2018. The results of our estimation show that defence spending and economic growth are cointegrated and that there is bidirectional Granger causality running between defence spending and economic growth in the long run. We then applied a Hodrick-Prescott filter to decompose the trend and the fluctuation components of the defence spending and economic growth series. The findings from the autoregressive distributed lag bounds test estimations show that in the long- and short-run, the trends and cyclicality of defence spending retard economic growth. The estimation results show that there is cointegration between the trends and the cyclical components of the two series, which suggests that the Granger causality possibly relates to the business cycle. This study suggests that investing more and reducing inefficiency spending in the defence sector during fluctuations can further stimulate economic growth in South Africa.

Defence Expenditures of Nato Member States in the Times of Covid and the New Us Administration: Selected Observations

NATO member states have been steadily increasing their levels of defence expenditures since 2015. In 2020, already ten member states met the NATO financial guidelines of spending at least 2% of their gross domestic product (GDP) for defence, including 20% for major equipment. In addition, many other countries were planning to achieve this target by 2024. There are two factors, however, which could slow down this process. First, economic recession as a follow up to COVID-19 will have a negative influence on the state budgets. Defence spending could start decreasing in nominal terms, followed by the challenges in meeting NATO financial guidelines. Second, while President Donald Trump put the Alliance's burden-sharing in the centre of his policy vis-à-vis European allies, the current US administration, represented by the Democratic Party, will put more emphasis on multilateral cooperation as well as soft security instruments, including development and diplomacy. In consequence, even if the White House is going to stand strongly with 2/20% rule, it might lessen the pressure on European allies, especially Germany, to significantly accelerate defence spending, seeing transatlantic relationship in a broader division of risks and responsibilities. In this article, it is suggested that due to the economic crisis of the 2020s and the shift in the policy of the US Government, NATO member states would slow down, in short and mid-term perspectives, the process of increasing defence expenditures.

Canada is well-placed to meet defence spending targets

Significance Spending on the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) rose in the 2021 budget despite fears that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's government would scale back military expenditure to fund pandemic-related social spending. Neither recent scandals nor the forthcoming general election are likely to imperil the CAF’s positive budgetary outlook. Impacts Canada is spending CAD163mn on a five-year project that will modernise the NORAD air defence system. The Arctic continues to be a central defence concern and Ottawa is upgrading facilities there. Confidence in a sustained level of military spending should benefit Canadian defence companies as they seek foreign contracts.

Australia budget keeps defence spending commitments

Significance With an election due soon, the governing Liberal-National Coalition’s pledge to ring-fence the defence spending commitments made in 2016 was under some pressure. However, defence spending in fiscal year 2021/22 will grow by over 4% in real terms and stay above the symbolic level of 2% of GDP. Impacts Growing popular and bipartisan concern with Chinese aggression is a conducive environment for increased defence spending. Low interest rates and a stronger Australian dollar are also supporting sustained levels of defence expenditure. Washington may increase pressure on Australia to conduct freedom of navigation exercises in the South China Sea. Major business groups are concerned that increased criticism of China in national politics will produce yet more punitive backlash.

Kryzys Bundeswehry po zjednoczeniu Niemiec

The Bundeswehr, the armed forces of the Federal Republic of Germany, which was one of the strongestarmies in NATO during the Cold War, is currently in serious crisis. After the reunification of Germany, thenumber of soldiers was quickly reduced and the defence spending dropped to 1.2 percent of the GDP. In2004, the doctrine of using the Bundeswehr changed too. It was concluded that there was no risk of anattack on the German territory, so general conscription was abandoned and the supplies of weapons andammunition needed for mobilization were liquidated. The army was to specialise in peace and stabilisationmissions in endangered areas of the world. However, at present, Germany has far fewer soldiers on missionsthan, for example, France and Great Britain, and it consistently refrains from joining missions during which itis likely to participate in real combat operations. At present, the German army does not have a single brigadecapable of taking part in a combat, and a small number of Luftwaffe airplanes and helicopters are technicallysound, including Marine vessels. The situation of the Bundeswehr is complicated by the widespread pacifismin German society and the resulting lack of trust in, and aversion to the military.