If you compare the military budget as percentage of GDP, USA is not the top country. What makes the military budget of USA so huge is that the overall budget is so huge.
Almost all countries in the world need to invest large sums of money into military forces, unless they are protected by a stronger nation. That tells a sad message about humanity.
To avoid aggressive attacks by other countries, nations need to have relatively strong military forces. If there are serious military power available, sooner of later someone wants to use it as a tool to gain more power or prestige. That tends to create a spiral of violence through centuries.
After destructive wars, people do not want to have more suffering and there may be a period of peace. After the period, power switches to persons who have not experienced destructive wars and may have unrealistic images of war. They may think that they can obtain glory or benefits through warfare. And the spiral of violence continues…
In the future, the threshold for starting wars may be lowered because the development leads towards unmanned vehicles. The war in Ukraine has shown how important drones are for modern warfare. The development at this front is extremely rapid - what was used six months ago may be outdated now. AI is getting a growing role in this evolution. Humans give the basic instructions and send the long-distance drones but the rest is up to the AI that is guiding the drone. Whatever we think about letting the decision of targets to the hands of AI, that is happening fast - the practical demands of war may trump the ethical rules.
Perhaps we can get to a point where we just let robots duke it out for us, and we can settle wars without human bloodshed. But, why must we in the first place? Now we just wasting precious electronic components just to have them destroyed in combat. Which, I suppose, is just what we do anyway.
Personally I think the Ukraine invasion has served to demonstrate that there is little to no point to war any more because it consists of throwing money into a BBQ pit – no one wins, even the victor.
I was born there and grew up in Niger, near it. Good question. They are struggling a lot. I really honor the Peace Corps. There were some terrific ones.
Yes. The problem is that after being involved in a military attack, it is difficult to stop without a victory. Stopping due to losses may feel like a failure and that may lead to serious problems in internal politics.
In addition, the leaders of non-democratic countries can tolerate heavy losses because human life is not worth much - a million Russians or ten million Chinese soldiers lost does not threaten the position of the leader if the leader can claim victories.
Below is the list of destroyed Russian targets during the ongoing war in Ukraine, dated today (2.6.2026). The list is partly propaganda from one party, the armed forces of Ukraine, so the numbers need to be taken with a critical attitude. Even if the real numbers would be somewhat smaller, the list shows how destructive such a war is for the attacking force. For the defender, losses may be somewhat smaller but large anyway. If Russia has lost >1’000’000 soldiers as dead or wounded, the army of Ukraine has probably lost >500’000 soldiers (dead or seriously wounded).
these figures do not include destroyed infrastructure or civilian casualties.
