Today we see a striking paradox. Western media have echoed all sorts of military pundits and intelligence sources emphasizing how far Russian military might was overrated before the invasion; how much it has proven weaker than expected at every level, including its logistical capabilities and deployment of sophisticated weaponry; and how much damage Vladimir Putin’s criminal onslaught on Ukraine has brought upon Russia itself, its economy and its military potential. And yet several NATO governments have seized upon the opportunity of this war, which is obviously enfeebling Russia, in order to engage in a frenzy of increased military expenditure.

Military-industrial complexes everywhere are rubbing their hands with glee. NATO armies’ top brass is again resorting to the old trick of overestimating the threats, as it periodically used to do with regard to the Soviet Union during the Cold War, in order to advocate rearmament. Such a term is utterly inappropriate, given that NATO armies never disarmed to begin with; rather, they were constantly over-armed during the Cold War and have stuck to excessive arms levels ever since. Besides, whatever deliveries of defensive weapons are made to Ukrainian resistance are but a tiny portion of ongoing military expenditure — not even the 1 percent of all NATO spending that Ukraine’s president has been begging for.

Not content with the United States’ current gigantic military expenditure, which amounted to $782 billion last year — up from $778 billion spent in 2020, which itself represented, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, 39 percent of global military expenditure, more than three times China’s ($252 billion) and more than twelve times Russia’s ($61.7 billion) — Joe Biden is now requesting $813 billion for the next fiscal year ($773 billion for the Pentagon and an additional $40 billion for defense-related programs at the FBI, Department of Energy, and other agencies). According to undersecretary of defense, Comptroller Michael J. McCord: “This budget was finalized before Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. So there is nothing in this budget that specifically was changed because it was too late to change it if we wanted to, to reflect the specifics of the invasion.”