As Asia arms Europe (GS Paper 2, International Relation)
Context:
- The war in Ukraine is accelerating the breakdown of familiar geopolitical antinomies, such as Europe and Asia. Nothing illustrates the new landscape more powerfully than South Korea’s emergence as a major supplier of arms to Europe, which is at war with itself.
New strategic trends:
- Korea’s rise in the European theatre highlights two important new strategic trends:
- One, Asia has long ceased to be a passive theatre for rivalry among the Western powers. No wonder, the trans-Atlantic military alliance NATO is stepping up its engagement with Asian powers.
- China’s most important neighbours and economic partners;South Korea and Japan are not only bringing NATO into Asia, but also taking Asia to NATO’s frontlines with Russia.
- Second, the idea that Europe and Asia are separate strategic theatres is becoming difficult to sustain.
Background:
- China’s alliance “without limits” unveiled in 2022 with Russia has broken through that mental block. The US has, in turn, responded by promoting greater cooperation between NATO and America’s Asian allies.
- NATO’s Madrid summit inJune, which took place in the aftermath of Russia’s Ukraine invasion, saw the participation for the first time of Asian leaders from Australia, Japan, New Zealand, and South Korea.
Recent NATO initiative:
- Recently, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg followed up the initiative by travelling to South Korea and Japan. His main message was that European and Asian security are deeply interconnected. And that NATO and Asia can help each other in dealing with the dangers from Russia and China.
- In Seoul, he was pressing the South Korean leaders to start supplying arms directly to Ukraine. Right now South Korean arms are making their way to Ukraine through third countries or replenishing the arsenals of those sending their weapons to Kyiv.
- Poland alone is expected to bury nearly $16 billion worth of arms from South Korea. Among the equipment to be supplied include tanks, howitzers, and fighter aircraft.
- Poland is not the only one that is looking to South Korea; Norway and Estonia are among other European states looking to Seoul to cope with the perceived security threats from Russia.
Arms’ diplomacy:
- Locked in a grinding war, Ukraine and Russia are running through arms and ammunition at a phenomenal rate.
- Russia’s neighbours to the West are also arming themselves with new weapons. The Western and Russian arms industries are not geared to cope with the massive demand.
- Pakistan is transferring ammunition to Ukraine as part of a major diplomatic effort to reset relations with the US that frayed badly under Imran Khan’s tenure. If the former PM seemed ready to back the Sino-Russian alliance, the current government is trying to correct that tilt.
Suppliers to Russia:
- Russia has turned to North Korea for the supply of winter clothing and ammunition. Iran has become a major supplier of drones to Russia.
- Turkey has supplied drones and more to Ukraine over the last year. Turkey has also been in the lead in trying to create diplomatic engagement between Ukraine and Russia.
Asia as supplier of arms:
- As power struggles within and between the developing countries in the non-Western world turned violent and generated the demand for weapons in the post-colonial era, Western merchants provided the supplies.
- But the arms bazaar is no longer exclusively Western. Asian powers are now important producers and traders of weapons.
- China is the fourth largest arms exporter in the world after the US, Russia, and France. Most of China’s arms exports are to the developing world and have yet to penetrate the developed markets. With many European countries passing laws not to sell arms to conflict zones, the demand for Asian weapons has only grown.
- Korea, whose arms exports reached nearly $20 billion in 2022, is now ranked eighth on the list of arms exporters. Buoyed by the surge in the demand for its arms sales, Korea wants to quickly climb up the list. The capacity to deliver high-quality weapons at low cost and on short order has put Korea in a pivotal position.
India as arms exporter:
- India too is eager to export arms and there has been some progress in recent months. The export of Brahmos to the Philippines in 2022 has been a major milestone in the country’s evolution as an arms producer.
- The largest destination for Indian arms exports is not the developing world, but the US. That has largely come from the Indian supply sub-assemblies to US weapons systems.
- When it comes to selling in the markets of the Global South, India is struggling to fend off competition from the better-organised and more developed South Korean manufacturers.
- There has been much media speculation that India’s HAL has been close to clinching the contracts in Malaysia and Egypt for its Tejas fighters. In both places, the fighter and trainer aircraft built by Korea Aircraft Industries won the competition.
Japan’s new policies:
- Russia’s war in Ukraine has also woken up the world’s third-largest economy, Japan, to rethink its security policies. Selling arms to friends and partners is among the many outcomes of Japan’s recent radical overhaul of its national defence policy.
- Although it had a powerful arms industry of its own that made a great impact during the Second World War, post-war pacifism bottled up its arms makers.
- Japan has provided some non-lethal military assistance to Ukraine; it might be a while before Japan becomes a major arms exporter like South Korea. But Japan is preparing to boost its weapons sales over the longer term.
- Japan plans to double defence spending over the next five years. Japan is also tying up with European and American arms companies to develop fighter aircraft, missiles and drones for domestic use as well as exports.
Way Forward:
- For India, which is coping with the Chinese military challenge on its borders as well as in its waters as well as reducing its dependence on Russian weapons, the new and dynamic defence engagement between Europe and Asia opens up multiple opportunities.
- This includes the possibilities for modernising its rusty defence industrial base in partnership with friendly states.
- India’s recent agreement with the US on expanding joint defence production and technology should be a precursor to a wider range of agreements with its European and Asian partners to transform India’s defence production and enhance its arms exports.
