Asia and the Middle East are a tapestry of multiple nuclear-armed states’ ambitions and competition. All the nations in question—China, India, Pakistan, Israel, and Russia—play consequential roles in regional and global security dynamics. The regional landscape of defense postures and geopolitical alignments is derived from their internal political landscapes, defense strategies, and nuclear capabilities. A defense spending comparison between these nuclear powers will elaborate on how each is tackling its respective internal and external challenges.
China: Military Spending with Pressing Domestic Issues
China’s massive defense budget of $296 billion is an expression of its desire to assume supremacy in regional military might. Its presidency under Xi Jinping has been oriented toward the modernization of the military forces and technological capabilities. The PLA today is heavily oriented toward further advances in cyber warfare, missile systems, and naval powers to improve their positions in the South China Sea and Taiwan Strait.
On the home front, however, China poses major challenges, especially in the Xinjiang and Tibet areas, where political uprising and autonomy have become major concerns. The browbeating of China internationally for the treatment of Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang has become a significant challenge to China’s stature in the world despite its economic and military progression. Meanwhile, Taiwan is a cause that has led Beijing to expand and modernize its military with a defense budget of $6.0 to 11.2 billion, setting indications of resistance against China’s territorial claims.
India: Balancing the Defense Budget and Internal Unrest
India is concerned not only by the threat from its neighbors, China and Pakistan but also faces internal challenges that warrant this level of defense spending. India has expanded its defense budget up to $83.6 billion making it a top global military spender. The modernization of India’s military is motivated by the need to counter conventional and nuclear threats issued by its neighbors. Disputed Kashmir is a major point of contention with Pakistan, a country holding a nuclear capability and being a long-term rival.
Internally, India faces insurgencies in states such as Indian Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IOJK), Naxalite movements in central India, and surging religious and ethnic tensions. The policy of the current BJP-led government, including the scrapping of Article 370—imposing special status on Kashmir—is only fueling domestic agitation that impacts internal security dynamics. The same India—building its military capabilities—is also beset by socio-economic disparities and political challenges that tax its reserves.
Pakistan: Nuclear Assets in the Face of Internal Tension
The current defense spending for Pakistan stands at $7.40 billion and reflects the country’s continued competition with India and its strategic alliance with China. Pakistan’s nuclear program, which it derives as a direct consequence of India’s nuclearization, assures it a place at the table of South Asian security matters.
Internally, Pakistan has lots to contend with; an unstable economic situation, an ever-growing threat of terrorism, and political upheavals are just the tip of the iceberg. Militancy in areas such as Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK) and Balochistan continues to bleed national resources, though as an assurance, the government claims to be controlling these threats.
The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) is part of the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and has afforded some economic relief and strategic depth to Pakistan. It has also been criticized and faced resistance from local communities who feel themselves being marginalized.
Pakistan is still a nation where militaries wield excessive influence over politics and continue to make crucial decisions independently even when civilian governments function weakly. The military-industrial complex that has continued to play a great role in giving Pakistan its nuclear posture remains an unstable and completely underdeveloped country. Much of the state GDP (gross domestic product) goes into increasing defense infrastructure.
Israel: A Country Completely Besieged on All Fronts
Israel, with a defense budget of $30.5 billion, exists as the singular nuclear power in the Middle East, surrounded by existential threats from neighboring Arab states and non-state actors such as Hezbollah and Hamas. While Israel has succeeded in maintaining a qualitative military lead over its surroundings without fail, the country’s internal political landscape is drenched with troubles. Not only does Israel experience frequent instances of political gridlock, but the Israeli-Palestinian conflict remains a cause for deep national and international stress.
Domestically, Israel has been characterized by tensions in its society, especially in the treatment of the Palestinians and the larger Arab community residing in Israel. Military institutions form the core of the Israeli identity and often supersede any domestic reform, and defense policy remains at their forefront. The nuclear ambiguity policy assisted Israel in consolidating its lead regionally. However, dissent and more recent violence that emerged from the Gaza Strip and West Bank are straining national cohesion.
Russia: Global Aspirations with Domestic Unrest
Russia, with a massive defense budget of $109 billion, has significantly invested in power projection around the world, sustaining it through its strong military cooperation with Syria, Iran, and other regional players in the Middle East.
Domestically, Russia is currently facing deep economic challenges that have been further exacerbated by the Western sanctions, following the annexation of Crimea and the Russian military incursions into Ukraine.
Internally, the government of Russia has been dealing with protests and resistance to its stranglehold on power. The defense budget forms an ever-increasing part of Russia’s total expenditures, thereby diverting much-needed resources from essential domestic service provision. This has thus created friction among the population. The militarization of society, coupled with its broader geopolitical strategies, puts enormous strains on the economy and social structure of the country as a whole.
Internal Stability versus External Projection
Each of these nuclear powers, which focuses so heavily on external threats and military prowess also faces stark problems domestically.
In China, political unrest in the Xinjiang region contrasts with economic growth, while India faces the challenge of balancing military modernization with internal insurgencies. Pakistan’s economic concerns are compounded by security threats from militants, testing the state’s reliance on military power to maintain stability. Israel, despite its nuclear deterrent providing security from external threats, remains embroiled in internal conflicts with Palestinians. Meanwhile, Russia’s military ambitions are at odds with its domestic economic challenges.
The internal situations of these states frequently reflect in their defense spending and military strategies, while domestic unrest, economic factors, and governance issues are as much a constituent part of their security policies as their foreign affairs. At a place that has been characterized by constant conflicts and shifting alliances, the internal dynamics would further play a role in influencing the nuclear powerhouses’ roles globally.
Regional Socio-Economic Fabric
The regional Asian-Middle Eastern socio-economic fabric is overstretched, at an almost tensile breaking point, with the nuclear powers’ complex interplay of internal challenges and external military ambitions. Every country—India, China, Pakistan, Israel, Russia—is struggling with some sort of internal issue including political unrest, economic disparities, and social pressures, along with separatist movements and religious conflicts. These internal stressors are further aggravated by the huge siphoning of energies and resources toward defense expenditure and nuclear armament, sometimes at the expense of social welfare and economic development. The resultant socio-economic imbalances create a volatile milieu within, where domestic instability is likely to spill over as regional instability. The consequences of such strain for the entire region are profound and fraught with the possibilities for instability.
As these nuclear powers consistently prioritize the development of military and geopolitical influence over equality within their borders, the prospects for social upheaval and political instability rise. This instability may arise as an intensification of existing regional aggressions and may even erupt as conflicts that draw bordering nations into the fray. Once more, a focus on military spending at the expense of economic growth and social well-being can only discourage potential growth for the region as a whole. The fate of the whole region hangs on whether these nations can match their external security concerns to internal socio-economic development tasks yet to be tamed in today’s geopolitical climate.
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Mansoor Tariq Khattak is a native of Shakardara, Kohat. Professionally, he is serving as an assistant director in Geographic Information Systems (GIS) at the Board of Revenue (BoR) in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK). Additionally, he is pursuing his Ph.D. in remote sensing and GIS from the prestigious Punjab University, Lahore.