Is an Arms Race Underway in Asia?

Featuring Dr. James Boutilier, Special Advisor (Policy), Maritime Forces Pacific and CAPI Associate.

Some disturbing trends have begun to emerge in the Indo Pacific region that suggest that an arms race may be underway in Asia. China's defence budgets have increased at a double digit rate for more than twenty years and China is now second only to the United States in defence expenditure.

A prominent feature of regional defence budgets is the allocation of resources to maritime assets. Most nations are not only expanding and modernizing their navies but increasing their power. We see this in three areas: the growth of nuclear and conventional submarine fleets, the appearance of big, ship-killing missiles, and the construction of aircraft carriers. Some of the bigger nations like India and China have embraced the Mahanian point of view that big navies are the natural hallmark of great powers. Smaller regional players are clearly worried about the increasingly brittle character of the maritime environment: about the continued growth of the big navies and about the acquisition profiles of their near neighbours.

Should we be concerned about these developments? Is it only natural that export-driven economies, that depend on commercial shipping, are looking to ensure the untrammelled movement of oceanic cargoes? Or are we at the stage where an upward spiral of arms acquisitions has been triggered that feeds on itself, promoting regional anxieties, endangering security, and justifying the further acquisition of military hardware? 

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