The world had seen two devastating war which had killed millions of people across the globe, the war was initiated by the superpowers to claim influences over the most part of the world, and to extend nationalism beyond their border. With increasing economic might, they had invested heavily to achieve the military might. The competition was arisen among the leading nations of Europe to rule and dominate over the world, they started military and economic invasion across the globe, and this was resulting into a serious conflict of interest, and later took the shape of world war. Later on, leaders across the world had reached to the deal to establish peace and security again. United Nations was created for international cooperation, peace, security, prevention of war, etc, although it has been succeeding at the different front, it failed miserably in preventing many wars and the apocalyptic arm race. Now the world has reached to a situation where no country wants a war but every country is preparing for war. The huge amount of the global GDP is being allocated to the defense, and they are increasing it every year. The superpowers have been playing a game with no victory; any miscalculations and adventures could lead to the total destruction of humanity.
The world has been posing a serious threat from arms race, it could take the world on the uncertain path, the impact could be the irreversible, and it could force us to live in the Stone Age. The nuclear and naval arms races are imminent to prove its superiority, going forward the race for inter-continental ballistic missiles and anti-ballistic missile systems are in the line. After the cold war, the world in 2017 has been reaching towards another conflict, and quietly the superpower and other stakeholders are preparing for it. Russia, United States, and some European nations have indirectly asked their citizen to be prepared for the nuclear war. They are deploying the alarming system, organizing training to stay safe during the nuclear conflict, and this shows how the risk of nuclear conflict has increased dramatically. The president of United States has openly advocated for the race and have ordered for the modernization of military which is already the most advanced military in the world. It threatens Russian and Chinese security, although the economies of theirs are far less stable than United States they have no option, they prepare to match the United States capabilities or at least develop deterrence. Russia perceives western alliance led by United States as the existential threat so it has managed to develop at least the nuclear parity with them. On the other hand, China has developed comparatively far less nuclear capability, its aim to deter the aggression, and it doesn’t perceive western alliance as the existential threat, unlike Russia.
Major hotspots, which can fuel the large-scale war, are Korean peninsula, NATO aggression on the western border of Russia, South China Sea, Iran-Saudi Arabia escalation, India-Pak conflict on Kashmir and Israel-Arab on Palestine. Any miscalculation or adventure by the stakeholders can lead to the full scale conventional or nuclear war, Iran and Saudi Arabia led collation have already been engaged in the fighting proxies in Syria and Yemen, India and Pakistan have fought 4 conventional wars in the last 70 years on Kashmir but the risk of nuclear conflict is imminent as both the neighbor have got the nuclear arsenal in the last two decades, Israel Arab conflict has the potential to turn up the full-scale conflict but it is unlikely to happen in the near future as the Arab collation is busy in deescalating Iranian aggression, South China Sea multilateral territorial conflict could result in the war but the ASEAN members are politically fragile and not prepare to afford it, although these conflicts could take the world towards the uncertainty and insecurity, but the level of threat would be moderate. The threat level is the highest due to the Korean peninsula uncertainty and the NATO aggression on the western border of Russia, as the North Korean dictator is not ready for negotiations and consistently trying to achieve the nuclear might, and being a military superpower the Russian federation could not allow NATO to dictate in the Europe.
Although the nations are not in the war but they are preparing for it, every major nation is increasing the defense budget to modernize the military and defense equipment, and they are using this peacetime for arms race to increase the quantity and quality of technology. Russian president Vladimir Putin had showed his intention to use Artificial intelligence for the further modernizing the military, Russia has set the goal 2025 to arm military with autonomous tank, drones and highly precision guided missiles, and it wished to incorporate robotics in the military industry to cut down 30 percent of the workforce. USA is the front-runner in this area, and the incorporation of AI in the defense is the part of US $1.5 trillion Pentagon military modernization 2030. China has not revealed its intention to use AI for defense publicly but many commentators believe that their model of investment to it is such that it could be switched for the defense industry. European nations have increased the defense budget this year after Trump administration pressure so they would be definitely considering AI in defense.
USA, Russia, UK, France, Germany, Sweden, Netherlands, Belgium, Italy, Israel, and Greece are the major manufacturer of the defense equipment, which ranges from the bullet to the Submarines. USA, Israel, and Russia have developed the anti-missile defense system technology which is very demanding among the war-prone nations, Russian S300, S400 series, American THAAD and iron dome of Israel are some of the examples. The major importers are China, India, Iran, Pakistan, and Middle Eastern nations. Recently, Saudi Arabia made a controversial deal of US $ 250 billion with president Trump, the deal include tanks, drone, advanced missile system, bombers and anti-missile defense system, and it was the biggest defense deal in the history. China has acquired S400 from Russia under a multi-billion dollar defense deal. India is serious talk with Russia for US $ 15 billion defense deal including S400.
UN and other peace organization have been calling for the disarmament of the planet from the sophisticated war equipment, but most of the leading nations are increasing their defense budget to a new high. Stockholm International Peace Research Organization has released the fact sheet for 2016 defense spending, It shows US $1,686 billion was spent which is almost 2 percent of the world GDP, and its equal to the GDP of Italy. The fund could have been used for, the uplifting from the poverty, climate change, to solve food crisis, to bail out the economy of Greece and humanitarian crisis in the war-torn the Middle East and Africa. United States is alone using almost half of the international defense budget to claim its hegemony across the world, it spent US $611 billion in 2016, and the new administration has asked for the considerable increment to it in 2017. China is second on the list with US $ 215 billion, 2 percent of its GDP. Russia is spending almost 5.3 percent of the GDP, it stands at 3rd position with US $ 69.2 billion, and USA and NATO are the biggest threat for them. NATO nations, a military alliance of 28 nations led by USA in North Atlantic, are spending US $ 900 billion in each year.
