Ukraine is not a rich country. Average Ukrainian $ 15,885 – Earn equal to PPP conditions – in a year, which is 75% higher than an average Indian, but slightly lower than the average Iranian. To catch with neighbors such as Romania ($ 40,304) and Poland ($ 43,625), Ukraine would have to spend more on development, but last year it spent a third of GDP fighting Russia. While India had a $ 75BN defense budget in 2024 with the economy of $ 4TN, Ukraine spent $ 65BN from its short and stable $ 180BN GDP.
Gun vs butter
This war gun/butter trade is closed. You can only be higher at the cost of one of the other. As Eisenhawar said: “Every gun that is built, every warship is launched, every rocket is fired, in the last sense, theft from those who are hungry and not fed …” It was 1953 and, perhaps, Eisenhwar recalled how 3 MN Indians killed a decade ago in Bengal’s famine.Historians say that the disaster was not due to drought, but the wrong priorities of Churchill’s War -long cabinet. True, there was a shortage of food grains in Bengal in 1943, but London continued to export rice from the province to the province and made it worse. The price of grains touched the sky, and when Indian authorities demanded emergency supply of wheat, London refused. The savings empire became more important than saving people.
People are suffering
It does not matter which war is there – does Russia attack Ukraine or explode in Afghanistan Civil War – non -growns pay high prices. The United Nations Women’s Research paper shows how the Afghan government spent 37% of its budget in 2019 on defense and policing, as against 6% on health. In Mali, another war -torn country, in 2017, defense expenditure was five times higher than the outlay for social programs.Conversely that G7 with data from Kiel Institute for nations. Over a period of 90 years, from 1872 to 1962, his military expenses exceeded social programs, which, once soon after WW-1, used to take a dip below 20% of their budget only once. But today, these nations spend less than 10% of their budget on defense, as compared to more than 40% on social expenditure. Under Trump’s pressure, members of NATO have promised to increase defense spending up to 5% of GDP by 2035, but do not trust it.
No winner
The war can inspire the economy – as is done in Russia – by increasing the demand to kill machines, but data shows that a dollar spent on military produces less jobs than a dollar spent on infrastructure, health, education, etc. The Vietnam war may be good for the US defense contractors, but it hurts general Americans by starting a inflation spiral until the 80s. Similarly, Post -9/11 American wars withdraw money from infrastructure and social sector, and ran the $ 8TN bill.So, gun or butter? Sometimes, the country – like Ukraine – has no choice, but when they do – like Russia – they should choose butter, and a pav of borodinsky.
