All of us have learned in high school economics how money spend on defence is a collosal waste as far productive investments(GDP growth) is concerned.
However, things work differently in reality.
USA & Russia developed many of their contemporary capabilities on the back of their investments in the cold war era.
However, our point today is slightly more nuanced and most certainly, current.
Wars have long become impractical; atleast, between powerful adversaries.
So, all kind of covert operations become a reality.
Simultaneously, it become practical to rein in independent spirited nation states by arming other nation states in their neighborhood who harboured longstanding angst against their neighbours.
Hence, USA armed Pakistan to the teeth. Russia managed China by arming India and China simultaneously.
However, Russia armed India just emough to deter China from going overboard by selling same weapon systems to both countries while India managed to customise & upgrade Russian weapon sytems through Western countries enough to bridge their gap in scale with China.
China in turn armed Pakistan with everything including WMDs. Perhaps, North Korea too, to a great extent.
I'm the meantime, India too armed Vietnam and Mongolia with conventional weapons systems to a great extent.
Israel, UK, France, .. Australia, .. too benefitted from American magnanimity.
However, Israel soon developed capabilities to manufacture their own weapon systems both with and without collaboration.
Unfortunately, Israel still stuggles with scale.
Now, the technological gap in conventional weapon systems has dwindled. Infact, everyone and their uncle(all who matter) have everything they need including armed drones, cruise missiles. ballistic missiles, space technology. electronic warfare capabilities, .. second strike capability, SSBNs SSBMs.
Infact, even rogue countries like North Korea can deter USA from embarking on any adventurism.
Further, even Iran is believed to have been isolated by the military-industrial complex in USA only to ensure steady export of obsolete weapon systems to Saudi Arabia, UAE and the likes.
Nowadays, Turkey's intransigence & consequent isolation stand out. However, Turkey only fits in as a great additional/alternate punching bag like Iran and nothing more. Yet, no one seems inclined to acknowledge this reality.
So, NPT has made way for universal deterrence.
Infact, the debacle faced by Ukraine after shunning WMDs only strengthened everyones’ case for acquiring WMDs.
Of-course, most smaller countries don't feature in the above list. However, they're client states and stooges of the most powerful country in their region. So, they too have earned their peace.
Actually, no one now would care to start a war.
However, distrust is ubiquitous as ever.
Fortunately, absence of absolute technological superiority by any side has saved our day.
Futher, economic interdependence has increased like never before.
Finally, we really can't tell if this mutual deterrence would hold going forward and for how long? Yet, only credible deterrence is likely to earn us peace until nation states remain a reality.
Kindly peruse our business interests here.