Sure this is a bummer to start the new year but arms races are a
major cause of war, often unintended and undesired. It's not just the country buying all the new hardware that starts this sort of war but also the country that fears it will be even more vulnerable in the years ahead so it might as well take its best shot now and hope for a favourable peace settlement. That thinking, after all, was instrumental in Japan's decision to attack US bases in WWII.
This same dynamic is in play now across Asia. India fears Pakistan. Pakistan fears India. Everybody fears China. Everybody is buying advanced submarines as quickly as they can come off the ways. Aircraft? A seller's market. Even the city state of Singapore, population 5.4-million (well shy of the Greater Toronto area), spends 9.8-billion on defence, almost half Canada's total expenditure.
