As China and Russia rise, West losing its edge in military tech, says London-based think tank
China’s military spending hit US$145.8 billion last year, second only to the United States’ US$597.5 billion
Western superiority in military technology is “eroding”, notably at the hands of China and Russia, a leading think-tank said this week in its annual report on the state of militaries around the world.
The International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) in London said in its Military Balance report that increasingly easy access to technology by non-state groups means the world faces “an increasingly complex balance of military power”.
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It also highlighted that Russia and China are pushing to modernise their militaries and are “increasingly active in the development and deployment of advanced military capabilities”.
“We previously felt that Western states were the champions of new technology and had a large technological lead either over their state peer competitors or over non-state actors,” said John Chipman, director-general and chief executive of the IISS.
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“Now that technological lead is narrowing,” he added.
