Wars have been throughout history. Peace usually does not sustain long. The invention in science and technology led to the evolution in the technology of war too. From ancient wars between kings to two world wars between European nations and now new wars of 21st century one sees the development and evolution of both war and war technology. While the ancient and medieval wars were fought between armies of the kingdoms or nations and were limited to the battlefield, modern wars are not always between armies of nations but sometimes include non-state actors as well. Also modern wars are not limited to the battlefield. Even one can say that modern wars have no specific battlefield at all. It is fought in the land, sea, sky, space etc. both in military as well as civilian areas. With the invention of new weapons which are highly destructive war is proving to be costly both in terms of human life as well as economy. There is also an uncontrolled arms race between nations to achieve more advanced weapon systems. One country wants to outperform other in purchasing advanced weapons. While there are few countries which indigenously produce high quality advanced weapons, a large number of countries including developing countries try their best to procure these weapons at a very high cost draining national wealth of these nations in defense spending. This results in large heaps of wealth going into the hands of heads of defense companies leading to concentration of wealth in the hands of few global giants.

The latest study report on global military spending in the year 2024 from Stockholm International Peace Research Institiute (SIPRI) gives an eye opening account of the level of military spending by countries. According to SIPRI's report "Amid rising geopolitical uncertainty and escalations in conflict, global military expenditure rose to $ 2718 billion in 2024 marking the steepest rise since the end of the cold war." The report also quoted that military expenditure witnessed a substantial rise of 9.4% compared to 2023 with every region contributung to this growing trend. Middle east and Europe were listed as regions witnessing enormous spending in defense due to Russia-Ukraine war and ongoing conflict in Gaza. USA, China and Russia were listed as top three countries in defense expenditure in the year 2024 collectively amounting to 55% of total global expenditure. Our country India was listed at number five in the list contributing 3.2% globally in defense spending with an amount of 86.1 billion dollars approximately.
Due to aggressive nature of global politics in the 21st century, escalating conflicts in Europe and Middle East, geopolitical uncertainty in the subcontinet, civil wars in Africa etc. number of countries from such regions are making a hasty march to buy high quality weapons from their allies to safeguard their territorial integrities as arms act as deterrents against enemies. Moreover arms also serve as powerful tools both to threaten the enemy and damage its infrastructure. This results in massive defense expenditure globally. The global military industrial complex is exploiting these desperate circumstances to invent new destructive weapons at suitable amounts to sell them at much bigger prices in billions and trillions of dollars to the conflicting states in various regions of the world. From my personal perspective though wars of the 21st century are due to territorial or geopolitical tensions but there is an invisible hand called " The Military Industrial Complex" which is fuelling conflicts all over the world in order to derive hefty profits from the resulting wars. War has turned to be a corporate opportunity for global defense corporations of various countries which view conflict as laboratory battlefields where the strenghth and supremacy of their weapons get trialed and tested.

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