Catastrophe: The Global Cost of the Ukraine War
Project on Defense Alternatives, 02 May 2023. Access article HTML or PDF
What has been a disaster for Ukraine is also a calamity for the world. This brief article provides a well-documented and concise overview of the war’s profound global effects, beginning with the combatants’ losses in lives and treasure. Beyond this it assesses the war’s impact on global trade and economy; energy and food price inflation and their effects on poverty, hunger, and mortality; the redirection of humanitarian and official development assistance; the total sum of aid to the Ukrainian war effort, and the estimated cost of postwar reconstruction and recovery. Also examined is the war’s effect on global defense spending.
In fact, far more people have died due to the war outside the theater of conflict than inside. At issue is not only the kinetic effect of the fighting but also the economic warfare that has attended it and the large-scale redirection of scarce resources to support it. This war may soon prove to be the most globally consequential of any since 1980 - and this, aside from any risk of nuclear use.
The Project on Defense Alternatives website is here: https://comw.org/pda/