Andriana Dovhanyk's husband works at a children's hospital in Kyiv. When a hypersonic missile struck the building, the blast threw him into the air. He survived. For the Dovhanyk family, the next generation of warfare is not a strategic abstraction, it is the sound of an explosion in the neighbourhood where their children sleep.
That next generation is now consuming the world's defence budgets at a rate not seen since the nuclear arms race of the Cold War. Across three continents, governments have committed more than $2 trillion to seizing control of the future battlefield, hypersonic missiles, AI-driven targeting, autonomous drone swarms, and anti-satellite weapons. Whoever masters these technologies first does not merely gain an advantage. They may gain the ability to render every other military obsolete overnight.
The US and China are the dominant forces. The Trump administration's next defence budget targets $1.5 trillion in spending. China's official figure sits near $500 billion, but the deep fusion of its private technology sector with the People's Liberation Army means the true investment runs far higher. Europe spent nearly $600 billion collectively in 2025, possessing the resources to compete but struggling to act with a single strategic will. Russia, under severe financial strain from its Ukraine invasion, tripled military spending between 2022 and 2025 to approximately $176 billion.
Each power holds a different edge. Russia is the only nation to have used hypersonic weapons in live combat, the Kinzhal and the Zircon, the latter of which has repeatedly struck civilian infrastructure in Kyiv. China's military is structurally embedded with its leading AI laboratories. The US deployed artificial intelligence in combat operations for the first time during the Iran campaign this year.
"An arms race is sort of happening, even though we haven't called it that, and it's a multidimensional arms race," said former US Assistant Secretary of Defense Celeste Wallander.
The treaties that once slowed these spirals have been dismantled. Nothing has been built to replace them. The race has no referee, and no finish line anyone can name.
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