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La guerra Rusia-Ucrania y el rearme de Europa disparan el mundial comercio de armas
El comercio mundial de armas llegó en el último lustro (2021-2025) a niveles que no alcanzaba desde el final de la Guerra Fría. Según el nuevo informe del Instituto Internacional de Investigación para la Paz de Estocolmo, el prestigioso SIPRI, referencia mundial en comercio de armas, detrás de ese aumento hay principalmente dos razones: la guerra en Ucrania, desatada por Rusia con su ataque el 24 de febrero de 2022, y el posterior rearme europeo, intensificado en 2025.
La de Ucrania es la mayor guerra en Europa desde el final de la Segunda Guerra Mundial y el esfuerzo bélico del país para defenderse de Rusia mueve los números de este informe. Ucrania multiplicó por más de 120 su gasto militar en los últimos años en comparación con el período 2016-2020 y sus compras de armas en el extranjero ya suponen casi el 10% de las importaciones globales de armas, cuando antes de la guerra eran el 0,1%.
Los números de Ucrania se intuían, pero el aumento de su gasto militar no explica toda la subida. Buena parte viene de los 29 países europeos miembros de la OTAN. De una parte esa guerra en Ucrania y de otra la presión de Estados Unidos para que gasten más en defensa les ha llevado a rearmarse como no hacían desde hace más de 40 años. Esos 29 países multiplicaron por más de dos sus compras de armas en el extranjero en comparación al lustro precedente, aún siendo algunos de ellos grandes productores de armas.
Entre los 10 primeros exportadores de armas del mundo aparecen Francia (segunda posición), Alemania (cuarta), Italia (sexta), Reino Unido (octava) y España (décima). Entre los 20 primeros entran también Países Bajos (número 12), Noruega (13), Polonia (14), Suecia (15), Chequia (17) y Dinamarca (19).
Estados Unidos sigue siendo el líder mundial en exportación de armas, pero el aumento de sus ventas a Europa consolida esa posición después de crecer un 27% en el último lustro hasta ocupar el 42% de todas las exportaciones de armas del planeta. Además, y también por primera vez desde el final de la Guerra Fría, Europa es el principal destino de las armas estadounidense. Washington ya vende a países europeos miembros de la OTAN casi el 40% de todas las armas que exporta.
Ese aumento, además, llega cuando los europeos están gastando cada vez más en sus industrias nacionales y algunos países suspendieron la compra de armamento estadounidense. España y Portugal cancelaron la compra del avión de combate F-35 y Suiza dijo que comprará menos de los más de 30 previstos inicialmente. Entre las razones oficiales no está sólo el choque europeo con Donald Trump, sino que el avión podría venderse con restricciones a sus operaciones y sin garantizar un suministro adecuado de repuestos.
España, que fue uno de los que más aumentó en Europa el gasto en defensa el año pasado, con 10.500 millones de euros extra, apenas destina un 5% de ese dinero a la industria estadounidense. En el caso de Alemania, de los 154 planes de compras de armas de este año sólo el 8% se harán en Estados Unidos.
Además, el plan europeo de rearme excluye en parte a empresas estadounidenses o de cualquier tercer país. Los préstamos SAFE de la Comisión Europea (150.000 millones de euros) exige que el 55% de las compras se hagan en industrias europeas.
El aumento del gasto en Europa no es generalizado. Países como Francia o Reino Unido han aumentado en un lustro menos de un punto de PBI su gasto total en Defensa, pero otros, como Alemania, Polonia o Chequia, lo han aumentado dos y tres puntos. Polonia ya gasta en defensa más del 5% de su PBI. A la vez, Italia no alcanza todavía el 2% y España aceptó subirlo el año pasado hasta el 2%, pero se niega a cumplir con el último acuerdo en el seno de la OTAN, donde se exigió que todos sus miembros gasten para finales de la década al menos un 5% en defensa.
El aumento del gasto polaco en defensa llevó a que el país sea el segundo importador europeo de armas, sólo por detrás de Ucrania. Polonia, además, entra por primera vez entre los 20 primeros exportadores de armas del mundo, aunque es de hecho un efecto relacionado con la guerra en Ucrania, pues a Kiev envía el 94% de todas sus exportaciones. El mismo efecto tiene la guerra sobre Chequia, que exporta más que nunca, pero cuyas exportaciones se deben al aumento de importaciones ucranianas.
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A reported airstrike on a hospital in Afghanistan that allegedly left hundreds dead is drawing growing scrutiny, not only over the strike itself but over what critics describe as a muted international response.
Afghanistan’s Taliban-led government said more than 400 people were killed and hundreds were wounded after a strike hit the Omid Hospital, a major drug rehabilitation facility in Kabul, Afghanistan, according to Reuters. Civilians, including children, also have been killed in escalating cross-border strikes in Pakistan, The Associated Press reported.
The casualty figures have not been independently verified.
The strike comes amid a rapidly escalating military campaign between Pakistan and Afghanistan that has intensified over the past three weeks.
INDIA STEPS UP DIPLOMATIC RELATIONS WITH THE TALIBAN AS RIVAL PAKISTAN LOSES INFLUENCE IN AFGHANISTAN
The site of a drug rehabilitation hospital that was destroyed in what the Taliban said was a Pakistani air strike in Kabul, Afghanistan, March 17, 2026. (Sayed Hassib/Reuters)
Cross-border airstrikes and clashes have expanded across multiple provinces, with Pakistan targeting what it says are bases of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), a militant group responsible for attacks inside Pakistan and designated as a terrorist organization by the U.S. The Taliban government has accused Islamabad of violating Afghanistan’s sovereignty.
At a United Nations briefing Wednesday, a U.N. spokesperson said the conflict has now entered its third week, with widespread civilian impact. More than 115,000 people have been displaced, more than 300 shelters damaged or destroyed, and at least 25 health facilities closed or disrupted due to the fighting, according to U.N. humanitarian agencies.
Pakistan has denied targeting a hospital, saying the operation struck militant infrastructure.
«Since the beginning of this counterterrorism campaign, Pakistan has sought to defend and protect the people of Pakistan … by targeting terrorists and terrorist infrastructure that are incubated and nurtured by the Afghan Taliban,» the prime minister’s spokesperson Mosharraf Zaidi told Fox News Digital.
PAKISTAN DECLARES ‘OPEN WAR’ ON AFGHANISTAN IN RESPONSE TO TALIBAN’S RETALIATORY STRIKES
Red Crescent volunteers carry the body of a victim who died in what the Taliban said was a Pakistani air strike on a drug rehabilitation hospital, in Kabul, Afghanistan, March 17, 2026. (Sayed Hassib/Reuters)
Zaidi said the strike targeted weapons and ammunition at Camp Phoenix in Kabulm Afghanistan, and insisted, «There are no civilian hospitals in Camp Phoenix,» adding that reports of a rehabilitation facility being hit may be due to «secondary explosions» from stored weapons.
The United Nations on Wednesday, two days after the attack, condemned the reported strike, with Secretary-General António Guterres, through a spokesperson, «strongly condemning» an airstrike that «reportedly resulted in the death (and) injury of civilians at a hospital,» and calling for an independent investigation.
Still, some analysts say the response does not match the scale of the incident.
«U.N. officials swiftly condemned U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran’s regime as unlawful ‘aggression’ … Yet Pakistan’s airstrike on Kabul’s Omid Hospital — killing over 400 civilians — has drawn only a belated ‘strong condemnation’ … and standard pleas for ‘de-escalation’,» Executive Director of UN Watch Hillel Neuer told Fox News Digital.
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Afghan Taliban fighters patrol near the Afghanistan-Pakistan border in Spin Boldak, Kandahar Province, following exchanges of fire between Pakistani and Afghan forces. (Reuters/Stringer/File Photo)
«This restrained response — no personal outrage from Guterres, no emergency session naming Pakistan, and no equivalent chorus from U.N. rapporteurs, or agencies like WHO, U.N. Women, and UNICEF — reveals rank hypocrisy,» he said. «When hundreds of vulnerable Afghans die in a hospital, the U.N. offers measured words. Yet when the U.S. or Israel can be blamed — justifiably or not — the condemnation is immediate and overwhelming. When some victims matter far more than others, the U.N. reveals its cynical political agenda. This double standard doesn’t uphold human rights, it erodes them.»
Australian human rights lawyer Arsen Ostrovsky echoed that criticism in a post on X, calling the strike «an absolute massacre,» while noting what he described as a lack of global outrage: «World outrage? Zero. Could barely muster p17 in the newspaper here.»
afghanistan,pakistan,united nations,bombings,terrorism
INTERNACIONAL
Trump continues to push for release of Tina Peters as Colorado governor weighs clemency
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President Donald Trump on Wednesday renewed his calls to release Tina Peters, a pro-Trump election worker who was convicted for her role in a scheme aimed at finding evidence of election fraud in the president’s 2020 election loss.
Peters, a former election clerk in Mesa County, Colorado, is serving a nine-year prison sentence following her August 2024 conviction on seven charges, including four felonies, related to a 2021 security breach of the county’s voting systems as she sought evidence to support Trump’s claims that his loss to former President Joe Biden was due to voter fraud.
Trump has been pressuring Democrat Gov. Jared Polis to release Peters, 70, since he returned to the White House last year.
«Free Tina Peters, a 73-year-old woman with cancer, given a nine-year death sentence in a Colorado prison by a Democrat governor, Jared Polis, and a corrupt political machine, for exposing fraud by the Democrats during the 2020 presidential election,» Trump wrote Wednesday on Truth Social. «Again, free Tina!»
COLORADO GOVERNOR LAYS OUT CONDITION FOR GRANTING CLEMENCY TO PRO-TRUMP CLERK UNDER PRESSURE FROM PRESIDENT
President Donald Trump continued his calls to release Tina Peters. (Photo by Marc Piscotty/Getty Images)
Polis has acknowledged that Peters’ sentence was «harsh,» given that she had no prior criminal record.
The governor recently noted on social media that Peters was sentenced to nine years in prison, while a former state lawmaker convicted of the same crime was sentenced only to probation and community service.
«Justice in Colorado and America needs to be applied evenly, you never know when you might need to depend on the rule of law. This is the context I am using as I consider cases like this that have sentencing disparities,» Polis wrote on X.
But Polis said his decision about granting clemency would be influenced by whether Peters has expressed remorse for her actions — something officials say she has not done.
«What she would have to show in any successful clemency application would be appropriate contrition, apology. That’s the kind of thing I would be looking for,» he previously told KUSA-TV.
TRUMP ANNOUNCES PARDON FOR COLORADO CLERK: ‘SIMPLY WANTED TO MAKE SURE THAT OUR ELECTIONS WERE FAIR’
President Donald Trump has been pressuring Gov. Jared Polis to release Peters since he returned to the White House last year. (Hyoung Chang/MediaNews Group/The Denver Post via Getty Images)
Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser, whose office helped prosecute Peters, has emphasized that she has not demonstrated any remorse for her actions.
«Clemency should be based on remorse, rehabilitation, and extenuating circumstances — not on political influence, favor, or retribution,» said Weiser, a Democrat running to succeed the term-limited Polis.
U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colo., who is also hoping to replace Polis as governor, similarly said Peters should not receive a pardon or have her sentence commuted.
«Donald Trump may be seeking revenge on Colorado, but surrendering to his political pressure will not make our state stronger or safer,» he said.
Trump has repeatedly defended Peters on social media and announced last year he was granting her a «full pardon,» though such a move would not apply to a state conviction, as that authority rests with the governor.
Earlier this week, a federal judge found that the Trump administration had threatened to withhold funding from Colorado, describing it as potential retribution for the state’s reluctance to pardon Peters. The finding came shortly after Trump’s symbolic pardon announcement.
President Donald Trump has repeatedly defended Tina Peters on social media. (Jacquelyn Martin/AP Photo)
U.S. District Court Judge R. Brooke Jackson wrote that the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s threat in December to withhold millions of dollars in federal funding to Colorado’s SNAP program violated the Spending Clause of the U.S. Constitution.
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«This larger context gives the game away; the pilot project seems to be about punishment and nothing more,» the judge wrote.
A lawsuit also claimed this week that the Trump administration targeted a climate and weather research lab as retribution against Colorado officials for imprisoning Peters.
Fox News’ Anders Hagstrom contributed to this report.
donald trump,2020 presidential election,elections,voter fraud concerns,politics,colorado,us
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