War is one thing that no society should engage themselves into as its effect is devastating and unforgettable upon generations. When two or more countries are warring it is said that there are other countries that benefits in one way or the other from the war as it prolongs and intensifies, especially economical benefits is one of such.
The ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine which has been on for almost a year now and the effects of the war between these two is not only on the two warring countries alone but has gone so far as affecting the economies of many countries of the world that have no involvement or interference in the said war. countries of Europe are experiencing a fall short in gas supply, while those of Africa and other continent suffer from economic downfall as a result of certain products and services that are no longer in-coming due to the war effect.
With this Russia Ukraine war which the effect is felt in almost all parts of the world directly and indirectly, I want to ask are there beneficiaries to this war and in what ways are they benefiting from it.
You described it well and phrased an interesting question. I must say that the question, if you really think about it in detail, is an incredibly complex one and you would have differentiate on so many levels and in so many areas to come up with an answer that at least offers some level of detail.
You could say that China benefits from cheap energy since Russia is forced to find alternative customers because of the ban of Western countries. While China now has cheap energy, they are also an export nation that depends on frictionless markets and smoothly working supply chains. Is it a good deal to have cheap energy in exchange for markets full of frictions and disturbed supply chains? If you just calculate that in monetary terms, I guess China is worse off as they benefit the most from a vibrant global economy with them at the core of a main export nation.
But if you look at it from a political angle, China benefits from Russia doing the dirty work now, meaning that they are keeping the West busy with defending Ukraine while they can stockpile military equipment produced with cheap energy in order to prepare for some future confrontation.
Now this is just a tiny excerpt of what is going on in the world. The fact alone that Russia and Ukraine combined are responsible for almost 25% of the global grain export shows how critical they are to the global food supply especially in areas like Africa.
I doubt that any country as a whole is better off economically because of the war. Industries are, of course, but entire countries, I don't know. My guess would be no. If anyone knows better than me, I'd be interested in knowing.
Yes, I agree with you that in the conditions of the collapse of the globalization system, all countries suffer economic losses.
The system of international division of labor makes it possible to produce goods cheaply and in large quantities. World peace allows you to build the most optimal supply chains. All this leads to the well-being and prosperity of all countries. Wars lead to economic losses, and these losses are borne not only by the parties to the conflict, but by the whole world as a whole.
However, even in this difficult situation, some countries that carry out a balanced and adequate foreign policy receive certain preferences.
These countries I would include Turkey, India and China, as well as the Arab countries.
That is actually a very important point you raised here as well. Economies of scale due to international division of labor has an enormous impact on our output capacities, which is important as for a long time we had an ever growing population and along with it demand for all kinds of goods and services. How important optimal supply chains are and how the service sector is dependent them as well could very well be seen during the pandemic when China was the largest exporter of hygiene articles and equipment that was needed to provide inside and outside of hospitals. When supply chains stopped working optimally due to lockdowns, it took quite a while to fix the shortages and some countries were even forced to make up for stuck supply chains by ramping up their own production of certain products they usually obtained from abroad.
The war has now also shown how globally interconnected production and supply chains are. That is why Taiwan is a point of contention as well as it dominates the global chip industry and is key to countless production processes of vital technical products.