How to get more bang for the buck in Western defence budgets

The world is tooling up. The peace dividend it has enjoyed since the end of the cold war—releasing wads of cash from defence to spend on other things—is ending. Now comes the new “war tax”. Our global defence spending may rise by $200bn-$700bn a year, or 9-32%. Blame fraught geopolitics—especially Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and China’s sabre-rattling at Taiwan.