The Year of Return of Military Parades and its Six Dimensions on International Affairs

The year 2019 witnessed impressive military parades of the US and other regional powers. US President Donald Trump had floated the idea of having a parade in the USA in 2018 (10 November) to honour the veterans. He had been impressed by the July 2017 Bastille Day Military Parade in Paris which he witnessed during his visit to France at the invitation of the French President Emmanuel Macron. Eventually, the “Salute to America” event was held on 4 July 2019 at the National Mall in Washington DC with accompanying presentations of US military vehicles, flyovers by military aircraft and a fireworks display. Donald Trump became the first POTUS to address a crowd at the National Mall on Independence Day in 68 years. In his speech, he stressed the uniqueness of the United States calling it “a truly extraordinary heritage…one of the greatest stories ever told…” He referred to the American “…spirit of daring and defiance, excellence and adventure, courage and confidence, loyalty and love…” and stressed “…our nation is stronger today than it ever was before. It is its strongest now.” Expectedly, he spoke about USA’s military prowess and its victories at the various battlefields across the world; about the American heroes through the centuries; and the resilience of the American society. Another remarkable feature of the speech was that he was sure of his country’s unity and bullish about her future.   

Chinese President Xi Jinping led the Communist Party leadership at the military parade marking 70 years of CPC rule in October 2019. His speech was remarkable for its sense of confidence about China’s rise and the steely determination to fight each and every challenge to Party rule. The international media (as did the Chinese media) gave prominent coverage to his statement that there “…is no force that can shake the foundation of this great nation.” This was consistent with his concepts of China Dream and National Rejuvenation. The review of the military parade comprising about 15,000 personnel, 160 aircraft and 580 pieces of military equipment, including drones and missiles was the other major highlight of the event. The world also saw, for the first time, the Dongfeng 41, a nuclear-capable missile that could reportedly reach the United States in 30 minutes. This year’s military parade was the second after Xi Jinping assumed power. The earlier one was held in 2015 and captioned as the “70th Anniversary of the Victory of the Chinese People’s War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression and the World Anti-Fascist War“. Whilst in the case of India, the annual January Republic Day parade is notable for its showcasing of the country’s military might, in 2019, the Indian Air Force Day parade held on 8 October was quite significant for a number of reasons. It may be recalled that a MiG 21 Bison in February 2019 was shot down by Pakistan forces. The same day, in France, Indian Defence Minister Rajnath Singh received the first of the 36 Rafale aircraft. He used the occasion to tell the media that the first Rafale squadron would be ready by February 2021 to deal with the threats from Pakistan.

Interestingly, DPRK [North Korea] did not hold a military parade in February this year on the occasion of the anniversary of the founding of its army. Foreign media observed that the then impending US-DPRK leaders’ summit was the reason for the development. By contrast, in September 2018, the hermit kingdom celebrated its 70th anniversary with a large military parade. To round up the broad-brush coverage, it would be pertinent to mention the annual French Bastille Day Military Parade that was held in July this year when the focus was on European cooperation besides the announcement of the creation of a new French national military space force command. In another continent, during the month of September, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro used the Independence Day celebrations to try and recover from the poor public relations of the previous months connected with his right-wing economic decision making as well as the response to the Amazon fires. This year’s Moscow Victory Day parade was a primer for the 75th Diamond Jubilee celebrations of the Allied victory in Eastern Europe over the Axis powers in May 2020.

Quite apart from the usual stated objectives of display of national might and determination, these military parades have certain unstated objectives. A combination of these two sets of objectives require careful study in each case. For example, were domestic politics alone responsible for the criticism within the US that President Trump’s push for a parade received. The Chinese parades of 2015 and 2019 taken together sends carefully choreographed signals to its geopolitical competitors, and friends and foes alike. The calling off of the 2019 military parade of the DPRK due to political considerations is now well acknowledged. Suffice it to state, some of these factors have been around for a while, and the next section will attempt to assess the likely impact of military parades on contemporary international relations.

The Six dimensions

It is possible to identify six dimensions of the impact of military parades. But a caveat has to be entered at the outset: given the episodic nature of parades, a direct cause effect impact relationship cannot be conclusively established in each and every case. What follows are broad brush trends, most of which would require further study and analysis.

First, the rise of muscular nationalism is a clearly visible manifestation. Addressing the protests that were taking place in Hong Kong, Xi Jinping said during his speech at the military parade in 2019 that his government would “maintain long-term prosperity and stability of Hong Kong and Macao.” The 2019 Chinese Defense White Paper titled China’s National Defense in the New Era articulates explicit references to Naval Parades in the South China Sea. One should not forget the CCPs ongoing generation long narrative reminding its population of the Century of Humiliation.

Indian media reported that the Air Force Day celebrations were used, amongst other things, to call Pakistan’s bluff on certain specific details about the true extent of casualties in the aftermath of Balakot. How such positioning would impact on already frayed or fraying equations with other foreign countries is an important dimension here. On the flip side, as was seen during the medium-range ballistic missile and armed drone attacks by the Houthi group on a military parade in Aden (Yemen) in August this year, the risk of exposure during a parade remains.

Secondly, with each passing year such parades are testimony to the enhanced willingness of nation states to use coercive means of statecraft. Between 2015 and 2019, the PR China took a clear stand against the order of the Permanent Court of Arbitration on the South China Sea case with The Philippines (The Republic of the Philippines v. The People’s Republic of China) and even accelerated its activities in those islands and waters. Under President Trump the emphasis on national security has been quite exceptional even by American standards. The re-ordering of the Middle East power equations has given a boost of confidence for the Russian Federation and one can safely speculate that this would get reflected in the Diamond Jubilee Moscow Victory Day parade next year. On the other hand, the 2018 DPRK military parade was noticed for the fact that it did not include any intercontinental ballistic missiles which were a staple in almost all previous editions.

Third, and quite interestingly, there appears to be no clear pattern of linkage between economic growth rates and military parades. Even as its economic growth rate was being downgraded by the IMF, the Islamic Republic of Iran was holding an impressive series of military parades during their sacred defense week in September 2019. At the same time, the US parade in July this year took place at a time when the American economy was growing at a healthy rate. Having said this, it would be worthwhile for analysts to study these linkages in deeper detail. Military parades have shone the spotlight on the flourishing military industrial complexes in these countries. This has been most pronounced in the case of China. The connection between the Huawei company and the Chinese PLA has come under the spotlight in the context of the on-going 5G related differences between China on the one hand and the US, Japan and a few Western countries on the other. The other country that merits mention in this context is Pakistan where the armed forces runs around 50 commercial entities and receives over 20 percent of the annual budget.

Fifthly, the increased salience of the military parades is occurring at a time when there is flux in the post-World War II alliance systems and multilateral institutions. The most obvious manifestation is the recent public disagreement between the French and German leaders on the issue of the NATO. On the other hand, China and Russia which were close to a nuclear war in the 1960s have built up a strong strategic partnership. Another aspect worth mentioning is that parades reflect new structures created during the process of military reforms with their attendant repercussions for military diplomacy.

Sixth and finally, the jury is still out on the relationship between military parades on disarmament and arms control. As the Newsweek rightly pointed out in an article, China’s arsenal of medium and intermediate-range weapons, including the so-called “Guam killer” DF-26 gives it a distinct advantage over Washington and Moscow, which in 1987 signed the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty banning such weapons. One perspective is that these parades provide an opportunity to signal the deterrent effect of such weapons. Another perspective is that each such display of deadly systems is a dramatic snapshot of spiraling arms races.