Who needs butter when you got guns? World arms spending reaches $2.5
trillion
Between wars and increased tensions, every region saw increases
REPORTING | GLOBAL CRISES
Global Crises Military Spending
JIM LOBE
APR 23, 2024
Total military spending by nations reached a record high of $2.443 trillion in
2023, according to a new report released Monday by the Stockholm
International Peace Research Institute, or SIPRI.
Across the globe, military expenditures increased by 6.8% in real terms over
2022, the steepest rise since 2009, according to the Swedish think tank
which has tracked the military spending by countries based on open sources
since the 1960s. Every region saw an increase, but Europe, Asia and
Oceania, and the Middle East saw the greatest growth..
“The unprecedented rise in military spending is a direct response to the
global deterioration in peace and security,” according to Nan Tian, the
report’s senior author. “States are prioritizing military strength but they risk
an action-reaction spiral in the increasingly volatile geopolitical and security
landscape,” he added.
As in the recent past, the United States topped the list of military
spenders at $916 billion. It was followed by China with an estimated $296
billion, Russia at an estimated $109 billion, and India at $83.6 billion.
A perennial major arms buyer, Saudi Arabia, at an estimated $75.8 billion,
came in fifth, with the United Kingdom ($74.9 billion), Germany ($66.8
billion), Ukraine ($64.8 billion, not including an additional $35 billion in
military aid from the U.S. and its NATO partners), and France ($61.3 billion),
close behind.
As a percentage of global gross domestic product, or GDP, military spending
rose by 2.3% in 2023, and world military spending per person was the
highest since 1990, as the Cold War was coming to an end, at $306.
The total of nearly $2.5 trillion was roughly double the amount that the world
committed to dealing with climate change which many governments in the
Global South, in particular, consider the greatest threat to their security.
Global climate-related financing reached a record high in 2021-2022,
surpassing $1 trillion for the first time to nearly $1.3 trillion, according to a
report issued by the Climate Policy Initiative late last year. The report,
however, noted that increases fall far short of what will be needed to avoid
the worst impacts of climate change.
Military spending by NATO’s 31 member states, according to the new SIPRI
report, accounted for a total of $1.31 trillion dollars, or 55% of global military
expenditures. The United States made up more than two-thirds (68%) of
NATO’s total military budget, while European NATO members accounted for
an additional 28%, the highest percentage in the past decade. Turkey and
Canada made up the remaining 4%
A decade after NATO members committed themselves to spending at least
2% of their GDP on their militaries, 11 had met or surpassed that target in
2023, according to the report.
“For European NATO states, the past two years of war in Ukraine have
fundamentally changed their security outlook,” according to one of the
researchers, Lorenzo Scarazzato. “This shift in threat perception is reflected
in growing shares of GDRP being directed toward military spending, with the
NATO target of two percent increasingly being seen as a baseline rather than
a threshold to reach.”
In 2023, Russian military spending increased by 24%, according to the
report, capping a 57% increase since 2014, when Moscow annexed Crimea.
The military budget accounted for 5.9% of GDP in 2023, a fraction of the
37% of GDP that Ukraine spent on its military, not including the external aid it
received. If that aid is taken into account, the total amount devoted to
Ukraine’s military reached around $100 billion, or 91% of Moscow’s military
budget.
With an estimated nearly $300 billion military budget, China accounted for
half of total military spending across the Asia and Oceania region in 2023,
according to the report. That amount marked a 6% increase over 2022 and
the 29th successive year of increases in Beijing’s military budget.
The report noted that several of China’s neighbors appear to be linking their
own military spending to China’s. The world’s tenth biggest military spender
in 2023, Japan increased its budget by 11% to $50.2 billion over 2022.
Taiwan increased its military spending to $16.6 billion, also an 11% increase.
As for the Middle East, total military spending in 2023 increased by 9%
overall, to $200 billion, the region’s highest annual growth rate of the past
decade.
Israel increased its budget by 24% , to $27.5 billion, as a result of the war in
Gaza, making it the world’s 15th largest military spender, just ahead of
Canada, and well ahead of region’s third biggest spender, Turkey, which also
increased its military budget, to nearly $16 billion. Iran’s spending increased
only marginally (0.6%) to an estimated $10.3 billion, of which the Islamic
Revolutionary Guard Corps was allocated 37%.
Military spending, according to the report, has also increased in the
Americas, particularly as in Central America and Mexico whose governments
have tried to beef up their security forces against organized crime over the
past decade. The report stated that military budgets have grown by about
55% in those countries since 2014.
Brazil increased its military spending last year by 3.1% to nearly $23 billion,
as its Congress has submitted a constitutional amendment that would
increase the military budget to an annual minimum of 2% of GDP.
|
|
Global defence budget jumps to record high of $2440bn
For the first time, government military spending increased in all five
geographical regions, Sipri thinktank finds
Daniel Boffey Chief reporter
Sun 21 Apr 2024
Global military expenditure has reached a record high of $2440bn (£1970bn)
after the largest annual rise in government spending on arms in over a
decade, according to a report.
The 6.8% increase between 2022 and 2023 was the steepest since 2009,
pushing spending to the highest recorded by the Stockholm International
Peace Research Institute (Sipri) in its 60-year history.
For the first time, analysts at the thinktank recorded a rise in military outlay in
all five geographical regions: Africa, Europe, the Middle East, Asia and
Oceania and the Americas.
Nan Tian, a senior researcher with Sipri’s military expenditure and arms
production programme, warned of the heightened risk of an unintended
conflagration as governments raced to arm. He said: “The unprecedented
rise in military spending is a direct response to the global deterioration in
peace and security.
“States are prioritising military strength, but they risk an action-reaction
spiral in the increasingly volatile geopolitical and security landscape.”
Ukrainian service personnel prepare shells in Zaporizhzhia region
Global defence spending rises 9% to record $2.2tn
Read more
The two largest spenders – the United States (37%) and China (12%) – made
up around half of global military spending, increasing their expenditure by
2.3% and 6% respectively.
The US government spent 9.4% more on “research, development, test and
evaluation” than in 2022 as Washington sought to stay at the forefront of
technological developments.
Since 2014, when Russia first invaded Crimea and the eastern Donbas region
of Ukraine, the US has been shifting its focus from counter-insurgency
operations and asymmetric warfare to “developing new weapon systems that
could be used in a potential conflict with adversaries with advanced military
capabilities”, according to Sipri’s report.
While dwarfed by the US in military spending, China, as the world’s second
biggest spender, allocated an estimated $296bn in 2023, an increase of 6%
on 2022. It has consistently increased defence spending over the past 29
years, although the biggest growth periods were in the 1990s and between
2003 and 2014.
The single-digit growth figure of the last year reflected China’s more modest
economic performance in recent times, according to Sipri.
IDF soldiers walk on foot alongside a military tank
View image in fullscreen
Israel’s military expenditure grew by 24% largely driven by its war in Gaza.
Photograph: IDF/GPO/SIPA/Rex/Shutterstock
Russia, India, Saudi Arabia and the UK – the largest spender in central and
western Europe after a 7.9% year-on-year increase – follow in Sipri’s league
table.
The Kremlin’s military expenditure in 2023, after a year of full-scale war with
Ukraine, was 24% higher than in 2022 and 57% more than in 2014, when
Russia invaded Crimea. With spending at 5.9% of GDP, equivalent to 16% of
the Russian government’s total expenditure, 2023 marked the highest levels
recorded since the dissolution of the Soviet Union.
Amid growing tensions with China and Pakistan, Indian spending was up by
4.2% from 2022 and by 44% from 2014, reflecting an increase in personnel
and operational costs.
symbol
00:00
03:12
Read More
Sipri’s analysts noted that 75% of India’s capital outlay was on domestically
produced equipment, the highest ever ratio, as India progressed towards its
goal of becoming self-reliant in arms development and production.
Saudi Arabia’s 4.3% rise in spending, to an estimated $75.8bn, or 7.1% of
GDP, was said to have been powered by the increased demand for non-
Russian oil and rising oil prices after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Expenditure in the Middle East rose by 9% to an estimated $200bn, making it
the region with the highest military spend as a proportion of GDP in the world
at 4.2%, followed by Europe (2.8%), Africa (1.9%), Asia and Oceania (1.7%)
and the Americas (1.2%).
The military expenditure of Israel, second behind Saudi Arabia in the region
but ahead of Turkey, grew by 24% to reach $27.5bn, driven mainly by its
offensive in Gaza.
Iran was the fourth largest military spender in the Middle East. Its spending
went up marginally (+0.6%) to $10.3bn. Sipri said the share of total military
spending allocated to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps had been
increasing since at least 2019.
Ukraine became the world’s eighth biggest military spender in 2023, with an
annual rise of 51% to reach $64.8bn, still only equivalent to 59% of Russia’s
military spending that year.
Kyiv’s military expenditure increased by 1,270% between 2014 and 2023.
The military aid received from over 30 countries is included in Sipri’s figures.
HMS Anson departs a BAE Systems shipyard
Labour aims to raise defence spending to 2.5% of GDP
Read more
The largest percentage increase in military spending by any country in 2023
was by the government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (+105%),
which has been in a protracted conflict with non-state armed groups, mostly
in the east of the country. South Sudan recorded the second largest
percentage increase (+78%) amid internal violence.
The use of the military to combat organised gangs was said to be a factor in
the rise in spending in Central America and the Caribbean, where
expenditure was 54% higher in 2023 than in 2014.
Spending by the Dominican Republic rose by 14% in response to worsening
gang violence in neighbouring Haiti.
Expenditure reached $11.8bn in Mexico, a 55% increase from 2014, albeit
marginally down on 2022. Allocations to the Guardia Nacional (National
Guard) – a militarised force used to curb criminal activity – rose from 0.7% of
Mexico’s total military expenditure in 2019, when the force was created, to
11% last year.
Diego Lopes da Silva, a senior researcher at Sipri, said: “The use of the
military to suppress gang violence has been a growing trend in the region for
years as governments are either unable to address the problem using
conventional means or prefer immediate – often more violent – responses.”
|
|