The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) revealed that the United States is still undisputed at the top of the list of countries that spend the most in military terms, 3 times more than China, as well as 10 times more than Russia, while India and Saudi Arabia entered the club of adults.
The institute said today, Monday, that: Global military spending reached a new high in the year of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. It rose by 3.7%, adjusted for inflation, to $2.24 trillion in 2022. The institute stated that without adjusting for inflation, the increase would be as high as 6.5%.
The biggest increase
The Sipri report stated that Europe saw its highest increase in at least 30 years, at 13% inflation-adjusted – largely due to sharp increases in spending by Russia and Ukraine. Military aid to Kiev and fears that Russia represents a greater threat also affected spending decisions in a number of other countries.
Spending continues
Globally, countries in the world continued to spend more money on the military than the previous year for the eighth year in a row.
“The continuous rise in global military spending in recent years is a sign that we live in an increasingly insecure world,” said Nan Tian, a researcher at Sipri.
The United States still leads spending clearly with $877 billion, including $19.9 billion in military aid to Ukraine, followed by China with an estimate of $292, then Russia, which spent about $84 billion, jumping from fifth to third place because of the war.
Ukraine recorded an increase of 640% and currently ranks eleventh, up from 36th in the previous year. Germany remains in seventh place after an increase of 2.3%.
The SIPRI report is the most comprehensive collection of data on military spending by countries in the world.
Peace researchers included in the report spending on personnel, military aid, and military research and development.
Military spending by many former eastern bloc countries has more than doubled since 2014, the year Russia annexed Crimea.
Countries in central and western Europe will spend a total of $345 billion on their armed forces in 2022.
European countries such as Poland, the Netherlands and Sweden have boosted their military investments over the past decade.
What also explains the high military spending is the exorbitant cost of technologically advanced weapons, as in the case of Finland, which last year bought 64 American F-35 fighter jets.