Statistics on Military Spending

Content

1. Total military spending by region and country
2. National military spending as percentage of global military spending, ranking of biggest spenders
3. Military spending as percentage of GDP
4. Military spending per capita
5. Number of soldiers per capita
6. Number of nuclear weapons

1. Total military spending by region and country

According to SIPRI, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, the governments of the world spent $1.4 trillion on arms and the military in 2007, an increase of almost 50% compared to a decade ago. World military expenditure is estimated to have been $1630 billion in 2010, and roughly the same in 2011. The United States spent $728 billion on its military in 2010, or about 45 percent of the world’s total, more than the next 14 largest military spenders combined and nearly six times more than the next biggest spender, China. The US spent slightly less in 2011.

Global military spending amounts to 2.5% of world gross domestic product (GDP) and more than $200 for each person in the world. (Compare: only 0.3% of world GDP is spent on development aid, meaning that the world spends more than 8 times as much on the military as on aid).

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Western Europe has seen the lowest increase in spending, but the levels of spending vary a lot between countries:

China is a particular worry given its substantial increases in spending and the lack of transparency in its budgets:

China spent $129 billion in 2011, and has increased its spending broadly in line with its GDP growth.

Russia as well has recently increased its military spending. Its spending increased by 9.3% in 2011, to $64.1 billion. It is now the third biggest spender worldwide, ahead of both France and Britain.

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2. National military spending as percentage of global military spending, and ranking of biggest spenders

This is a ranking of the biggest spenders:

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The champion of military spending is the U.S., which accounted for 45 % world total in 2007, followed by the U.K., China, France and Japan, with 4–5 % each.

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The U.S., however, did not substantially increase its spending over the last decades (the Iraq and Afghanistan wars have led to an increase but not a lot beyond historic levels). In fact, measured as a share of its GDP, its spending decreased somewhat (it’s now about 5% of its GDP, still double of world average):

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3. Military spending as percentage of GDP

And, indeed, in order to get a more accurate picture of a country’s level of defense spending, one should relate this spending to GDP.

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Here’s a nice side-by-side comparison of the total spending and the spending related to GDP:
And this is for the year 2010:

military spending as percentage of GDP

military spending, total

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4. Military spending per capita

It’s also interesting to compare military spending with the population numbers of different countries. Compared to spending per GDP or total spending, this may give an even more accurate comparisons since it’s arguably the size of the population in need of protection rather than the wealth of the population that should determine the size of the military.

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5. Number of soldiers per capita

Apart from military spending per capita, the number of soldiers per capita can also give a good indication of military strength:

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6. Number of nuclear weapons

Also interesting to note is that the U.S., Russia, China, the U.K., France, India, Pakistan, North-Korea and Israel together have more than 25.000 nuclear arms.

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