As Bloomberg reports, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute is out with their latest military spending report, and it looks as though many countries around the globe are preparing for more conflict in the coming years, if only based on the recent jump in military-related spending. In aggregate, world military expenditures rose to $1.7 trillion in 2015, an increase of about 1% from last year. According to SIPRI, this was the first increase in global military spending since 2011. Unsurprisingly, the United States earned the top spot by a ridiculous margin, spending a gargantuan $596 billion in 2015 (for which the military industrial complex - the recipient of the funds - is eternally grateful). The US is followed by China, and Saudi Arabia who spent an estimated $215 billion and $87.2 billion respectively.
Here is how the top fifteen countries rank.
Bloomberg summarized two troubling developments in the following charts, first with countries in Southeast Asia, presumably concerned with China’s activity in the South China Sea, and then with countries in Eastern Europe, on fears of Russian aggression (even though it is NATO which most recently announced it would be aggressively shifting its positioning in Eastern Europe).
Here is the pace in which Southeast Asian countries are increasing their military spending.
And here is what’s happening in Eastern Europe. Ironically, Russia, where slumping oil receipts have weighed on the economy, fell to fourth position in the global rankings, with Saudi Arabia taking third spot. The Mideast country, also hurt by the lower price of crude, would have cut spending too had it not been for the $5.3 billion cost of its military campaign in Yemen.
India, courted this year by contractors including BAE Systems Plc, Boeing Co.,Lockheed Martin Corp. and Saab AB, had the sixth-biggest defense budget in 2015, after the U.K. in fifth. IHS Jane’s analysts forecast it will advance to fourth in 2017, with a 13.1 percent boost to spending for a total $50.7 billion.