Recent Trends in World Spending
Recent Trends in World Spending
United States Military Spending
Is Current U.S. Spending Justified?
How World Military Spending Could be Better Used
U.S. Military Spending Compared to World Spending:
United States military spending currently makes up 47% of world military spending. The U.S. budget is also more than 8 times larger than the Chinese budget, the second largest spender. [2] With figures like these it makes sense that U.S. military budget increases have boosted the world's military expenditures. As stated earlier if the cost of U.S. operations in Iraq and Afghanistan is taken out of worldwide figures, then global military spending would have shown a rise of 4% in 2003, rather than the actual 11%. So where does this increase of 4% come from? Do the United States military budget increases have any affect on the military budgets of the rest of the world? What's going on with military spending outside of the United States?
The Relationship Between Rising Military Expenditures in the U.S. and Military Expenditures in the Rest of the World:
While military spending is rising in several other major countries, in comparison to the United States these increases are much smaller. There is little evidence that the rise in the rest of the world is because of the strong increases in U.S. military spending. It is hard to determine the U.S. influence as apposed to more basic drivers of military spending- such as changing threat perceptions, increased global responsibilities and force projection, and the dynamics of military technology- in particular, because these common factors are often interlinked with the relevant countries' relation to the United States. [1]
Military Spending in Other Important Countries over the Past Five Years, 1999-2003:
Although other countries have lower military budgets than the United States, many of them still account for a large share of the world military spending pie. In 2002 and 2003 the 15 major spenders accounted for 82 per cent of world military spending according to SIPRI estimates, which leaves 34 per cent for the 14 major spenders next to the USA in 2003. How are these countries reacting to the massive increases in US military spending in 2003?
Among the four major spenders next to the USA- China, Russia, Japan, and, France. Only China has made any significant increase in its military spending since 1998 (an annual average rate of 10-12 %). Military spending in the other countries also increased but only moderately.
The next five in size the UK, Germany, Saudi Arabia, India, and South Korea account for a considerably smaller share of world military expenditure but they are still large enough to have an impact on the trend. Among these, it is only Iran that has made a major increase in its military expenditure since 1998, primarily because of a major jump in 2003. UK spending was raised by supplementary allocations to cover the costs of war with Iraq. In Germany and Saudi Arabia 2003 military expenditure was lower than in 1998, while in South Korea there has been a slight resumption of military expenditure since the 1997-98 Asian financial crisis.
The other four countries in the group with rank numbers 11-15 are Israel, Italy, Turkey and Brazil. Both India and Turkey are on long-term growth paths. The same is true for Israel, but in 2003 its defence budget experienced a major drop, primarily for economic reasons. Its defence budget for 2004 is however set to increase again. Brazil's military expenditure increased until 2002 but dropped in 2003.
* All above information provided by SIRPI [3]