Global defense spending reaches ‘record high’ of $2.2 trillion: SIPRI

BELFAST — Global military spending rose by 3.7 percent last year, amounting to a “record high” of $2.24 trillion, according to a report from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute released today.

Regionally, Europe saw the largest spike in spending at 13 percent, attributed to the war in Ukraine and longer-standing anxiety about Russian aggression.

“While the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 certainly affected military spending decisions in 2022, concerns about Russian aggression have been building for much longer,” said Lorenzo Scarazzato, researcher with SIPRI’s Military Expenditure and Arms Production Programme in a statement. “Many former Eastern bloc states have more than doubled their military spending since 2014, the year when Russia annexed Crimea.”

Total expenditure by Central and Western European states of $345 billion also marked the first time they have surpassed 1989 spending levels — the last year of the Cold War. SIPRI also noted that the figure of $345 billion was 30 percent higher than 2013 spending.

Some of the highest increases across Europe came from NATO’s newest member Finland (up 36 percent), Lithuania (up 27 per cent), Sweden (up 12 percent) and Poland (up 11 percent). The United Kingdom recorded the highest military spending of Central and Western European countries valued at $68.5 billion. An estimated $2.5 billion of that money went toward military aid to Ukraine.

But it’s no surprise that Ukraine itself accounted for a massive spike. The report says Ukrainian defense spending for 2022 reached $44 billion, a sharp jump of 640 percent and the largest ever single year increase charted by an individual country, recorded by SIPRI data. Military spending as a share of GDP for the war-torn nation also saw a dramatic rise from 3.2 per cent in 2021 to 34 per cent in 2022.

Russia’s defense spending, in turn, rose to an estimated $86.4 billion for the year, an approximate increase of 9.2 percent. Those figures also amount to 4.1 percent of Moscow’s gross domestic product (GDP), a marginal jump of 0.4 percent from 2021. Based on figures released by Russia in “late 2022” SIPRI judged the country’s defense spending was 34 percent higher than budget plans from 2021.

“The difference between Russia’s budgetary plans and its actual military spending in 2022 suggests the invasion of Ukraine has cost Russia far more than it anticipated,” said Lucie Béraud-Sudreau, director of SIPRI’s Military Expenditure and Arms Production Programme.

Across the pond, American defense spending continues to outstrip all others with the Pentagon spending $877 billion last year, three times that spent by China and 39 percent of global military spending overall. If inflation had not reached its highest level last since 1981, a 0.7 percent real terms increase in US spending in 2022 would have been much greater, added SIPRI.

The increase in spending was largely caused by the “unprecedented” financial military aid offered by Washington to Ukraine.

Elsewhere, an upward military spending trajectory continued in Asia and Oceania with expenditure for countries across the region reaching $575 billion, a 2.7 percent increase over 2021.

China sits behind the US as the second largest international defense spender “allocating an estimated” $292 billion for 2022, SIPRI added. Beijing’s latest increase represented a 4.2 percent rise compared to 2021.

Japan’s annual defense spending saw a 5.9 percent increase to $46 billion, a level of spending last seen by the country in 1960 and motivated by a need to counter pressing threats from China, North Korea and Russia.