On an upward trajectory for the first time since 2009 is defense spending, not only among countries with large militaries such as the US, Russia, and China, but also in Africa, the Middle East, Europe, Asia, Oceania, and North and South America.
This is shown by the report of the International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) on defense budgets, which last year amounted to $2.443 trillion worldwide.
With so many ongoing crises around the world, such as in Ukraine, the Middle East, and elsewhere, the numbers should come as no surprise. However, the rate of increase in expenses is impressive it reaches 6.8% for 2023 compared to 2022as SIPRI’s Xiao Liang explains.
What surprised the report’s authors is the magnitude of the increase, particularly in Latin America and Africa. In Mexico and El Salvador, for example, governments use the military to fight organized crime. In terms of global trends we are likely to see a further increase in the coming years if existing conflicts and tensions continue.
As Deutsche Welle notes, Ukraine remains the world’s number one hotbed of crisis. In 2023 Russian military spending reached 5.9% of GDP, at the highest level since the end of the Soviet Union. On the other hand, Ukraine came to have the eighth largest military expenditure in the world in 2023, with an annual increase of 51%. It now stands at $64.8 billion, which is still only 59% of Russia’s military spending.
According to the new report, Germany is in 7th place in the world in terms of its military spending, with almost 69 billion dollars or 9% more than in 2022.
Greece is in 33rd place from 29th in 2022, with spending at 3.2% of GDP.
The United States at 37% and China at 12% accounted for about half of military spending worldwide, with growth of 2.3% and 6% respectively. Israel’s military spending last year rose 24 percent to $27.5 billion, largely due to the war in Gaza, which began in October.
Niklas Scherning, a political scientist at the Leibniz Institute for Peace and Conflict in Frankfurt, tells DW: “We live in an age where military power is once again a priority. In this sense the evidence is an expression of this way of thinking. Moreover, as the example of Ukraine and the recent Iranian attacks on Israel show, defense is significantly more expensive than offense.”
The German political scientist sees the future rather pessimistically. He believes that as long as the global situation does not change, the trend for more equipment will not be reversed. Necessary conditions for a change for the better would be, according to Niklas Sergink, peace in Ukraine, without division of the country and the de-escalation of the China-Taiwan tension with the mediation of the USA. For now, however, the situation leaves no room for optimism, the German expert estimates.
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