Tri-Service
Defence Spenders: The World's Top 10
Ever wondered how much money the world's top military spenders put towards defence every year? Or what country spends the biggest proportion of its budget on its military?
The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute established its Military Expenditure Database in 1967 to find out the answers to questions just like these.
Here's a list of the top 10 countries in the world in terms of military expenditure, as of the Institute's latest study, which looks at data from the year 2013.
Top 10 Spenders (£ Billion)
1.USA – 420
2.China – 123
3.Russia – 57.5
4.Saudi Arabia – 44
5.France – 40
6.UK – 38
7.Germany – 32
8.Japan – 31.8
9.India – 31
10.South Korea – 22
But when defence spending is measured in terms of percentage of a country's GDP, the story is vastly different.
Top 10 Spenders (% of GDP)
1.Saudi Arabia – 9.3
2.UAE – 4.7
3.Russia – 4.1
4.USA – 3.8
5.South Korea – 2.8
6.India – 2.5
7/8.UK/Turkey – 2.3
9.France – 2.2
10.China – 2.0
While the USA spends over three times its nearest rival, China, on defence, this figure only represents 3.8% of its GDP. This may seem a large amount, but it represents less than the vast proportion of overall wealth spent by Saudi Arabia, and is also behind that spent by the United Arab Emirates and Russia.
In fact, the study found that military spending by the USA declined by 7.8% in real terms between 2012-2013 - from £449 billion to £420 billion - which is partly attributed to a reduction in spending on overseas military operations, mainly in Afghanistan and Iraq, at the time.
Meanwhile, China's spending, whilst comfortably behind the US both in terms of overall spending and percentage of GDP dedicated to defence, increased by 7.4% - a result of its long-term policy of increasing military spending in line with economic growth.
Russia, on the other hand, is a big spender in both senses - sitting in third on both charts. Its spending increased by 4.8 per cent from 2012 in line with its State Armaments Plan, which is aiming to spend £464 billion on new and upgraded armaments, replacing 70% of equipment with ‘modern’ weapons by 2020. Its military spending burden, meanwhile, exceeded that of the USA for the first time since 2003.
But where does this leave the UK? Having fallen out of the top five defence spenders in 2011, most likely for the first time since World War II (although records only go back as far as 1988), we remain in sixth place in terms of overall spend, behind the US, China, Russia, Saudi Arabia and France.
Expenditure dropped from £40 to £38 billion, whilst percentage of GDP spent dropped from 2.5% to 2.3%, leaving us level with Turkey.
The MoD has claimed, however, that the UK's overall spend will be £71 billion by 2045, putting the country back in fifth place behind the USA, China, India (who it predicts will enter the top three) and Russia.
Related topics
Join Our Newsletter
