Global Military Spending Hits Record High — World On Edge

With two major deadly regional conflicts raging and the threat of even greater wars rising, global military spending rose to $2.72 trillion in 2024 — up 9.4% on 2023, and the steepest year-on-year rise since the end of the Cold War, four decades ago.

And there’s no end in sight to the spiraling global arms race.

This is according to a new report from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).

Download the full PDF here.

The top five military spenders — the United States, China, Russia, Germany and India — accounted for 60% of the global total, with combined spending of $1.635 billion.

Data from the think tank indicates that expenditure increased most rapidly in the Middle East and Europe — the former in part due to Israel’s wars against Iran-backed terror armies, the latter fueled by the war in Ukraine and big jumps in NATO spending.

In the Middle East, Israel and Lebanon significantly increased their military spending. Israel boosted its defense investment by 65% to $46.5 billion, while Lebanon increased its own by 58%, to $635 million.

“Despite widespread expectations that many Middle Eastern countries would increase their military spending in 2024, major rises were limited to Israel and Lebanon,” said SIPRI researcher Zubaida Karim. 

“Elsewhere [in the region], countries either did not significantly increase spending in response to the war in Gaza or were prevented from doing so by economic constraints.”

SIPRI said Iran’s military expenditure fell in real terms by 10% to $7.9 billion, despite its involvement in regional conflicts.

Meanwhile, Europe’s collective spending increased by 17% to $693 billion amid the war in Ukraine.

Russia’s government increased its military spending by 38% to an estimated $149 billion last year, while Ukraine’s grew by 2.9% to $64.7 billion. The Ukrainian spending, noted SIPRI, amounted to 34% of the country’s GDP, the largest military expenditure by percentage of GDP of any nation last year.

“Russia once again significantly increased its military spending, widening the spending gap with Ukraine,” said Diego Lopes da Silva, a senior researcher at SIPRI. “Ukraine currently allocates all of its tax revenues to its military.”

But, he added, “it will be challenging for Ukraine to keep increasing its military spending.”

All NATO member nations increased their military spending, too, with 18 countries spending at least 2% of their GDP during 2024, which was the highest number of NATO members to hit that threshold since the alliance adopted it as a spending guideline in 2014.

But the sharp rise globally wasn’t limited to Europe and the Middle East.

U.S. military spending grew by 5.7% to $997 billion, 37% of global military spending. Big ticket items in the U.S. budget included F-35 stealth fighters and their combat systems ($61.1 billion), new ships for the U.S. Navy ($48.1 billion), modernizing the U.S. nuclear arsenal ($37.7 billion) and missile defense ($29.8 billion).

And, of course, China was the world’s second largest military spender last year behind the U.S., with half of all military spending in Asia and Oceania, SIPRI said.

China increased its spending by 7% to $314 billion, but its true spending is likely even higher. This spike marked the 30th consecutive year-over-year rise in spending for the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), “the largest unbroken streak recorded” in the institute’s database, the report said.

The communist behemoth “unveiled several improved capabilities in 2024, including new stealth combat aircraft, uncrewed aerial vehicles (UAVs) and uncrewed underwater vehicles.”

“China also continued to rapidly expand its nuclear arsenal in 2024,” the report said.

“China’s military build-up has also influenced the military policies of its neighbors, prompting many of them to increase spending,” it said.

Japan’s military budget rose 21% in 2024 — its largest increase since 1952. That brought military spending to 1.4% of gross domestic product, the biggest chunk of Japan’s economy devoted to the military since 1958.

The Philippines, facing Chinese aggression in the South China Sea, increased its defense spending 19%.

“Major military spenders in the Asia-Pacific region are investing increasing resources into advanced military capabilities,” said Nan Tian, the director of the SIPRI Military Expenditure and Arms Production Program.

“With several unresolved disputes and mounting tensions, these investments risk sending the region into a dangerous arms-race spiral.”

In its press release, SIPRI makes the following important notes we should keep in mind when reviewing its numbers:

Military expenditure refers to all government spending on current military forces and activities, including salaries and benefits, operational expenses, arms and equipment purchases, military construction, research and development, and central administration, command and support. SIPRI therefore discourages the use of terms such as ‘arms spending’ when referring to military expenditure, as spending on armaments is usually only a minority of the total.

SIPRI’s methodology for calculating military expenditure differs from that used by NATO. As a result, SIPRI’s data regarding military spending and military burdens in NATO members may not exactly match that published by NATO or other sources, which include certain categories of spending not always included by SIPRI.

The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of American Liberty News.

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