In a global diplomatic context marked by the war in Ukraine, military spending reached in 2022, all continents combined, a new peak of 2,240 billion dollars (approximately 2,040 billion euros), or 2.2% of GDP worldwide, according to a report by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (Sipri), published on Monday 24 April. This is, on a global scale, the eighth consecutive year of increase for investments in the armies.
“They are pulled by the war in Ukraine, which is pushing up European budgets, but also by the unresolved and growing tensions in East Asia” between China, on the one hand, and, on the other , the United States and their Asian allies, underlines, with Agence France-Presse, the researcher Nan Tian, one of the authors of the study.
Spending in Europe at the level of the end of the Cold War
Military spending in Europe reached $480 billion in 2022 – a year marked by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine – or, after deducting inflation, an increase of 13%, according to the report. The United Kingdom is the first European country, in sixth place (3.1% of the world total), ahead of Germany (2.5%) and France (2.4%) – figures that include donations to Ukraine. The European continent as a whole is experiencing the strongest growth recorded for more than thirty years and the return – in constant dollars – to the level of expenditure of 1989, the year of the fall of the Berlin Wall.
The 40 countries with the largest military expenditures
© / afp.com/Julia Han JANICKI
Expenditure has already increased by more than a third in ten years, and the trend should continue to accelerate in the next decade. Ukraine alone increased its expenditure sevenfold, which jumped to $44 billion – a third of its GDP. And this without counting several tens of billions of armament donations from abroad, specifies the Sipri. Russian spending has increased by 9.2%, according to his estimates.
United States in the lead
After falling considerably in the 1990s, global military spending had been on the rise since the 2000s. It had been initially driven by major investments by China in its army, then by renewed tensions with the Russia after the annexation of Crimea in 2014.
The United States alone accounted for 39% of global spending in 2022. Along with China, number two (13%), it represents more than half of the world’s military investments. The following, Russia (3.9%), India (3.6%) and Saudi Arabia (3.3%) come far behind. “China is investing heavily in its naval forces, to increase its reach towards Taiwan obviously and, beyond, towards the South China Sea”, underlines Nan Tian. Opposite, Japan, but also Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam and further afield Australia are trying to keep up.
