Military spending in Europe will rise again in 2022 to its level at the end of the Cold War, with a record increase for more than three decades fueled by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, according to a landmark report published on Monday. All continents combined, military spending hit a new high of $2.24 trillion last year, or 2.2% of global GDP, according to data from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (Sipri).
This is, on a global scale, the eighth consecutive year of increased investment in the military, “driven by the war in Ukraine, which is pushing up European budgets, but also by the resolved and growing tensions in East Asia” between China on the one hand and the United States and its Asian allies on the other, underlines researcher Nan Tian, one of the co-authors of the study.
European countries spent almost $500 billion in 2022
Adjusted for inflation, the Old Continent spent 13% more on its armies in a year marked by the Russian invasion of Ukraine, according to the report. This is both the strongest growth recorded in more than 30 years and a return, in constant dollars, to the level of spending in 1989, the year the Berlin Wall fell. “It’s unheard of since the end of the Cold War,” Nan Tian said.
Only Ukraine multiplied by seven its spending, which jumped to 44,000 million dollars, a third of its GDP. And that without counting several tens of billions of foreign arms donations, says Sipri. Russian spending rose 9.2%, according to his estimates.
This European spending, which reached $480 billion in 2022, has already increased by more than a third in ten years, and the trend should continue to accelerate in the next decade. We could “potentially” see growth levels similar to 2022 for several years, estimates the Sipri researcher.
The United States and China account for more than half
After falling sharply in the 1990s, global military spending has been on the rise since the 2000s. Initially, it was buoyed by China’s large investments in its military, and then by renewed tensions with Russia after annexation. of Crimea in 2014. The United States alone accounted for 39% of global spending last year. With China, number 2 (13%), they account for more than half of the world’s military investments. They are followed by Russia (3.9%), India (3.6%) and Saudi Arabia (3.3%).
Opposite, Japan, but also Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam and beyond, Australia, are trying to keep up.
France represents 2.4% of world military spending
The United Kingdom is the first European 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 United Kingdom, the second donor behind the United States, “traditionally spends more than Germany and France and has also given more than Germany and France,” Nan Tian stresses, stressing its status as the first European nation for military spending.
In Europe, countries like Poland, the Netherlands and Sweden are among those that have increased their military investments the most in the last decade. Modern but very expensive weapons, such as the US F-35 fighter plane, also explain some jumps in spending, as in the case of Finland, which last year purchased 64 aircraft. Last month, another Sipri report showed that arms imports into Europe had nearly doubled (+93%) by 2022, driven by massive deliveries to Ukraine, which has become the world’s third-biggest destination.
Source: BFM TV
