SIPRI report on Military Spending

The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute recently released its “Trends in world Military Expenditure” report. According to the report, the top military spenders in the world are the United States, China and India. These three countries alone contributed 62% global military expenditure.

Key Findings of the Report

• In 2020, the US spent 778 billion USD on its military. While China and India spent 252 billion USD and 72 .9 billion USD respectively.
• The military expenditure of India has grown by 2.1% and that of China has grown by 1.9%. The military Expenditure of US has grown by 4.4%.
• Globally, the military expenditure increased to 1981 billion USD as compared to that of 2019. This is 2.6% increase. On the other hand, the global GDP shrank by 4.4% according to the International Monetary Fund.

Military Spending in terms of GDP

• The US spent 3.7% of its GDP on military.
• India and China spent 2.9% and 1.7% of their GDP respectively.

Region wise military spending

The military spending in Oceania and Asia increased by 2.5% as compared to that of 2019. It was 47% higher as compared to that of 2011.

Other top military spenders

The other countries that spent large amount on building their military were as follows:

• Russia: 61.7 billion USD
• UK: 59.2 billion USD
• Saudi Arabia: 57.5 billion USD
• Germany and France spent around 53 billion USD each.

Military Spending diverted to Pandemic

While countries were increasing their expenditure on military, some countries reallocated their planned military expenditure towards the pandemic. They were South Korea and Chile. Some other countries like Russia, Brazil spent less amount than their initial military budgets.

Arm Imports of India

According to the report, the arm imports of India came down to one third in 2016-20 as compared to that of 2011-15. Still India remained the second highest arms importer after Saudi Arabia. In the decline of arms imports of India, Russia was the affected supplier. Russia had eventually increased it arms exports to Algeria, Chin and Egypt replacing India.

The report also state that US, Russia, France, Germany and China were the top five arms importers in 2016-20.

Top Arms Imports

• The arms imports of Egypt and Qatar increased by 136% and 361% respectively.
• The middle east arms imports increased by 25%

Top Exporters

The top arms exporters were US, France and Germany.

Warheads in India

The deployed warheads are missiles located on bases with the operational forces. That is, they are ready to use. The other warheads are those that are reserved or stored awaiting dismantlement. For India, the report gave a figure of 130-140 in “other warheads”.

Month: Current Affairs - April, 2021