War, fear of war spur global military spending to new record: SIPRI report
Al Jazeera
New high of $2.4 trillion is the ninth straight annual increase, suggesting the trend will continue, research institute says.
The world spent $2.4 trillion on military forces last year, the highest amount ever recorded by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).
SIPRI has been monitoring military expenditures since 1949 and found in its annual report released on Monday that in 2023 they rose to 2.3 percent of the global gross domestic product (GDP) from 2.2 percent the year before.
It meant that every man, woman and child on the planet was taxed an average of $306 for military spending last year – the highest rate since the Cold War.
The increased spending exactly matched the global rate of inflation of 6.8 percent, so it doesn’t necessarily translate into greater military efficacy everywhere.
But as SIPRI said, spending was not evenly spread out because “world military expenditure is highly concentrated among a very small group of states”.
