I. Global developments in military expenditure

Chapter:

4. Military expenditure

Source:

SIPRI Yearbook 2012

Author(s):

Sam Perlo-Freeman, Carina Solmirano, Elisabeth Sköns, Olawale Ismail, Noel Kelly, Olawale Ismail, Helen Wilandh

Between 1998 and 2010 total world military expenditure increased every year in real terms, but that growth stopped in 2011 as spending reached $1738 billion. The fastest growth was between 2001 and 2009, when the average annual increase was 5 per cent. The rate of growth slowed in 2010 and fell to just 0.3 per cent in 2011, which, given the uncertainties in the estimate, is not significantly different from zero.¹ Military spending in the United States, the main component in global increases since 2001, fell slightly in 2011, for the first time since 1998. Elsewhere, increases in Africa, the Middle East, and Asia and Oceania were countered by falls in Latin America (see table 4.1). In Europe, substantial increases in Eastern Europe—by Azerbaijan and Russia in particular—were offset by a second year of falls in Western and Central Europe.