Global Military Spending

The following article was published in the November 11, 1999 issue of Weekly Defense Monitor by the Center for Defense Information and was prepared by Christopher Hellman, Senior Analyst. It reviews the status of our current military spending and is titled “U.S. Share of World Military Spending Growing.”

“The London-based Institute for International and Strategic Studies (IISS) recently released the 1999 issue of the "the World Military Balance." It shows that while U.S. military spending is increasing, global military spending continues to decline.

World military spending, which was $1.2 trillion in 1985, stood at $785 billion in 1998, down more than $20 billion from 1997. Meanwhile, the U.S. share of global military spending continued to increase, going from 30% in 1985 to 36% in 1998, up two percent over the previous year.

Some facts about U.S. military spending:

The U.S. military budget is more than nineteen times as large as the combined spending of the seven countries traditionally identified by the Pentagon as our most likely adversaries -- Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea, Sudan and Syria -- which together spend just over $15 billion annually.

The United States and its close allies -- the NATO nations and South Korea and Japan -- spend more than the rest of the world combined. Together they spend thirty times more than the seven rogue states.

The seven rogue nations, along with Russia and China, together spend $106 billion, less than one-half the U.S. military budget.

While spending in most regions of the world, including among NATO countries, declines, spending by Pacific rim countries is on the rise, reversing a recent trend. Although the region's economic woes forced many nations to dramatically cut their military budgets, disturbing events in North Korea and rising tensions between Taiwan and mainland China have caused South Korea, Taiwan and Japan to consider significant military funding increases in the near term. Meanwhile, a slowing economy has blunted China's efforts to modernize the People's Liberation Army. After several years of gradual increases, China's military budget appeared to have plateaued, although recent reports indicate that the government may have plans to make substantial increases in military spending in response to the situation with Taiwan and continued U.S. efforts to develop a national missile defense.

Estimating Russian military spending remains as imprecise a science as was determining that of the Soviet Union, albeit for different reasons. For instance, while IISS places Russian military spending at $55 billion, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) estimates current Russian military spending at roughly $15 billion. However, even using the more generous IISS figure, the United States outspends Russia by more than five to one. Further, a wealth of anecdotal evidence indicates that the collapse of the Russian economy has made it impossible for the government to hit its spending targets for the military.”

The following table sets forth military outlays for selected countries.

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