Military spending in Europe has surpassed the end of the Cold War in 2022, the biggest increase in more than three decades, driven mainly by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, according to a benchmark report released today.

According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), on all continents, military spending reached a new peak in 2022, reaching $2.24 trillion, or, in other words, 2.2% of global GDP.

Globally, this is the eighth consecutive year of growth in military investment (+3.7%).

“They have increased due to the war in Ukraine, which has pushed European budgets to rise, as well as unresolved and growing tensions in East Asia,” he explained, between China on the one hand, and the US and its Asian allies on the other. , one of the authors of the report told AFP.

The Old Continent spent 13% more inflation-adjusted military spending in 2022.

This is the biggest increase in more than 30 years and a return – in deflated dollars – to the level of spending in 1989 when the Berlin Wall fell.

This is a level “that we have never seen since the end of the Cold War,” Mr. Tian said.

Ukraine (11th) almost quadrupled (+640%) its military spending, which jumped to $44 billion, or a third of its GDP. And that’s not counting billions of dollars in arms donations from abroad, SIPRI notes.

The institute estimates that Russian military spending has increased by 9.2 percent. Thus, Russia was from fifth to third place.

But “even if we exclude the two states that started the war, spending in Europe has risen significantly,” Mr. Tian said.

European military spending, which reached $480 billion in 2022, has already risen by more than a third in ten years, and this trend is expected to continue into the next decade.

They could “potentially” grow at a rate similar to 2022 for many years, according to a SIPRI researcher.

After a significant decline in the 1990s, global military spending has started to rise again since the 2000s.

First because of China’s significant investment in its military, and then because of renewed tensions with Russia after the annexation of Crimea in 2014.

China second

The US alone accounted for 39% of global military spending in 2022. Together with China, now in second place (13%), they accounted for more than half of global military spending last year.

The following countries, Russia (3.9%), India (3.6%) and Saudi Arabia (3.3%), are far away.

“China is investing heavily in its navy to expand its presence in Taiwan and apparently beyond the South China Sea,” Mr. Tian said.

Japan, as well as Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam and Australia, are trying to follow this trend.

The UK is the first European country on the list, in 6th place (3.1% of global spending), ahead of Germany (2.5%) and France (2.4%) – these figures include their donations in Ukraine.

The UK, the second-largest donor after the US, “has traditionally spent more than Germany and France and also given more (weapons to Ukraine) than Germany and France,” Mr. Tian said, remaining number one in Europe in terms of military spending. expenses.

Moreover, countries such as Poland, the Netherlands and Sweden are among those that have increased their military spending the most in the last decade.

Modern weapons systems that are extremely expensive, such as the US F-35 fighter, partly explain some of the spikes in spending, such as in Finland, which bought 64 aircraft last year.

Last month, another SIPRI report showed that Europe’s arms imports will almost double (+93%) in 2022, mainly due to massive shipments to Ukraine, which has become the third largest recipient of military equipment in the world.

Source: RES-IPE