India Cuts Back Arms Spending, China Gets Stronger

According to the report, world military spending in 2011 is $1,738 billion. “While the figure is higher in dollar terms than in 2010, this is largely the result of changes in prices and, more importantly, a falling dollar. When measured in real terms (constant 2010 prices), the total for 2011 is just 0.3 percent higher than in 2010. Given the uncertainties in the data, this means that world military spending was essentially unchanged in 2011, breaking a 13-year run of continuous military spending increases,” the report says.

Some of the noted patterns of change according to the report are: A decrease in the U.S. of 1.2 percent in real terms, the first fall in U.S. military spending since 1998; a moderate increase in Asia and Oceania (2.3 percent);falls in Western and Central Europe (1.9 percent) due to austerity measures, matched by a large increase (10.2 percent) in Eastern Europe; a substantial increase (4.6 percent) in the Middle East; a moderate (3.3 percent) decrease in Latin America; and a large increase (8.6 percent) in Africa.

“Despite experiencing a severe recession in 2009, Russia has increased military spending by 16 percent in real terms since 2008, including a 9.3 percent increase in 2011,” reveals the report. SIPRI findings also notes that Russia is now the third largest military spender worldwide, overtaking the UK and France.  In the longer term, Russia plans to spend 23 trillion roubles ($749 billion) on equipment, research and development (R&D) and support for the Russian arms and military services industry over the period 2011–2020, with plans to replace 70 percent of Russia’s mostly Soviet-era military equipment with modern weaponry by 2020, the study finds.