World military spending reached $1.6 trillion in 2010, an increase of 1.3 per cent in real terms.* This increase looks more like a decline when compared with the average annual growth rate of 5.1 percent during 2001- 2009. Indeed, the effects of the 2008 economic crisis show up for the first time in the 2010 figures as slightly lower rates of increase or even as decreased spending in the case of France, down by 8.4 percent; India, by 2.8 percent; Russia, by 1.4; and the UK, by 0.8 percent.

“We see a mixed picture,” says Sam Perlo-Freeman, Head of the SIPRI Military Expenditure Project. “European governments have cut military spending by 2.8 percent to address budget deficits, while South America has increased by 5.8 percent in spite of the lack of military threats to most of those countries.”

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