Military expenditure is the expenditure by a country's government on their military forces, i.e. maintenance and operations, military research and development, Military aid, procurement, salaries, pensions, etc. World military spending refers to the aggregate global military spending by different countries - analysis of this data can help understand the status of a particular country as a military power in the world arena.
The military expenditure of various countries is presented annually by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. The data presented by the institute is based on open source data provided by national governments, which include the national budget documents, defence white papers and public finance statistics published by ministries of finance and defence, central banks and national statistical offices. This research has been at the core of the institute’s work since its foundation in 1966, and is used globally by researchers, policymakers, journalists and the general public. It aids in building a clearer picture of trends and development in regional and world military spending. A fact sheet is usually released, mapping out regional and selected national military expenditure data for the past year and trends over the previous decade, while the SIPRI Military Expenditure Database provides military expenditure data by country for the years 1949–2018.
As a website, global issues states “Global military expenditure stands at over $1.6 trillion in annual expenditure at current prices for 2010, and has been rising in recent years.” This shows that the world military expenditure in 2010 is estimated to be over about $1.6 trillion pointing towards a 1.3% rise since 2009 and 50% rise since 2001. This is 2.6% of the world's gross domestic product. Amongst all the countries of the world the U.S. accounts for highest military spending across the globe. Constituting for 43% of the world total followed by China, UK, France and Russia. as the website newser.com states, "In many cases, the falls or slower increases represent a delayed reaction to the global financial and economic crisis that broke in 2008," wrote the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute in a statement. Military spending includes expenses for military and civil personnel, the retirement pensions for army personnel as well as social services, all the military operations and programmes and maintenance of the same, military aid and lastly military research and development. As we have seen earlier the United States of America is incurring the highest military expenditure in the world. It is considered a superpower and a determinant of the world's military spending. Their spending in the recent times has increased due to terror and Afghanistan and Iraq invasions. Even though there have been financial crises the military expenses have shown no signs of change. The expenditure on a country's armed forces remains the same.
