ANKARA
Global defense spending in 2014 dropped 0.4 percent compared with the previous year, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute said in a statement Monday.
Total world spending was an estimated $1,776 billion, equivalent to 2.3 percent of global Gross Domestic Product, the statement said.
This is the third consecutive year that total global military expenditure has decreased. However, world military expenditure is still only 1.7 percent below its 2011 peak, and it remains significantly above the levels of the late 1980s, it said.
The U.S. still has the world's largest military expenditure, at nearly three times the level of second-placed China; its expenditure dropped by 6.5 percent in 2014, largely as a result of budget deficit control measures, it said.
Russia is next, followed by Saudi Arabia, France and the U.K. Spending in Central Europe broke with recent trends and began to rise again following large falls in previous years resulting from the global financial crisis that began in 2008.
Military spending in the Middle East amounted to $196 billion in 2014, an increase of 5.2 percent over 2013, and 57 percent since 2005. The largest increases since 2005 were by Iraq (286 percent), the UAE (135 percent), Bahrain (126 percent) and Saudi Arabia (112 percent). Figures for 2014 were not available for Kuwait, but its spending increased by 112 percent between 2005 and 2013.
Turkey’s spending grew by just 15 percent since 2005, while Israel’s military spending remained relatively stable throughout 2005–14.
In 2014, there was a sharp increase in the number of countries with military burdens over 4 percent of Gross Domestic Product, as well as in countries with military burdens over 5 percent.
In total, 20 countries had military burdens over 4 percent of Gross Domestic Product in 2014. Of these countries, 10 had military burdens over 5 percent, the nongovernmental organization added.
