Tuesday, April 27, 2021
World Military spending rises to $1.98 Trillion in Weapons in 2020
Despite the outbreak of the Corona pandemic during the last year 2020 and its impact on global GDP, this did not affect the budget that countries allocate for defense, which reached 1.98 trillion dollars, according to the annual report of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) published on Monday.
Worldwide military spending for 2020 increased by 2.6% over the previous year (2019), and the report said that this growth is driven by investments from the United States, China, India, Russia and the United Kingdom, which accounted for more than 60% of spending around the world.
- We can say with certainty that the pandemic did not have a significant impact on global military spending in 2020, however, the effect can be seen in the long term said Diego Lopes da Silva, a researcher at SIPRI Arms and Military Expenditure. Similar : Saudi Army is first in world in terms of ready to fight
- It remains to be seen whether countries will maintain this level of military spending during the second year of the epidemic and despite the growth of investment globally, some countries, such as Chile and South Korea, have decided to reallocate part of the defense budget to Epidemic control plans, he added.
- Other countries have reduced their military budget for 2020, such as Brazil and Russia, although this budget is not related to spending on anti-epidemic plans.
- Taking into account the global average of the proportion of military spending and global GDP, the report concluded that last year (2020), the spending ratio was 2.4%, compared to 2.2% in 2019, which is the highest year-on-year increase since the 2009 financial crisis.
- The United States strengthened its position as the country with the highest military spending in the world, allocating $ 778 billion, meaning 39% of military spending worldwide, an increase of 4.4% over the previous year. See Also : Saudi Arabia is among most trusted governments in the world
- China came in second place with an estimated spending value of $ 252 billion, and this figure represents an increase of 1.9% compared to 2019 and 76% in the past decade.
- India comes in third place with 72.9 billion dollars, an increase of 2.1%, followed by Russia with 62.7 billion, an increase of 2.5%, and the United Kingdom with 59.2 billion dollars, an increase of 2.9% compared to 2019.
- Eight of the 9 members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) cut their military spending in 2020. Angola’s spending fell by 12%, Saudi Arabia’s by 10%, and Kuwait’s by 5.9%. Non-OPEC oil exporter Bahrain also cut its spending by 9.8%. Recommend : Saudi Arabia is the happiest Arab country in 2021
- The countries with the biggest increases in military burden among the top 15 spenders in 2020 were Saudi Arabia (+0.6 percentage points), Russia (+0.5 percentage points), Israel (+0.4 percentage points) and the USA (+0.3 percentage points).
