How much does it cost us? A new record was broken in defense spending around the world

Defense expenditures around the world reached a new record of more than 2,440 billion dollars last year due to the wars in Ukraine and the Gaza Strip and security tensions in other regions of the world – according to a new report by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).

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The data in the report shows that the total defense expenditures continued to rise for the ninth year in a row and reached the amount of 2,443 billion dollars, an increase of 6.8 percent compared to the expenditures in 2022 and the sharpest annual increase since 2009. This is the highest amount that the research institute has recorded in its sixty years of activity.

The report showed that for the first time ever, there was an increase in military spending in all five major geographic regions of the world – Europe, Africa, the Middle East, Asia and Oceania and the Americas. The average defense budget as a share of total government spending rose to 6.9 percent, an increase of 0.4 percent over the previous year, and global defense spending per person reached $306, the highest since 1990.

The US remains in first place in defense spending with $916 billion, 68 percent of all NATO spending. However, most of the European NATO members increased their defense spending significantly, against the background of the war in Ukraine, and now together they make up 28 percent of the alliance's total spending, the highest figure in a decade.

In second place is China, which invested an estimated $296 billion in defense spending last year, a six percent increase over 2022 and the 29th year in a row that it has increased its defense budget. Other countries in the region also significantly increased their defense budget – Japan increased by 11 percent to an amount of 50.2 billion dollars, and Taiwan also registered an increase of 11 percent and reached an amount of 16.6 billion dollars.

In the Middle East, the report shows that Israel's defense budget increased by 24 percent to $27.5 billion, and this against the background of the war in Gaza following the terrorist attack by Hamas on October 7. Saudi Arabia ranks first with a budget of $75.8 billion, an increase of 4.3 percent over the previous year, while Iran recorded expenditures of $10.3 billion, an increase of 0.6 percent.

"The large increase in defense spending in the Middle East in 2023 reflects a rapidly changing situation in the region – from the warming of diplomatic relations between Israel and a number of Arab countries in recent years to the outbreak of a major war in Gaza and fears of a widespread regional conflict," explained Diego Lopez de Silva, a senior researcher in the defense spending program at the Institute the study.