World Military Spending Tops $1 Trillion in 2004

[onedomino]

World Military Spending Increases
June 8, 2005

http://www.freep.com/news/nw/pentagon-box18e_20050608.htm

Global military spending in 2004 broke $1 trillion for the first time since the Cold War, boosted by the U.S. war against terror and the growing military budgets of India and China, a Swedish think tank said Tuesday.

Led by the United States, which accounted for 47% of military expenditures, the world spent $1.035 trillion, equal to 2.6% of global gross domestic product, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute said.

The world total grew 6% in 2004 from the previous year, the institute said. Adjusted for inflation, the total is only 6% lower than its Cold War peak in 1987-88, said researcher Elisabeth Skons, who coauthored the annual report.

Besides its regular military budget, the United States has allocated $238 billion since 2003 to fight terrorism, according to the report. "These appropriations are now assuming extraordinary proportions," Skons said.

The report is based on official national budgets in most cases and independent studies for countries like China, where, Skons said, "it's obvious that the official figures are very wrong." The government-funded institute estimated that China increased its military budget by about 10% in 2004, to $35.4 billion -- about 70% above the government's official figure, Skons said.

The top 100 makers of weapons increased their combined sales by 25% from 2002 to 2003, the report said. Those companies sold weapons and arms worth $236 billion worldwide in 2003, compared with $188 billion a year earlier. The United States accounted for 63% of arms sales in 2003, the report said.

Although Mideast conflicts were responsible for much of military spending, the rest of the world is also laying out more on security, the report said.

"It's hard to put the United States in the center, or blame everything on the U.S.," said Alyson Bailes, the think tank's director. "Despite all the ongoing problems, the state of world security is a great deal better than it was in the Cold War."

-