Group: Military spending is soaring

Amount spent globally at highest ever, report says

STOCKHOLM – Global military spending grew for the eighth consecutive year in 2022 to an all-time high of $2.24 trillion, with a sharp rise in Europe, chiefly due to Russian and Ukrainian expenditures, a Swedish think tank said Monday.

Spending globally increased by 3.7% in real terms, but military expenditure in Europe was up 13% – its steepest year-on-year increase in at least 30 years, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, or SIPRI, said in a report. Military aid to Ukraine and concerns about a heightened threat from Russia “strongly influenced many other states’ spending decisions.”

The independent Swedish watchdog said that last year, the three largest arms spenders were the United States, China and Russia, who between them accounted for 56% of global expenditures.

“The rise is a sign that we are living in an increasingly insecure world,” said Nan Tian, a researcher with SIPRI’s Military Expenditure and Arms Production Program.

Several states significantly increased their military spending following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, while others announced plans to raise spending levels over the decade. Some of the sharpest increases were seen in countries near Russia: Finland (36 %), Lithuania (27%) and Sweden (12%).

Sweden and Finland jointly applied for NATO membership in May 2022, abandoning decades of nonalignment in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. While Finland has been admitted, Sweden’s bid to join NATO remains stalled by opposition from Turkey and Hungary.

“While the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 certainly affected military spending decisions in 2022, concerns about Russian aggression have been building for much longer,” said Lorenzo Scarazzato, a researcher with SIPRI’s Military Expenditure and Arms Production Program.

“Many former Eastern bloc states have more than doubled their military spending since 2014, the year when Russia annexed Crimea.”

Established in 1966, SIPRI is an international institute dedicated to research into conflict, armaments, arms control and disarmament.

MARTIN MEISSNER/AP FILE A soldier fires a machine gun from a Leopard 2 tank in Augustdorf, Germany. Spending by European nations close to Russia has risen sharply, a watchdog group says.