SIPRI has released new data showing that global military expenditure reached $1.9 trillion in 2019, the highest (inflation-adjusted) level recorded since 1988. Last year's total was 3.6% higher in real terms than 2018 and 7.2% higher than 2010. The United States remained by far the world's largest spender in 2019 with $732 billion, nearly as much as the next 10 spenders combined. U.S. military spending grew over the past two years following seven consecutive years of decline, primarily due to increased personnel costs amid higher recruiting along with the modernization of conventional and nuclear weapon inventories. In 2019, military spending accounted for 3.4% of U.S. GDP.
China was the world's second-largest military spender in 2019, accounting for 14% of total global expenditure. Beijing spent an estimated $261 billion on its armed forces last year, a 5.1% increase on 2018 and 85% higher than 2010. According to SIPRI, Chinese military expenditure has grown each year since 1994 and it has closely matched the country's economic growth. Spending as a share of GDP has remained largely unchanged over the past decade at an estimated 1.9%. Saudi Arabia was in third position last year but it has now slipped to fifth, with India and Russia occupying third and fourth place in the spending table respectively.
In 2019, India spent just over $71 billion on its military, or 2.4% of GDP, while Moscow's expenditure grew 4.5% to $65 billion or 3.9% of GDP. Even though Saudi Arabia's spending levels fell by 16% between 2018 and 2019, it still pumped close to $62 billion into its armed forces. That figure is equivalent to 8% of the country's GDP. As interesting as the latest figures are, it will be fascinating to see how they develop in 2020 and whether governments attempt to make cuts to arms spending in order to redirect more funding towards their beleaguered health systems that are struggling to contain the coronavirus pandemic.