World military spending last year reached all-time high of $2.1T

ANKARA (AA) – Total global military spending rose 0.7% to $2.1 trillion in 2021, with the US, China, India, UK and Russia making up 65% of this, according to data released Tuesday by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).

US expenditures fell 1.4% to $801 billion in 2021 compared to the previous year, but funding for military research and development (R&D) rose 24% between 2012 and 2021, which indicates that the US is focused on next generation technology.

“Even amid the economic fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic, world military spending hit record levels,” said Diego Lopes da Silva, Senior Researcher with SIPRI’s Military Expenditure and Arms Production Program. “There was a slowdown in the rate of real-terms growth due to inflation. In nominal terms, however, military spending grew by 6.1%.”

All the figures come before Russia’s current war on Ukraine, which started this Feb. 24, but include much of the Kremlin’s buildup to the war.

China, the world’s second-largest spender, allocated an estimated $293 billion to its military in 2021, up 4.7% from 2020.

“China’s military spending has grown for 27 consecutive years,” the report noted.

Russia increased its military expenditures 2.9% in 2021 to $65.9 billion, at a time when it was building up some 100,000 troops along the Ukrainian border, ahead of the current war.

Iran’s military budget also rose for the first time in four years, to $24.6 billion, the data showed. “Funding for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps continued to grow in 2021 – by 14% compared with 2020 – and accounted for 34% of Iran’s total military spending.”