SIPRI DATA - REPORT AND INDICES
News: Ukraine
war spurs record global spending on military, Stockholm think tank says
What's in the news?
● SIPRI
report says that the global military spending
rose to a record last year as Russia's
war in Ukraine drove the biggest annual increase in expenditure in Europe
since the end of the Cold War three decades ago.
KEY TAKEAWAYS:
● World military
expenditure rose by 3.7% in real terms in 2022 to $2.24 trillion.
● Russia's
invasion of Ukraine, which began in February last year following years of
growing tensions, has prompted European countries to rush to bolster their
defences.
● Defense outlays among
NATO members - the Euro-Atlantic military
alliance incorporating most European countries have been going up since at
least 2014.
○ European military
spending shot up 13% last year, primarily due to
increases by Russia and Ukraine, but with many countries across the continent
also ramping up military budgets and planning for more amid the surging
tensions.
● NATO members agreed to
meet a defense spending goal of 2% of national GDP by 2024,
and many of them have been slowly working toward that target.
● Ukraine's military
spending rose 640% in 2022, the largest annual increase recorded in SIPRI data
going back to 1949, with that total not
including the vast amounts of financial military aid provided by the West.
● SIPRI
estimated that military aid to Ukraine from the United States accounted for
2.3% of total U.S. military spending in 2022.
● The United States was the
world's top spender by far its overall expenditure rose only marginally in real
terms.
● Russia's
military spending grew by an estimated 9.2%, though SIPRI acknowledged figures
were "highly uncertain given the increasing opaqueness of financial
authorities" since its war in Ukraine began.
● The
double-digit increases over the past decade across many countries, including
nuclear powers and those known for prioritizing armed forces, such as China (63
percent), India (47 percent), and Israel (26 percent).
○ In
each of these countries, however, defense spending has declined as a percentage
of national economic output.
Indian Data:
● Despite an 11 percent
drop in its arms import between 2013-17 and 2018-22, India remained the world’s
largest arms importer from 2018 to 2022 followed by Saudi Arabia, according
to the latest report by Stockholm International Peace Research Institute
(SIPRI).
● Russia was India’s
largest arms supplier in the periods between
2013-17 and 2018-22, but its share of arms imports to India fell from 64
percent to 45 percent while France
emerged as the second-largest arms supplier to India between 2018-22 at 29
percent, followed by the US at 11 percent.
○ Aside
from Russia and France, India also imported arms during this five-year period
from Israel, South Korea, and South Africa which are among the top arms
exporters globally.
○ The
report said Russia’s position as India’s main arms supplier is under pressure
owing to strong competition from other supplier states, increased Indian arms
production, and, since 2022, constraints on Russia’s arms exports related to
its invasion of Ukraine.
● The
report said India’s tensions with
Pakistan and China largely drive its demand for arms imports.
● With
an 11 percent share of total global arms imports, India was the world’s biggest
importer of major arms in 2018–22, a position it has held for the period
1993–2022.
Russian Arms Export:
● The
report said just under two-thirds of
Russian arms exports went to India, China, and Egypt in 2018-22 at 31
percent, 23 percent, and 9.3 percent, respectively.
Other Key Findings:
● As
per the data, India was the
third-largest arms supplier to Myanmar during this period after Russia and
China and comprised 14 percent of its imports.
● It
also stated that 77 percent of
Pakistan’s arms supply in 2018-22 came from China.