This was calculated by the Sipri International Research Institute in Stockholm. In a report released today, Sipri found that more money was spent on guns worldwide last year than the year before. 2021 marked the seventh consecutive year that military spending rose.
In total, $2.1 trillion (over €1.9 trillion) was spent on military purposes, up 0.7 percent from 2020. More than half of this spending is represented by the five largest spenders: the United States, China, India, the United Kingdom and Russia. These five together account for 62 percent of the total.
Russia increased its spending in the run-up to the invasion of Ukraine to $65.9 billion, or 4.1 percent of GDP. “High oil and gas revenues helped Russia increase its military spending in 2021,” said Lucy Perod Sodrow, director of the Stockholm Research Program.
annexation of Crimea
This – not too surprising later – was offset by a decrease in military spending between 2016 and 2019. According to Berod Sodrow, this decrease can be explained by a combination of lower oil prices and sanctions imposed on Russia following Russia’s inclusion of coalition forces. Russia, Crimea in 2014.
Ukraine started spending a lot of money on armaments after losing that peninsula. Military spending there has increased 72% since 2014. In 2021, it was about $5.5 billion, or 3.9 percent of GDP.
The new “world record” of 1.9 trillion euros (€1900,000,000) remains a surprise to researchers. Researcher Diego Lopez da Silva concluded in a report released today that “even during the economic period of the COVID-19 pandemic,” countries increased defense spending.
