This record increase is, unsurprisingly, boosted by the war in Ukraine.
Military spending in Europe will rise again in 2022 to its level at the end of the Cold War, with a record increase for more than three decades boosted by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. These are the conclusions of a report by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (Sipri) published on Monday 24 April. Across continents, military spending reached a new high of $2.24 trillion last year, or 2.2% of global GDP, according to data from Sipri.
This is, on a global scale, the eighth consecutive year of increase for investments in the armies. “They are being pulled by the war in Ukraine, which is pushing up European budgets, but also by the unresolved and growing tensions in East Asia.” between China on one side and, on the other, the United States and their Asian allies, underlines to AFP the researcher Nan Tian, one of the co-authors of the study.
“Never seen”
The Old Continent spent, after deducting inflation, 13% more on its armies in a year marked by the Russian invasion of Ukraine, according to the report. This is both the strongest growth recorded for more than 30 years, and the return – in constant dollars – to the level of expenditure of 1989, the year of the fall of the Berlin Wall. “This is unheard of since the end of the Cold War”assures Nan Tian.
Ukraine alone increased its spending sevenfold, which jumped to $44 billion – a third of its GDP. And this without counting several tens of billions of armament donations from abroad, specifies the Sipri. Russian spending increased by 9.2%, according to his estimates. “But even removing the two warring nations, spending in Europe has increased significantly,” explains Nan Tian.
This European spending, which reached 480 billion dollars in 2022, has already increased by more than a third in ten years, and the trend should continue to accelerate in the next decade.