Global arms spending rises

2008-06-09 21:21

Stockholm - The United States accounted for almost half the world's military expenditure in 2007, a year when global arms sales also climbed, a Swedish-based peace institute said on Monday.

Last year, global military expenditure totalled $1.339 trillion or $202 per head, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) said, adding that the global increase was 6% in real terms from 2006.

"The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq were major drivers of US spending," SIPRI researcher Sam Perlo-Freeman said.

The US had a 45% share of global military spending or $547bn in 2007, the highest in the US since World War 2.

The other top four military spenders - Britain, China, France, and Japan - each accounted for 4% to 5%, the SIPRI Yearbook said.

Another trend in recent years was the "outsourcing" of different "military services" to private contractors, ranging from armed troops to information technology, Perlo-Freeman said, attributing this to downsizing of forces.

In the Middle East, South Asia, Africa and East Asia, military spending also increased more than 50% since 1998 while only Western Europe and Central America bucked the trend.

The US and Russia were the world's largest arms exporters between 2003 and 2007, accounting for 31% and 25%, respectively.

China and India were the world's largest importers although deliveries and orders to China dropped.

Perlo-Freeman said, "China and India are rivals in some respects, cooperating in other respects" and discerned different factors that drove their military spending.

"China is seeking to become a global power, to have a global degree of influence," he said, while several factors influenced India's spending ranging from traditional rivalry with Pakistan to India's recent efforts to develop "a blue water navy, seeking to project more influence in the Indian Ocean region". - Sapa-dpa

- SAPA