Monday, June 13, 2011

Global Miltary Spending

Another great daily chart from The Economist on levels of military spending. Note Australia's position and level of spending as a percentage of GDP. Of course the bigger the GDP, the bigger the absolute level of spending.

Note also the fact that the United States spends more than the next 17 countries combined. Indeed, the US accounts for close to half of total world military spending at about $US700 billion.

On a purchasing power parity (PPP) basis (for explanation see here), China's (and much of the rest of the developing world's) level of spending would be more significant. But given that a lot of the spending on military hardware involves international trade, it still must involve the Chinese using yuan to buy foreign components etc, negating at least some of the PPP effect.

China's spending as a percentage of GDP has remained reasonably static, but its GDP has been growing at about 10 per cent a year, so its military spending has also been growing rapidly as well. SIPRI estimates that its military spending has increased by almost 200 per cent since 2001 (via The Economist).



 

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