Despite the crisis, global military spending grew by 2.6% in 2020

WORLD. According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), global military spending reached $1981 billion (€1634 billion) in 2020 compared to 2019, an increase of 2.6% and the highest level since 1988. They "include all government spending on armed forces and military activities, including salaries and benefits, operating costs, military equipment and weapons procurement, military infrastructure, research and development, headquarters, command and support," SIPRI says.

The United States ($778 billion), China ($252 billion), India, Russia and the United Kingdom together account for 62% of this expenditure. The Washington administration is growing for the third year in a row (4.4% in 2020) after seven years of continuous decline and accounts for 39% of global spending in this area. As for China, it is showing an increase (1.9%) for the twenty-sixth consecutive year. 

In Europe, military spending rose by 4.0% and in sub-Saharan Africa by 3.4%.

In 2020, due to the impacts of the health crisis, the world's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) has fallen by 4.4% according to the forecasts of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), as highlighted by SIPRI. Over this year, global military spending has weighed 2.4% of GDP compared to 2.2% in 2019. "This is the largest annual increase in such spending since the global economic and financial crisis of 2009," says the Institute. "We can say with near certainty that the pandemic has not had a significant impact on global military spending in 2020 (...) It remains to be seen whether countries will maintain this level of military spending during the second year of the pandemic," questions Diego Lopes da Silva, a researcher with SIPRI's Weapons and Military Expenditures program.

In 2020, of the twenty-three Mediterranean countries (see table below), twenty-one spent more on the military sector than in 2018, the pre-Covid-19 year. The exceptions are Greece and Cyprus.
These sums are eating up more and more points of GDP, especially in five states: Algeria (6.7%), Israel (5.6%), Jordan (5%) and Morocco (4.3%). The most thrifty in the Mediterranean basin is Malta, which devotes only 0.6% of its GDP to these expenses and only a sum of $ 78.5 million (Kosovo is at the bottom of the list with $ 77 million but 1.1% of its GDP).

Like almost all of the 30 members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), France, the sixth country in the world in this 2020 SIPRI ranking, has for the first time since 2009 passed the 2% mark of GDP (the target set by the Alliance) devoted to military spending. Paris reaches 2.1%. Twelve NATO states also exceed this percentage, compared to only nine in 2019.

Eight of the nine members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), for which SIPRI has data, reduced their military spending in 2020. In the Middle East (eleven states surveyed), they will decrease by 6.5% to $143bn. 
In Israel, they will increase by 0.4%.

 

	Military expenditure in constant $M			Percentage of military expenditure in relation to GDP
COUNTRY	2018	2019	2020	2020
France	49304	50119	51572	2,1%
Italy	27122	26381	28370	1,6%
Israel	20074	20504	21704	5,6%
Turkey	19225	20603	19567	2,8%
Spain	17024	17189	17160	1,4%
Algeria	9551	10304	9958	6,7%
Greece	5475	5472	5237	2,8%
Morocco	3641	3721	4794	4,3%
Portugal	4090	4278	4557	2,1%
Egypt*	3762	3744	4016	1,2%
Jordan	1973	2032	2083	5,0%
Serbia **	795	1144	1086	2,1%
Tunisia	814	1001	1046	2,9%
Lebanon**	2861	2521	1036	3%
Croatia	923	1002	1031	1,8%
Slovenia	510	573	562	1,1%
Cyprus	428	402	414	1,8%
Albania	175	197	216	1,5%
Bosnia and Herzegovina	164	165	166	0,9%
Republic of Northern Macedonia	114	146	154	1,3%
Montenegro	75,1	77,7	100,3	2,1%
Malta	64,5	83,6	78,5	0,6%
Kosovo	61,7	65,7	77	1,1%

* Data uncertain
** SIPRI estimates
Table copyright econostrum. info - Sources: SIPRI 2021