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- Global military spending in 2023 rose to the highest levels ever recorded, analysts said.
- The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute said the spike was the steepest rise since 2009.
- Europe, the Middle East, Asia, and Oceania saw particularly large increases, it said.
Global military spending surged by 6.8% in real terms in 2023 to reach $2443 billion — the highest level ever recorded, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.
SIPRI released its annual report on trends in world military expenditure on Monday, describing last year's spike as the "steepest year-on-year increase" since 2009.
And the trend is truly global.
All five of the institute's defined geographical regions saw rises in military spending for the first time since 2009, with Europe, the Middle East, Asia, and Oceania recording particularly large increases, it said.
Global conflicts have been on the rise since around 2012, according to the International Crisis Group, with fighting simmering, breaking out, or expanding in Ukraine, Gaza, Ethiopia, and Myanmar over the past few years — to name just a few.
This, in turn, has ramped up military spending.
Nan Tian, a senior researcher with SIPRI's Military Expenditure and Arms Production Program, said the "unprecedented" rise in defense spending came in direct response to the "global deterioration in peace and security."
"States are prioritizing military strength but they risk an action–reaction spiral in the increasingly volatile geopolitical and security landscape," he said.
In fact, military expenditure has grown so much that global expenses per person reached $306 in 2023, SIPRI reported.
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The institute cited Russia's military spending, which it says climbed by 24% to reach an estimated $109 billion in 2023. It also highlighted Ukraine, which ranked eighth in terms of overall defense spending, following a 51% year-on-year increase.
Lorenzo Scarazzato, a SIPRI researcher, said that two years of Russia's war in Ukraine had fundamentally altered the security outlook for European NATO states.
He added that the NATO target of 2 percent of GDP being spent on defense is now being seen "as a baseline rather than a threshold to reach."
Eleven out of 31 NATO members fulfilled or exceeded the threshold in 2023, the highest number since the agreement was struck in 2014, per SIPRI.
The US, meanwhile, held onto its position as the world's largest defense spender, with its military spending rising by 2.3% to reach $916 billion in 2023, per the institute.
This is far more than China, the world's second-largest military spender, it said, which spent an estimated $296 billion on defense in 2023, up 6%.
At the same time, Israel saw its defense spending rise by 24% to reach $27.5 billion in 2023, mostly due to its large-scale offensive in Gaza, SIPRI's report found.