Reaction to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine helped push defence budgets back into expansion this year, and will see them grow at a rate of 1.6% annually in the coming five years, according to the latest figures from the trusted global agency for open-source defence intelligence
Recovering from a pandemic-induced contraction of 0.7% last year, total world defence spending grew to a new high of USD2.08 trillion in 2022, boosted by recent spending increases across Europe, according to a new report from Janes, the trusted global agency for open-source defence intelligence. Spending growth of 1.6% this year is the fastest seen in three years.
Global defence spending rebounds from 2021’s contraction
“Aside from a swift rise in 2018 when Donald Trump gave the US budget a big one-off boost, the rise of global defence spending has been quite restrained in the late 2010s and early 2020s, and the Covid-19 pandemic pushed budgets downward in real terms” says Andrew MacDonald, who manages defence budget research at Janes.
“This year we’ve seen spending rebound to much higher growth rate; faster than any year since 2018, driven to a large degree by a resurgence in rates of funding expansion in Europe. We’re expecting this to mark the beginning of a period of global growth much closer to historic norms.”
Acceleration of European spending has been building for several years
In dollar terms Europe added the most funding to its armed forces’ budgets this year; USD30.7 billion, although 80% of this increase is accounted for by Germany’s dramatic rise.
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