The rise in global military spending in 2023

Defence spending is rising worldwide at its fastest rate in a decade, according to a report by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). Global military expenditure grew by 6.8% over 2022 to reach $2.443 trillion in 2023. That was the steepest rise since 2009, and SIPRI’s experts recorded the trend in all five geographical regions, most sharply in Europe, Asia, Oceania and the Middle East.

NATO accounted for $1.341 trillion of military spending in 2023, or 55% of the world total. The US defence budget rose by 2.3% to $916 billion, which was 68% of all military spending by NATO members. In 2023 most European NATO members increased their military spending, and their combined contribution reached 28% of the alliance’s total military budget; Canada and Türkiye made up the remaining 4%. The United States and China together account for almost half of global defence spending, at 37% and 12% respectively. American military spending is currently three times China’s, but China raises its own every year. The United States has begun to concentrate on research, development, testing and evaluation, that is, on new weapons systems, spending 9.4% more on it than in 2022. Of all European countries, Poland increased its military spending the most between 2022 and 2023, by 75% to $31.6 billion. Poland’s defence budget ranks 14th in the world. Poland is preparing for war…

The rise in global military spending in 2023

At the same time, NATO’s target of spending 2% of GDP on defence has come to be seen as a baseline. Eleven of the alliance’s 31 members met or exceeded it. In addition, 28 members reached the goal of devoting at least 20% of military spending to the development and production of weapons and combat equipment. Jens Stoltenberg’s term as NATO Secretary-General expires on 1 October. He will be succeeded by the former Dutch prime minister Mark Rutte. According to Politico, from February 2025 Stoltenberg may become chairman of the Munich Security Conference. That post is currently held by the German Christoph Heusgen (Christoph Heusgen was a German diplomat, foreign-policy adviser to Chancellor Angela Merkel (2005–2017) and Germany’s permanent representative to the United Nations (2017–2020)). For a more detailed look at the brief history of NATO and its members’ military spending, see the NATO topic I covered on the channel on 2 September this year.

The rise in global military spending in 2023

China’s military spending grew by 6% to $296 billion in 2023, or 12% of the world total and half of all military spending in Asia and Oceania. Other countries in those regions are raising their own spending in response to China’s. Chinese military expenditure has grown for 29 years in a row. Japan, for example, increased its military spending by 11% over 2022, to $50.2 billion. Taiwan’s military spending also rose by 11%, to $16.6 billion.

The rise in global military spending in 2023

Countries in Asia and Oceania, too, are preparing for large-scale conflict in the near future. The island of Taiwan matters to China as fundamentally as the Crimean peninsula does to Russia. Holding Crimea allows Russia to control the Black Sea completely and from there to reach the Mediterranean by the shortest route, through the Bosporus and the Dardanelles. Access to the Mediterranean means access to Africa, the most promising continent of the future, with the world’s highest birth rate, a vast future market with enormous resources, including uranium, and large infrastructure projects, as well as access to the wider Middle East. It also means access to the fast-growing markets of India and South-East Asia through the Suez Canal, which is controlled by Egypt. All this is what control of Crimea delivers!!! Without it, Russia would be a regional power stripped of the very important geopolitical, geo-economic and geo-energy opportunities described above.

The rise in global military spending in 2023

Russia, of course, is also developing the North–South routes (jointly with Iran) and the Northern Sea Route, with access to the markets of South-East Asia, a billion-strong market of solvent consumers. Add the markets of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh and the figure approaches three billion. I will look at the new trade routes and the Northern Sea Route that Russia is promoting in later topics. For China, the incorporation of Taiwan is thus strategically and economically significant: it would open up very large opportunities in the Asia-Pacific and in time allow China to control the region’s most important maritime trade routes, including the route through the Strait of Malacca and the shipping lanes through the East China and South China Seas, and to secure its commercial and military interests. The Strait of Malacca, along with the Suez and Panama canals, is one of the world’s most important sea lanes. It is the main route linking the Indian and Pacific Oceans, carrying trade between the world’s most populous states: India, Indonesia and China. About 50,000 vessels pass through it each year, handling up to 34.5% of all maritime trade in the region, or between one-fifth and one-quarter of world trade. Taiwan in American hands is a very serious constraint on China! America’s global primacy will depend on the outcome of its contest with China for the markets of South-East Asia. The United States is running out of time….

The rise in global military spending in 2023

Russia’s military spending rose by 24% in 2023, to $109 billion, or 16% of budget expenditure and 5.9% of GDP. Ukraine’s defence spending rose sharply. By the end of 2023 Ukraine ranked eighth in the world for military spending, which grew by 51% to $64.8 billion, or 58% of government spending and 37% of GDP. Ukraine also received at least $35 billion in military aid from the West, including $25.4 billion from the United States. With that Western aid counted, Ukraine’s defence spending came to roughly 91% of Russia’s in 2023. Add NATO’s defence spending ($1.341 trillion) to Ukraine’s military spending ($99.8 billion including Western aid), and the combined total ($1.441 trillion) exceeded Russia’s by more than 13 times in 2023.

The rise in global military spending in 2023

According to SIPRI’s estimates, Middle Eastern countries also increased their military spending in 2023. Saudi Arabia ranks fifth in the world for military spending, after India, and first in the Middle East, having allocated $75.8 billion in 2023, or 7.1% of GDP. Among the world’s leading defence spenders, Israel ranks 15th, after Poland, and second in the Middle East. Israel’s defence budget rose by 24% to $27.5 billion, or 5.3% of GDP, driven in part by the large-scale war it has been waging in the Gaza Strip since October 2023. Iran, with military spending of $10.3 billion, ranks fourth in the region. This conflict, with Israel’s involvement, could grow into a large-scale war in the Middle East involving many countries, including Iran. At the very least, everything is being done to make that big war happen. The Middle East, with its vast resources and its geopolitical and logistical advantages, matters too much to the world’s centres of power.