New Delhi: India stands third in terms of military expenditure as the World Military Expenditure reached an all-time high of $2.1 trillion in 2021
According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), the top three largest spenders on the military are the United States, China and India.
“Total global military expenditure increased by 0.7% in real terms in 2021, to reach USD 2113 billion. The five largest spenders in 2021 were the United States, China, India, the United Kingdom and Russia, together accounting for 62 per cent of expenditure,” the Stockholm based said in a statement.
“Even amid the economic fallout of the Covid-19 pandemic, world military spending hit record levels,” said Dr Diego Lopes da Silva, Senior Researcher with SIPRI’s Military Expenditure and Arms Production Programme.
“There was a slowdown in the rate of real-terms growth due to inflation. In nominal terms, however, military spending grew by 6.1%.”
As a result of the economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, defence spending amounted to 2.2% of global GDP, while in 2020 this figure reached 2.3%.
US military spending reached $801 billion in 2021, a drop of 1.4% from 2020, the statement said. In the period from 2012 to 2021, the US increased funding for military research and development by 24% and reduced spending on arms purchases by 6.4%, according to the statement.
Second place went to China, which spent $293 billion on defence, an increase of 4.7% compared with 2020. India’s military spending ranked third with $76.6 billion last year, an increase of 0.9 per cent in comparison with 2020.
According to the Stockholm based institute, India’s military spending of $76.6 billion ranked third highest in the world. This was up by 0.9% from 2020 and by 33% from 2012. In a push to strengthen the indigenous arms industry, 64% of capital outlays in the military budget of 2021 were earmarked for acquisitions of domestically produced arms.
The UK spent $ 68.4 billion on defence last year, up by 3% from 2020, the statement read.
Meanwhile, Russia took the fifth highest position in defence spending.