According to new figures released on Monday by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), global military spending climbed by 3.7% last year and hit a new record high of $2,240 billion, with the three top spenders being the United States, China, and Russia.
In its report, SIPRI announced that global military spending grew for the eighth consecutive year in 2022 to “an all-time high of $2,240 billion.” The report detailed that the sharpest rise of +13 percent was seen in Europe.
With $877 billion in military spending last year—39% of all military spending worldwide—the United States continued to lead the world in military spending.
According to the think-tank,
The 0.7 percent real-term increase in U.S. spending in 2022 would have been even greater had it not been for the highest levels of inflation since 1981.
China spent $292 billion, or 4.2% more than in 2021, making it the second-largest military spender in the world in 2022.
SIPRI detailed that “Russian military spending grew by an estimated 9.2 percent in 2022, to around $86.4 billion. This was equivalent to 4.1 percent of Russia’s gross domestic product (GDP) in 2022, up from 3.7 percent of GDP in 2021.”
By reaching $44.0 billion in 2022—a 640% rise—Ukraine’s military expenditures saw the greatest single-year increase of any nation ever noted in SIPRI statistics.
Additionally, US military aid to Ukraine reached $19.9 billion in 2022, adding that this was the “largest amount of military aid given by any country to a single beneficiary in any year since the cold war.”
Last year, Washington gave Kiev assistance equal to 2.3% of all US military expenditures.