$1 Trillion Is Spent On Arms; Most Since Cold War
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
STOCKHOLM, Sweden – For the first time since the Cold War, global military spending exceeded $1 trillion in 2004, nearly half of it by America, a prominent European think tank said yesterday.
As military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan and the war on terrorism continue, the world spent $1.035 trillion on defense during the year, corresponding to 2.6% of global gross domestic product, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute said.
The figure “is only 6% lower in real terms than it was in [1987-88], which was the peak,” a Sipri researcher, Elisabeth Skons, who co-authored the organization’s annual report, said.
Worldwide military expenditure increased 6% in 2004, matching the average annual increase since 2002, the institute said. However, the figures may be on the low end, the institute said, as countries are increasingly outsourcing services related to armed conflict, such as military training and providing logistics in combat zones, without classifying them as military expenses.
Such outsourcing has more than doubled in the last 15 years and was estimated to have reached $100 million during 2004, another Sipri researcher, Caroline Holmqvist, said.
“This is a global phenomenon,” she said, adding that it’s hard to give exact figures. By 2010, she said, global spending on such services is estimated to be twice current levels.
America accounted for 47% of all military expenditures, while Britain and France each made up 5% of the total. In all, 15 countries accounted for 82% of the world’s total military spending.
Besides its regular defense budget, America has allocated $238 billion since 2003 to fight terrorism, according to the report. “These appropriations are now assuming extraordinary proportions,” Ms. Skons said.
The arms trade also grew sharply, with the top 100 makers of weapons increasing their combined sales by 25% between 2002 and 2003, the report said. Those companies sold weapons and arms worth $236 billion worldwide in 2003, compared with $188 billion a year earlier. America accounted for 63% of all arms sales in 2003, the report said.
