Virendra Pandit
New Delhi: After the United States and China, India has emerged as the planet’s third-largest military spender at USD 76.6 billion this year, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) said in a global report on Monday.
India (11 percent), Saudi Arabia (9.6 percent), and Qatar (6.4 percent) are the world’s largest three arms importers.
“India’s military spending of USD 76.6 billion ranked third highest globally. This was up by 0.9 percent from 2020 and by 33 percent from 2012,” it said.
The SIPRI’s fresh data on global military spending acknowledges New Delhi’s increasing push to strengthen the indigenous arms industry. It said that 64 percent of capital outlays in the military budget of 2020-2021 were earmarked for acquisitions of domestically produced arms.
“Amid ongoing tensions and border disputes with China and Pakistan that occasionally spill over into armed clashes, India has prioritized the modernization of its armed forces and self-reliance in arms production,” the report said.
Overall, the total global military expenditure increased by 0.7 percent in real terms in 2021, to reach USD 2113 billion, the SIPRI report revealed.
The five largest spenders in 2021 –the United States, China, India, the United Kingdom, and Russia–together account for 62 percent of the expenditure. The US and China alone spent 52 percent, the report disclosed.
Globally, defense spending in 2021 was 0.7 percent higher than in 2020 and 12 percent more than in 2012. The economic effect of the Covid-19 pandemic has not stopped the continuous upward trend in world military expenditure witnessed since 2015.
“As a result of the strong economic recovery across the globe in 2021, world military spending as a share of world gross domestic product—the global military burden—reached 2.2 percent, down from 2.3 percent in 2020,” the SIPRI report highlighted. Average military spending as a share of government expenditure in 2021 remained the same as in 2020, at 5.9 percent.
The SIPRI data showed that military expenditure grew in three of the world’s five regions in 2021. Spending increased in Asia and Oceania (3.5 percent), Europe (3.0 percent), and Africa (1.2 percent) but it decreased in the Middle East (–3.3 percent) and the Americas (–1.2 percent).
The US military spending of USD 801 billion in 2021 was actually a drop of 1.4 percent from 2020. The US funding for military research and development (R&D) rose by 24 percent between 2012 and 2021, while arms procurement funding fell by 6.4 percent over the same period.
“The increase in R&D spending over the decade 2012–21 suggests that the United States is focusing more on next-generation technologies,” said Alexandra Marksteiner, Researcher with SIPRI’s Military Expenditure and Arms Production Programme.
China allocated an estimated USD 293 billion for its defense budget in 2021, an increase of 4.7 percent compared with 2020. The 2021 Chinese budget was the first under the 14th Five-Year Plan until 2025.