New arms spending record

STOCKHOLM – WORLD military spending hit a new record in 2008, boosted by the Iraq war, the return of Russia as a global player and the emergence of China, a Swedish think tank said in its annual report on Monday.

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World arms expenditure totalled US$1.46 trillion (S$2.14 trillion) last year, a rise of 45 per cent from a decade ago and representing 2.4 per cent of global gross domestic product or US$217 for every person on the planet, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) said. Compared with 2007, the figure rose by 4.0 per cent in real terms.

‘The introduction of the idea of ‘the war on terrorism’ has encouraged several countries to see their problems from a very militarised perspective, and is used to justify high military spending,’ Sam Perlo-Freeman, the main author of SIPRI’s report on military expenditure, said in a statement.

‘At the same time, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have cost an extra 903 billion dollars in increased military spending for the United States alone,’ he said.

The United States is, as expected, by far the world’s biggest arms spender, according to the think tank. It represented almost 42 per cent of the 2008 total, more than the 14 other top countries combined in what SIPRI described as a legacy from former president George W. Bush.

Since 1999, US defense spending has soared by 67 per cent in real terms to US$607 billion last year.

China, which like Russia has almost tripled its military expenditure in the past 10 years, was for the first time the world’s second-biggest arms spender in 2008. SIPRI estimated its spending at US$84.9 billion, which accounted for six percent of the global total. That would put it ahead of France and Britain, which each accounted for 4.5 per cent.

‘China’s increase has roughly paralleled its economic growth and is also linked to its major power aspirations,’ SIPRI said.

Russia, like China, took advantage of the recent years’ economic boom prior to the global crisis to reassert its superpower ambitions, returning to fifth position on SIPRI’s list in 2008 after a decline in the post-Cold War period.

Meanwhile, military spending in South America soared by 50 per cent in 2008 over the previous decade, ‘led by Brazil’s long-term push for regional power status and Colombia’s escalating spending related to its internal conflict,’ the think tank wrote.

Among the top 15 biggest spenders, only Germany and Japan have decreased their arms spending since 1999, with drops of 11 per cent and 1.7 per cent respectively last year. — AFP

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