List Of Top 10 Countries Which Spend Highest On Military Expenditure, Guess Where India Stands

Here's the list of top 10 countries which spend highest on military expenditure and this is where India stands on the ranking list...

New Delhi: The world’s military expenditure reached an all-time high of $2.1 trillion in 2021, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). The ranking released by the research institute showed US occupies the top spot when to comes to list of countries which spends military expenditure in the world. China is at the second spot in the list of top 10 countries which spend highest on military expenditure while India is at the third spot.

“Total global military expenditure increased by 0.7 per cent 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.

India’s military spending

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 per cent from 2020 and by 33 per cent from 2012. In a push to strengthen the indigenous arms industry, 64 per cent of capital outlays in the military budget of 2021 were earmarked for acquisitions of domestically produced arms.

Top 10 countries which spend highest on military expenditure

US military spending reached $801 billion in 2021, a drop of 1.4 per cent from 2020, the statement said. In the period from 2012 to 2021, the US increased funding for military research and development by 24 per cent and reduced spending on arms purchases by 6.4 per cent, according to the statement. Second place went to China, which spent USD 293 billion on defence, an increase of 4.7 per cent compared with 2020 while third place went to India. The UK spent $68.4 billion on defence last year, up by three per cent from 2020, the statement read. Meanwhile, Russia took the fifth slot with the highest defence spending.

1. US
2. China
3. India
4. UK
5. Russia
6. France and Germany
7. Saudi Arabia and Japan
8. South Korea
9. Italy and Australia
10. Iran and Israel

World military spending hit record levels

As a result of the economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, defence spending amounted to 2.2 per cent of global GDP, while in 2020 this figure reached 2.3 per cent. “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 per cent.”