Global military spending increased by 9% in a year and reached a maximum of $2.2 trillion, according to a report by the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS). And NATO countriesʼ defense spending has increased to half of the worldʼs. Analysts claim that this happened because of Russiaʼs full-scale invasion of Ukraine and Israelʼs war with Hamas militants.
"Russiaʼs aggression pushed European countries to increase defense spending and strengthened NATO. The pace of munitions consumption in the war between Russia and Ukraine has also caused the West to believe that production capacity has decreased. So countries are scrambling to fix the shortfalls caused by years of underinvestment," the report says.
The collective defense budgets of China, Russia, India and NATO countries account for more than 70% of all global military spending.
The largest military budgets from NATO countries according to the results of 2023 were the USA (+8% from 2022, up to $905 billion), Great Britain (+3%, up to $74 billion), Germany (+21%, up to $64 billion), France ( +11%, up to $60 billion), Italy (+6%, up to $33 billion) and Canada (the budget remained at the level of 2022 — $24 billion).
Also, the priorities for the allocation of defense budgets have changed. While in 2014, NATO members spent an average of 15% of their defense budget on procurement and development, in 2023 they will allocate more than 30%.
The war in Ukraine will continue to be the main driver of defense budgets around the world. Another factor in the growth of NATO countriesʼ military budgets is the armed confrontation between Israel and Hamas, coups dʼétat in Niger and Gabon, explosions of the Russian “Nord Stream” and “Nord Stream 2” gas pipelines.
According to IISS estimates, Moscow can withstand about three more years of heavy technical losses and replenish them with weapons from warehouses. At the same time, the IISS reports, the American military is in a rethinking mode, because they are learning the lessons of Russiaʼs war against Ukraine.