World News | Watchdog: World military spending hits record high

STOCKHOLM, April 24 (AP) – Global military spending will rise for the eighth year in a row in 2022 to a record $2.24 trillion, led by a sharp increase in European military spending, largely due to Russia, a Swedish think tank said Monday. and Ukrainian military spending.

The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) said in a report that global spending rose 3.7% in real terms, but military spending in Europe rose 13%, the largest year-on-year increase in at least 30 years. Military aid to Ukraine and concerns over heightened Russian threats “strongly influenced spending decisions in many other countries”.

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Sweden’s independent watchdog said last year the three largest arms spenders were the United States, China and Russia, which together accounted for 56 percent of global military spending.

The rise “shows that we are living in an increasingly insecure world,” said Tian Nan, a researcher at SIPRI’s military spending and weapons production program.

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Some countries have dramatically increased military spending following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, while others have announced plans to boost military spending levels for as long as a decade. Some countries near Russia saw the biggest increases: Finland (36%), Lithuania (27%), Sweden (12%) and Poland (11%).

Sweden and Finland jointly applied to join NATO in May 2022, abandoning a decades-long nonalignment policy following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. While Finland has been granted access, Sweden’s application to join NATO is stalled by opposition from Turkey and Hungary.

“While a full-blown invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 will certainly influence military spending decisions in 2022, concerns about Russian aggression have persisted for longer,” said Lorenzo Scarazzato, a researcher at SIPRI’s Military Spending and Arms Production Program.

“Military spending in many former Eastern Bloc countries has more than doubled since 2014, the year Russia annexed Crimea.”

Russia has also increased its military spending. That figure is estimated to grow by 9.2 percent to about $86.4 billion by 2022, SIPRI said. That would be equivalent to 4.1% of Russia’s gross domestic product in 2022, up from 3.7% the year before.

Founded in 1966, SIPRI is an international institution dedicated to the study of conflict, armaments, arms control and disarmament. (Associated Press)

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