Publication

This fact sheet provides information on military spending around the world in 2014. Some of the key trends identified by the authors include that 1) the general pattern of previous years – whereby military expenditure fell in the US and Western Europe but increased elsewhere - continued, although spending in Latin America remained essentially unchanged; 2) global spending fell in 2014, in comparison to 2013, by 0.4 percent; 3) spending in Asia, Oceania, the Middle East, Eastern Europe and Africa rose; 4) the five biggest spenders were the US, China, Russia, Saudi Arabia and France; 5) US spending fell by 6.5 percent as part of ongoing cuts; and 6) China, Russia and Saudi Arabia continued to make substantial increases in expenditure.