WORLD SPENT EUR 886 BILLION ON MILITARY EQUIPMENT LAST YEAR
by Patrick Lannin in Stockholm

The Irish Times
June 13, 2006 Tuesday

Sweden: US spending in Iraq and Afghanistan is expected to help push
global military expenditure further up in 2006 after hitting EUR
886 billion last year, the Stockholm International Peace Research
Institute said in its latest yearbook yesterday.

This figure amounts to more than five times Ireland’s gross domestic
product in 2005. The institute reports that the US was responsible
for 48 per cent of total world arms spending in 2005 and had accounted
for most of the year’s 3.5 per cent overall increase.

Several states, including Saudi Arabia and Russia, have used a sharp
rise in oil prices to boost military spending. The biggest increase
worldwide was in the ex-Soviet state of Georgia, which surged by more
than 140 per cent to EUR 115 million.

The US, France and the UK were all involved in overseas operations
while China was carrying out a modernisation of its People’s Liberation
Army. "In these circumstances, there is a strong likelihood that the
current upward trend in world military spending will be sustained in
2006," the institute added. Britain, France, Japan and China accounted
for 4 to 5 per cent each of world arms spending, which overall equalled
2.5 per cent of world gross domestic product, or EUR 137 per capita. A
process of concentration of spending continued in 2005, it added,
as 15 countries with the highest spending accounted for 84 per cent
of the world total.

Oil-rich Saudi Arabia boosted its military spending by EUR 3.6 billion
in 2005 to EUR 20 billion. This increase meant that the Middle East
as a whole showed a rise in defence outlays, which would otherwise
have fallen, the institute said.

Arms spending in Iran also rose in 2005 by around 3.9 per cent to
EUR 5.5 billion.

The institute noted massive arms spending rises in the Caucasus,
with Georgia leading the region with 143 per cent. Azerbaijan came
next with 51 per cent and Armenia with almost 23 per cent.

Sipri said that the official explanation for Georgia’s large rise in
spending was a wish to join Nato, while others argued that Tbilisi
wanted to regain control over the renegade regions of Abkhazia and
South Ossetia.