Military Spending

Military expenditures, broadly defined, are the aggregate funds spent by a national government for military-related purposes. According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute's annual SIPRI Yearbook 2007, the aggregate military expenditure by all national governments in 2006 was $1.024 billion in market exchange rate (MER) terms. Adjusted for inflation, this figure marked a 37% growth in military budgets since 1997. This level of increased military spending follows a long trend that dates to World War II and that greatly accelerated during the Cold War. The levels of military spending over the past 60 years have been—and continue to be—a dynamic force that has deeply altered the fabric of social, political, spatial, and economic relationships, from the scale of the local to that of the global. There are four fundamental aspects of military expenditures. First, high levels of military expenditure are a prerequisite for the geopolitical power of a nation-state, a point exemplified by a global U.S. hegemony, which is founded upon enormous levels of military spending. Second, preparation for war has increasingly integrated private firms, modern production practices, and technological innovation with government spending. This mixture has created a military-industrial complex dedicated to the production of arms. Third, military spending has spatially reorganized local, national, and global economies in a manner quite different from that of the civilian economy. Fourth, high levels of military spending accelerate the inter national proliferation of advanced weaponry. Finally, there are significant methodological problems inherent in all military expenditures data that must be addressed in geographical research, especially given the polemical debate that often infuses popular discourses on national spending.

Military Spending and the Production of Geopolitical Power

Ranking national military expenditures in MER terms, when combined with similar data from previous years, reveals the close link between military spending and the production of global geopolitical power. The major military spender in 2008 was the United States, with $6.071 billion. This accounts for 41% of world military spending in the same year. China, with $84.9 billion, came in second. France and the United Kingdom each spent roughly $65 billion, putting them in [Page 1899]third and fourth place, respectively. Russia ranked fifth, with $58.6 billion. Russia's status marks a stark contrast to the position of the former USSR, which typically vied with the United States for the title of the world's biggest military spender during the Cold War.

Table 1 National military spending

Although Tables 1 and 2 give estimates of military spending in constant U.S. dollars, estimates of relative expenditure levels can also be given in terms of purchasing parity power (PPP), which reflects national differences in the costs of weapons systems. Expressing military expenditures in PPP terms is necessary because there are vast differences among states in the quantities of capital and labor that a given amount of funds can purchase. For example, $100 billion spent in China will purchase significantly more armaments or military services than the equivalent amount spent in the United States. Equalizing national differences in costs tends to reduce the relative size of military expenditures in Western Europe and Japan and raise the rankings of poorer countries such as China, India, Russia, and Saudi Arabia. Notwithstanding this caveat, it should be immediately apparent that the current U.S. hegemony in world affairs is due, in large part, to its unparalleled dedication funding its military.

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