Nordic Monitor
Turkey spent $20.4 billion on its military in 2019, according to an annual report released by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) on Monday.
Turkey’s military spending in 2019 increased by 5.8 percent over the previous year, according to SIPRI. Turkey is 16th in the report’s 2019 military expenditure rankings.
“Turkish military expenditure increased by 86 per cent over the decade 2010–19 to reach $20.4 billion. There was a particularly steep increase in Turkish military spending between 2017 and 2018, of 27 per cent, while the increase between 2018 and 2019 was 5.8 per cent,” the report said.
The SIPRI report underlined that the world’s nations spent a combined $1.9 trillion on their militaries in 2019, the biggest uptick in a decade.
According to SIPRI, the total for 2019 represents an increase of 3.6 percent from 2018 and the largest annual growth in spending since 2010.
“Global military spending in 2019 represented 2.2 per cent of the global gross domestic product (GDP), which equates to approximately $249 per person.”
“Global military expenditure was 7.2 per cent higher in 2019 than it was in 2010, showing a trend that military spending growth has accelerated in recent years,” SIPRI researcher Nan Tian said. “This is the highest level of spending since the 2008 global financial crisis and probably represents a peak in expenditure.”
“The five largest spenders in 2019, which accounted for 62 per cent of expenditure, were the United States, China, India, Russia and Saudi Arabia. This is the first time that two Asian states have featured among the top three military spenders,” SIPRI stated.
Driving the increase were the world’s largest spenders, led by the United States, which spent $732 billion in 2019, a 5.3 percent increase, accounting for 38 percent of global military expenditures.
The SIPRI report revealed that for the first time two Asian countries were among the top three, with China and India spending an estimated $261 billion (5.1 percent increase) and $71.1 billion (6.8 percent increase), respectively.
