5. Military expenditure

Estimated global military expenditure rose for the 11th consecutive year in 2025, to reach US$2.9 trillion—or 2.5 per cent of the world’s gross domestic product (GDP)—pushing world spending to the highest level recorded by SIPRI. The slower pace of increase in 2025 (+2.9 per cent in real terms, compared with +9.7 per cent in 2024) largely resulted from a policy shift by the United States to scale back its spending on military aid. Most of the rest of the world kept on increasing military expenditure at a fast pace.

In 2025 total regional military expenditure rose in Africa (+8.5 per cent to $58.2 billion), Asia and Oceania (+8.1 per cent to $681 billion) and Europe (+14 per cent to $864 billion), but fell in the Americas (–6.6 per cent to $1065 billion) and was largely unchanged in the Middle East ($218 billion). Spending increased in all regions over the decade 2016–25. The average military burden in Europe continued to rise, from 2.8 per cent in 2024 to 3.2 per cent in 2025, more than double the level in 2016.

The USA remained by far the largest military spender in the world; its expenditure of $954 billion in 2025 (7.5 per cent lower than in 2024) accounted for 33 per cent of total global spending. China, the second largest military spender ($336 billion), accounted for 12 per cent of the world total, while Russia, the third largest spender ($190 billion), accounted for 6.6 per cent.

Taken together, the 15 largest military spenders accounted for 80 per cent of the world’s military expenditure in 2025 ($2304 billion). Many of the 15 largest military spenders were involved—either directly or indirectly—in the wars in Gaza and Ukraine in 2025, including Israel, Russia and Ukraine as well as the USA and several other members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). With military spending equivalent to 40 per cent of its GDP, Ukraine remained the country with the largest military burden in the world in 2025. Russia’s military burden was 7.5 per cent in 2025.

In June 2025 the NATO members agreed to a new military spending target of 5.0 per cent of GDP to be reached by 2035, significantly elevating the previous benchmark of 2.0 per cent agreed in 2014. In September 2025 the UN secretary-general, António Guterres, released The Security We Need, a landmark report calling for a rebalancing of military spending in the interest of sustain-able development.