Friday 16 December 2016

The cost of carrying a big stick

Just read a revealing, if not that surprising, analysis of defence spend by country. The land of the free spends 3 times more than the next highest spending country (China) and more than the total spend of the next 10 countries in the list. We are always hearing about the parlous state of our nation's defences, but our spend comes in 3rd. Despite all Russia's sabre wielding (well, they've done a bit more than rattle sabres recently, haven't they?) the Russian defence spend was cut in 2016 after nearly 2 decades of annual increases. The cuts mainly fell on the navy which, looking at the state of the ships that sailed through the channel to the Med recently, isn't a great surprise. The only really big surprise to me in the list was that our defence spend is more than Russia's, though I expect the cash goes a lot further in terms of paying an army of Russians.

The security climate has led to most countries increasing spend lately, with Italy being a notable exception. Lots of countries spend around £10bn a year - a quarter of our spend - as do Israel, though in their case that's over 5% of gdp. Which is tiny compared with Saudi Arabia's remarkable 14%. Of course, it's expensive maintaining order in an autocratic country and playing both sides by helping anti-insurgency efforts in some countries while waging proxy puppeteering wars in others, as noted by Boris Johnson.

Here's the top 20 for you to browse for yourself:


Rank
Country
Spend  (£bn)
Notes
1
USA
489.2
>3% of gdp
2
China
150.8
+43% in 5yrs, £196bn by 2020
3
UK
42.3
2% of gdp
4
India
39.8
Into the top 5 for the first time
5
Saudi Arabia
38.2
13.9% of gdp
6
Russia
38
Cut 5% in last year after increases every year since 1998
7
France
34.8
Increasing in 2017
8
Japan
32.7
Increased in 2016
9
Germany
28
Planning first army expansion since cold war
10
South Korea
26.3
Further increases planned to 2020
11
Australia
21
1.9% of gdp
12
Italy
18.1
1.3% of gdp. Cut recently
13
Brazil
18
1.5% gdp. Much on border drug control
14
UAE
14.9
Contributing to anti-Islamist operations
15
Canada
11
<1% of gdp
16
Israel
10.9
5.4% of gdp (peaked at  24% in 1980s)
17
Taiwan
10.8
Pressure from USA to spend more
18
Turkey
10
Recently increased spend by 20%
19
Spain
9.3
Increased in 2015 after 6 years of cuts
20
Algeria
8.3
Defence spend doubled 2004-2014 following civil war


I saw the analysis on MSN's newsfeed but of course it comes from the well known publication Jane's. The spoon fed version is at
Jane's say that spending on weapons and equipment rose in 2016 to a global total of $1.57 trillion (i.e. million million, equal to £1.24 trillion). To put that in context, it's a lot more than twice the size of the global market for all beers, which is expected to reach $689 bn by 2020. No wonder countries like selling arms and arms sellers like Saudi Arabia.

2 comments:

  1. Trouble is we waste Billions on Trident while we can't afford to look after our elderly or run the NHS half decently. Bloody odd priorities to me Phil.

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  2. Well, DM, a degree of agreement! We certainly waste billions and we don't run the NHS half decently (which is part of the millions wasted). We might well have a long debate on what was and was not waste... but 2% of gdp on defence (whether or not on Trident) strikes me as not unreasonable so that wouldn't free up anything for the worthy needs you identify. I suspect your Trident is my international aid, which I wouldn't cut to zero but there seem to be many ridiculous examples of what it's spent on. I'd be inclined to budget for zero spend but hold a significant contingency for spend as and when needed on obviously acute humanitarian disasters wherever they occur rather than funding "projects" that pass some tests which often seem to be dodgy in hindsight. But that's a whole different debate...

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