US remains top military spender, institute says

Jun 7, 2011, 9:50 GMT

Stockholm - The United States remained the world's top military spender in 2010, laying out six times more money than second-placed China, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) reported Tuesday.

Last year, global military expenditures totalled 1.6 trillion dollars, a 1.3-per-cent increase from 2009 SIPRI said.

SIPRI estimated that the US in 2010 had a 43-per-cent share of world military spending, or 698 billion dollars.

China was estimated to account for about 7 per cent of global spending or some 119 billion dollars while France, Britain, and Russia each accounted for roughly 4 per cent, the SIPRI Yearbook said.

Japan, Germany, Saudi Arabia, India and Italy were also among the world's top-10 spenders.

The institute has earlier reported that the US and Russia made up about half of the world's arms sales between 2006 and 2010.

The US accounted for 30 per cent of global arms exports in the period, selling arms to some 75 countries. South Korea, Australia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) were the top-three importers of US arms, according to the SIPRI Arms Transfer Database.

Russia's portion of global arms sales was on 23 per cent and it was the main supplier to India and China, the world's two largest arms importers in 2006-2010. The Russian exports to the Asian heavy- weights included transport and combat aircraft.

Combined arms sales from the world's top 100 companies was estimated at 400 billion dollars in 2009, the latest year covered by SIPRI.

US-based Lockheed Martin was the world's largest arms group, shadowed by British-based BAE Systems. Of the 100 largest companies, 45 were US-based, 33 were based in western Europe. Companies in Russia, Japan, Israel, India and South Korea had most of the remainder. China was not included in the estimate.

In its annual outlook, the institute said there were 15 major armed conflicts in 2010, two less than in 2009.

In 2010, SIPRI registered 52 peacekeeping operations worldwide, the lowest number since 2002. Almost nine in 10 of the roughly 260,000 staff deployed in peacekeeping were military personnel.

The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan was the largest single multilateral operation with over 131,000 troops - a 57-per-cent increase on 2009, SIPRI said.

The ISAF deployment was larger than all other peacekeeping operations combined but 'ISAF troops are mostly engaged in counter-insurgency rather than mainstream peacekeeping,' SIPRI researcher Sharon Wiharta said.

According to the yearbook, eight states had almost 5,000 operational nuclear weapons in early 2011 of which some 2,000 were kept at a high level of readiness.

While the US and Russia in 2010 agreed on cuts in their strategic nuclear forces, both main nuclear powers continued to modernize their nuclear weapon systems, suggesting nuclear arsenals were to remain for 'the forseeable future,' SIPRI said. India and Pakistan also continued to develop new ballistic and cruise missiles.

During the year there was little progress in resolving the dispute over nuclear research programmes in North Korea and Iran.

The Swedish parliament created SIPRI as an independent foundation in 1966.