Defense budgets have been plundered worldwide as military spending rocketed to nearly $2trillion last year, with China, India, and Saudi Arabia among the top five spenders.
The US was the most extravagant, lavishing a total of $732 billion in 2019 and accounting for 38 percent of global military spending, a new study shows.
Global military expenditure has seen its largest annual increase in a decade, reaching $1,917 billion in 2019, said the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).
However, the economic crisis resulting from the coronavirus pandemic will probably disrupt future military spending, according to its researchers, who monitor defence spending across the world.
The five largest spenders in 2019, which accounted for 62 percent 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.
In 2019, Russia was the fourth-largest spender in the world and increased its military expenditure by 4.5 percent to $65.1 billion.
At 3.9 percent of its GDP, Russia’s military spending burden was among the highest in Europe last year.
"The recent growth in US military spending is largely based on a perceived return to competition between the great powers," said Pieter Wezeman, a senior researcher at SIPRI.
The monitoring group's findings come as Donald Trump tweeted last week that he's ordered the US Navy to “shoot down and destroy any and all Iranian gunboats if they harass our ships at sea.”
Trump issued the warning last week after Iranian naval boats were filmed “harassing” and “taunting” American warships in the Persian Gulf.
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