Global defence spending
Global defence spending rose to USD2.72 trillion in 2024, reported the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). This meant that:
- spending has increased every year for a full decade, going up by 37 per cent between 2015 and 2024;
- the 9.4% increase in 2024 was the steepest year-on-year rise since at least 1988;
- the global military burden, the share of the world’s gross domestic product (GDP) devoted to military expenditure, increased to 2.5% in 2024.
For the second year in a row, military expenditure increased in all five of the world’s geographical regions, reflecting heightened geopolitical tensions across the globe. The decade-long growth in global spending is partly due to spending increases in Europe, driven by the ongoing Russia–Ukraine war, and in the Middle East, driven by the war in Gaza and wider regional conflicts.
Many countries have committed to raising military spending, which will lead to future global increases.
SIPRI’s figures differ from those of the other principal source of military statistics, the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS). This is due to methodological differences, for example, SIPRI uses a broader definition of military spend.
The IISS figures for 2024 were global spend of USD 2.46 trillion (up 7.4% on 2023), accounting for 1.94% of GDP.
Source:
SIPRI, Fact Sheet April 2025, Trends In World Military Expenditure, April 2024
IISS, The Military Balance 2025, February 2025
National shares of global expenditure
For the national shares of global military expenditure for 2024 at market exchange rates see Figure 11.1 (SIPRI estimates):
- global military expenditure in 2024 was estimated by SIPRI to be $2.72 trillion, an increase of $275 billion in nominal terms since 2023;
- the top five military spenders—the United States, China, Russia, Germany and India—accounted for 60 per cent of the global total, with combined spending of $1.64 trillion;
- spending by NATO members made up 55% of all global military expenditure, which is consistent with 2023.
Note that the SIPRI figures are at market exchange rates rather than Purchasing Power Parity (see section on economic context for the definition). PPP figures would provide a better comparison and would, for example, roughly double the relative spends for Russia and China.
Drilling into the 2024 figures, points to note include:
- USA accounted for $1.0 trillion, more than the rest of the top ten largest spenders combined and 37% of total global military expenditure.
- UK spent $81.8 billion, up by $2.0 billion from 2023, and was in sixth place overall, but dropped to third among NATO members, behind Germany but above France.
- Ukraine was fifth among the Non-NATO members and eighth overall, spending approximately $64.7 billion on defence in 2024.
- EU accounted for $368.5 billion or 14% of the total global spend.
Figure 11.1: Global military expenditure at market exchange rates, 2024
Sources:
Ministry of Defence, Finance and economics annual statistical bulletin: international defence 2025, December 2025
Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, SIPRI Military Expenditure Database 1949 to 2024
World Bank, Military expenditure
NATO and EU members
For the relationship between the 32 NATO members and the 27 EU member states see Figure 11.2.
- Four countries are in the EU, but not NATO: Austria, Cyprus, Ireland, and Malta.
- members of NATO’s Partnership for Peace (PfP) programme and participate in NATO meetings.
- Six countries are NATO members but not in the EU: Albania, Canada, Iceland, Norway, Turkey and the United States
- participate in all NATO-EU meetings.
- On a national basis, the UK has the second largest defence budget in NATO, after the US.
Figure 11.2: NATO and EU members
Defence spending of NATO members
At the 2025 NATO summit in the Hague, members of NATO agreed to increase the proportion of GDP spent on defence and national security to 5% of GDP by 2035. This target consists of two parts:
- allocate at least 3.5% of GDP to spending on core defence requirements;
- spend a further 1.5% of GDP on defence and security-related investments, including infrastructure and industrial capacity.
The previous NATO target, introduced in 2006, was for members was to commit a minimum of 2% of their GDP to defence spending. NATO members (excluding the US) expected to spend an average of 2.3% of GDP on defence in 2025.
As Figure 11.3 shows, all 32 Nato members expected to meet the 2% GDP target for 2025. This was up from just three members in 2014. Unsurprisingly, most of the big increases in defence spending since 2014 are in Poland, eastern Europe and the Nordic countries.
The UK remains has consistently met the 2% target each year. The latest NATO figures show that the UK expects to spend 2.4% of GDP on defence in 2025, ranking it 12th out of NATO members on this measure.
As a percentage of GDP, UK defence spending has fallen fairly steadily from around 7% in the 1950s to around 2% today (Figure 11.4). These figures represent spending by the Ministry of Defence, whereas the NATO target uses a broader measure.
In February 2025, the Prime Minister made a statement to the House of Commons in which he committed to spend 2.5% of GDP on defence by 2027, with an ambition to increase this to 3% in the next Parliament.
Figure 11.3: Defence expenditure of NATO members – 2014 vs 2025
Figure 11.4: UK defence spending 1955/56 to 2023/24
Sources:
House of Commons Library, Defence spending, October 2025
NATO, Relations with the European Union, June 2025
EU defence spending
In 2024, total defence expenditure by the EU member states reached €343 billion, a 19% increase over 2023, bringing its defence expenditure to 1.9% of GDP. The 2025 spend is expected to exceed the NATO 2% guideline (Figure 11.5).
After hitting a low point in 2014, the aggregate military expenditure of member states steadily increased before rising steeply after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
Figure 11.5: Total EU defence expenditure vs the previous NATO guideline of 2% of GDP
Looking at the trend against other countries since 2008 (Figure 11.6), Russia has markedly accelerated its defence spend since 2021, while the EU’s spend is starting to increase faster than other countries.
Figure 11.6: Change in total defence expenditure by year compared to 2008
Source:
European Defence Agency, Defence Data 2024-2025
Scale of armed forces
Statistics provide a rough indication of the scale of armed forces but not their competence or effectiveness.
Active military personnel
The countries with the larger military manpower tend to map to the countries with the larger populations. Notable exceptions are Ukraine and North Korea. Figure 11.7 shows the top ten for 2026.
The corresponding figures and world rankings for the UK and main players in the EU are:
- France – 264,000 (23rd)
- Poland – 250,000 (25th)
- Germany – 184,000 (33rd)
- UK – 141,000 (41st)
Figure 11.7: Active military manpower by country (2026)
Nuclear weapons
There are nine countries that have nuclear weapons: the United States, Russia, the United Kingdom, France, China, India, Pakistan, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea) and Israel.
In 2025, together they held about 12,241 nuclear weapons, of which about 80% are potentially operationally available (SIPRI – Figure 11.8). Just under one third of these warheads were deployed with operational forces, including about 2,100 in a state of high operational alert on ballistic missiles.
Europe (ex Russia) has the third largest arsenal of nuclear weapons, after the United States and Russia, and about the same as China (600 nuclear weapons). France (290) and UK (225) have their own and Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and non-EU Turkey host around 100 US nuclear weapons as part of NATO’s nuclear sharing policy.
Figure 11.8: Global nuclear weapon inventories, January 2025
Source:
SIPRI, Yearbook 2025, Chapter 6
Global Firepower,Active military manpower by country 2026