Current global defense spending trends

Abstract

In recent years, the security and defense situation in the world has been constantly changing, and defense spending has an annual tendency to grow for many countries, which is due to the Russian armed aggression against Ukraine and other military conflicts in the world, which are constantly increasing. The article identifies the cause-and-effect nature of such a situation and the resulting accelerated functioning of the defense sectors of the countries of the world, which accordingly led to their diversification and development of the economic component of their defense strategy (search for sources of military spending, etc.). The author analyzed modern global trends in defense spending, which allowed us to characterize their dynamics over the past five years, determine the evolution of the volume of such spending in the leading countries of the world, and also establish possible sources of financing for the defense sector of the state. Thus, using the example of the European Union's "re-armament" program, the latter include: loans to EU member states for defense investments in order to reduce fragmentation and increase the compatibility of elements of defense sectors; participation in cohesion policy programmes to increase defenсe spending; mobilisation of private capital by accelerating the creation of the Savings and Investment Union, and also through the European Investment Bank. For the second year in a row, military spending increased in all five geographical regions of the world, reflecting the aggravation of geopolitical tensions worldwide. The article argues that the country with the largest military spending in the world still remains the USA, with China also in second place in this sector. It is established that in the last two years, the defenсe budgets of countries such as Germany, India, the UK, Saudi Arabia, Ukraine, France, Japan, South Korea, Israel, Poland, Italy have significantly increased.