Global military spending soars despite crisis: report

GREETINGS,  

  THIS REPORT COMES COURTESY OF SPACEWAR.COM:” Global military spending soars despite crisis: report”

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Stockholm (AFP) June 2, 2010
Global military expenditures soared to a record high last year, unscathed by the economic downturn, with the United States accounting for more than half of increase, a think tank said Wednesday.

In 2009, 1,531 billion dollars (1,244 billion euros) were spent worldwide in the military sector, a 5.9 percent rise from 2008 and a 49 percent jump from 2000, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) said in its report.

“Many countries were increasing public spending generally in 2009, as a way of boosting demand to combat the recession,” explained Sam Perlo-Freeman, the head of SIPRI’s military expenditure project.

“Although military spending wasn’t usually a major part of the economic stimulus packages, it wasn’t cut either,” he said in a statement.

The institute said 65 percent of countries for which data was available had hiked their military spending last year.

The United States remains by far the top military spender, dishing out 661 billion dollars to the industry in 2009, or a whopping 43 percent of the total global military expenditure.

Washington thus paid 47 billion dollars more than a year earlier and accounted for 54 percent of the global increase, SIPRI said.

China is believed to be the world’s second largest military spender, the institute said, adding that while it did not have access to the official figures from Beijing it estimated the country had spent around 100 billion dollars in the sector last year.

With its 63.9 billion dollars in military expenditures last year, France came in third place, SIPRI said.

“The figures also demonstrate that for major or intermediate powers such as the US, China, Russia, India and Brazil, military spending represents a long-term strategic choice which they are willing to make even in hard economic times,” Perlo-Freeman said.

A portion of the 2009 military spending hike can be attributed to a sharp increase in so-called peacekeeping operations, especially in Afghanistan, which also reached record levels last year.

In all, 54 peacekeeping missions took place around the globe in 2009, costing a record total of 9.1 billion dollars, SIPRI said.

In terms of deployed personnel, last year was also record-breaking, the institute said: 219,278 people, 89 percent of whom were military personnel, were deployed, up 16 percent from 2008…….HERE IS MORE

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