Global military expenditure has grown for tenth consecutive year

Global military expenditure has grown for the tenth consecutive year, a UN report claims. Europe and the Middle East have seen the sharpest rises.

And the study shows a stark contrast between military investment and global development expenditure. The full report and a shorter overview are available online.

UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres warned:

At this critical moment, the international community must confront the stark reality that rising military expenditures are not yielding greater peace but are instead undermining our shared vision for a sustainable future.

Disparity between development and war

The report highlights a massive disparity between “the twin trajectories of rising military budgets and lagging development”.

The authors claim:

In 2024, military budgets surged to $2.7 trillion, the tenth consecutive annual increase. Over the same period, progress on the Sustainable Development Goals faltered.

Only about one in five measurable targets is on track; the annual financing gap is around $4 trillion. Projections indicate that the gap could widen to $6.4 trillion by 2030 if current trends persist.

Global military expenditure up

All reporting regions saw growth military spending, but it was particularly in Europe and the Middle East that expenditure grew:

Globally, military expenditure grew from 2.2 to 2.5 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP) between 2022 and 2024. Europe and the Middle East recorded the sharpest rises.

In Europe, the share of budgetary expenditure on defence increased from 5.9 to 7.3 per cent. The Middle East saw military expenditure move up from 3.6 to 4.0 per cent of GDP.

But the UN said figures for Africa highlight major “asymmetries in both power and exposure to the impacts of militarization”:

African countries collectively account for just 1.9 per cent of total world military expenditure, despite representing about a quarter of United Nations Member States and nearly 20 per cent of the world’s population.

Drivers in global military expenditure

The UN report paints a bleak picture of global politics, in which a mix of conventional and civil wars and inter-state conflicts “have spurred higher outlays on militaries”:

Other drivers are intensifying great power competition and the persistence of organized crime and terrorism, which have heightened both actual and perceived threats.

The explosive nature of current world politics mean that governments are “increasingly defaulting to military responses, with the military-industrial complex benefiting from expanded demand”.

This is made worse because “arms control architecture has weakened”.

The march to war?

For the UN, the fundamental lesson is that the spike in military budgets isn’t solving global insecurity:

Global security continues to deteriorate, calling into question the effectiveness of ever greater military budgets as a path to lasting peace.

The report drew on figures from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).

In 2025, UK PM Sir Keir Starmer committed to a strategy of so-called ‘military Keynesianism’ – using military spending to drive the UK economy – in a speech at a Scottish shipyard.

Commenting in July, NGO Action on Armed Violence (AOAV) called the plans “a troubling embrace of militarism as both industrial policy and social glue”.

Featured image via the Canary