World defence spending increasing

Foreign Policy, Defence and security; Photo: PixabayForeign Policy, Defence and security; Photo: Pixabay

Global defence spending increased by 0.4 percent in 2016 even so several NATO countries are behind the Alliance‘s goals.

The United States, China and Russia superpowers all increased their defence spending during the year, according to a new report from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).

Russia increased its defence spending by 5.9 per cent, to about NOK 600 billion, while China had an increase of 5.4 percent and spent throughout the year NOK 1,864 billion on their defence. The United States is still the country that uses the most and had expenses of around NOK 5,300 billion in 2016, an increase of 1.7 per cent from the year before.

The global increase in defence budgets comes despite the fact that the number of ongoing armed conflicts is fewer in all parts of the world, except for in North Africa.

According to SIPRI, the major countries account for the bulk of the world’s defence spending, this in turn can lead to diplomatic trouble.

NATO Alliance

For a long time NATO has demanded that the 27 member states must fulfil their obligation to spend 2 percent of the gross domestic product on the defence, but only the United States, Estonia, France and Greece are meeting this goal at present.

 

Source: NTB scanpix / Norway Today