Countries feeling an historical threat from Russia have in the past decade upped their expenditure on defense. Some of the biggest spending increases could be seen in Lithuania, Latvia and Ukraine, while Moldova (+44 percent) and Estonia (+37 percent) have also spent more. This is according to data by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.
Despite the steep increases, the share of GDP spent on defense was in line with the NATO goal of 2 percent in the Baltics, which are NATO members. Georgia spent about as much, while Moldovan defense expenditure remained low in relative terms at just 0.4 percent of GDP.
Ukraine is an outlier in the sense that it spends more than 4 percent of GDP on defense – about as much as Russia. While Russian expenditure fluctuated between 3 and 5 percent of GDP in the past decade, that of Ukraine had to increase majorly to reach the 4-percent mark – from just 1.5 percent in 2011.
Some Asian countries like India and China, but also Pakistan and Indonesia, have grown their defense expenditure significantly over the past ten years. Comparing to the GDPs of the respective countries, however, expenditure has grown in line with GDP since 2011 and stood at around or under 2 percent in India and China, at just 0.9 percent in Indonesia and at 4 percent in Pakistan. In the case of Turkey, the country has in fact spent more in relative terms. Defense expenditure increased from 2 percent of GDP in 2011 to almost 3 percent in 2020.
The NATO goal of 2 percent has been a contested issue in Europe as many major economies on the continent have spent much less in the past. Germany has been working on upping its spending and reached 1.4 percent in 2020. Only nine out of the 28 European NATO members reached the 2-percent goal that year. In addition to the Baltic countries, these were Romania, the UK, Poland, Portugal, France and Montenegro. Those earmarking less on defense over the past decade were typically heavy spenders – like the U.S. and Saudi Arabia – where defense spending remained high as a share of GDP regardless.
This chart shows the change in military expenditure between 2011-15 and 2016-2020, by country.
