Who Really Spends the Most on Their Armed Forces?
Who Really Spends the Most on Their Armed Forces?
The Guardian has some revealing infographics:
Yep, the United States spent a staggering $607bn (£402 bn) on defence in 2008. Currently engaged in what will likely be the longest ground war in US history in Afghanistan. Harbourer of thousands of nuclear weapons. 1.5m soldiers. Fleets of aircrafts, bombs and seemingly endless amounts of military technology.
The defence budgets of the other top nine countries can be neatly accommodated inside the US budget.
So the US is an aggressive, war-mongeringing military machine, right? And the numbers prove it. But is that true? Is that the whole picture?
First of all, the enormity of the US military budget is not just down to a powerful military-industrial complex. America is a rich country. In fact, it’s vastly rich. So its budget is bound to dwarf the others.
It doesn’t seem fair to not factor in the wealth of a country when assessing its military budget. So, if you take military budgets as a proportion of each country’s GDP, a very different picture emerges.
The US is knocked down into 8th place by such nations as Jordan, Burundi and Georgia. The UK plunges to 29th. Why are these other nations spending so much on their military?
Read More in the Guardian
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