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Global Campaign on Military Spending

Demilitarize! Invest in People's Needs

Welfare or warfare? Global military spending rises, according to SIPRI data

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Welfare or Warfare

Geneva, 5 April 2016

Today sees the start of the Global Days of Action on Military Spending (April 5 – 18), when the International Peace Bureau and its partners around the world focus on the excessive military spending of the world’s governments. This morning the latest global military spending statistics (for the year 2015) were released by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).

According to the figures, world military expenditure last year reached $1,676 billion (USD), an increase of 1 per cent in real terms from 2014. The increase reflects continuing growth in Asia and Oceania, Central and Eastern Europe, and some Middle Eastern states; and a decline in spending in Africa, and Latin America and the Caribbean.

The United States remained by far the world’s biggest spender in 2015, despite its expenditure falling by 2.4 per cent to $596 billion. Among the other top spenders, China’s expenditure rose by 7.4 per cent to $215 billion, Saudi Arabia’s grew by 5.7 per cent to $87.2 billion – making it the world’s third largest spender – and Russia’s increased by 7.5 per cent to $66.4 billion.

GLOBAL DAY OF ACTION ON MILITARY SPENDING, 2016 edition: April 5-18 – Important information

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18 January 2016: Times change, and with them, our reactions to events. Here is the latest news about the Global Campaign on Military Spending :

1. The dates: This year’s Global Day/GDAMS will not in fact be a day but a fortnight! For diverse reasons it will be held from April 5th- 18th. On the 5th, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) will publish the global military expenditure figures for 2015, together with its analysis of the trends. The 18th is Tax Day in the USA, a traditional moment in the calendar for civil society to challenge the uses put to public money. This new style ‘Global Day’ offers our participants more scope to choose a suitable moment to organise events that fit local or national contexts. As usual, IPB will publish all events that are notified to us as being within the GDAMS framework.

Iran will have to spend most of its post-sanctions windfall at home

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By    Lesley Wroughton and Sam Wilkin

WASHINGTON/DUBAI (Reuters) -Iranians will demand their government spend a windfall from the lifting of economic sanctions on improving the quality of life at home, limiting the degree to which a future nuclear deal could fund Tehran’s allies on Middle East battlefields. Continue reading–>

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