News

Global Military Spending 'Recession-Proof'

By: Jason Ditz

Fri, 05 Feb 2010 1:27:58 CST

According to a report by the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies, one group has been completely unaffected by the global economic meltdown, the military.

“The economic crisis hasn’t had a dramatic impact on defense spending in the past 18 months,” one of the IISS economists, Mark Stoker, noted. In fact worldwide the report showed that military spending actually grew markedly over the past few years, from $1.3 trillion worldwide in 2006, to $1.55 trillion in 2008.

The trend shows no sign of reversing, with the United States, responsible for nearly half of that spending by itself, looking at record war budgets moving forward according to the Obama Administration. The IISS report said only Russia was anticipating a reduction in spending among major nations.

The economic downturn has left governments across the world looking at ways to curb spending, but so far few nations are looking at the military as a place to make cuts. As political unrest grows and more nations bring out austerity programs, it seems likely that military spending will come under renewed scrutiny.