Global military spending rose by 2.9% despite US cuts due to frozen aid to Ukraine
Kyiv • UNN
World military spending in 2025 increased by 2.9% to $2,887 billion. In the US, funding fell by 7.5% amid the lack of aid to Ukraine.
Global military spending rose by 2.9% in 2025, despite a 7.5% spending cut in the United States, as President Donald Trump suspended new financial military aid to Ukraine, according to a report by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), UNN reports.
World military spending reached $2,887 billion in 2025, up 2.9 percent from 2024. Military spending in the United States decreased, but rose by 14 percent in Europe and by 8.1 percent in Asia and Oceania,
The three countries with the largest military expenditures—the US, China, and Russia—spent a total of $1,480 billion, or 51 percent of the global total, according to new SIPRI data.
Spending grew for the 11th consecutive year, bringing spending as a share of global gross domestic product (GDP) to 2.5%—the highest level since 2009, according to SIPRI data.
The annual spending growth of 2.9 percent was significantly lower than the 9.7 percent growth recorded in 2024. However, this slowdown is largely attributed to the drop in US military spending. Outside the US, total spending rose by 9.2 percent in 2025.
"Given the scale of ongoing crises, as well as the long-term military spending targets of many states, this growth is likely to continue into 2026 and beyond," said Xiao Liang, a researcher with SIPRI's Military Expenditure and Arms Production Programme.
United States military spending in 2025, at $954 billion, was 7.5 percent lower than in 2024. The drop was mainly due to the fact that no new financial military aid to Ukraine was approved during the year. This stood in sharp contrast to the previous three years, when a total of $127 billion was approved,
"The reduction in US military spending in 2025 is likely to be short-lived," said Nan Tian, Program Director of SIPRI's Military Expenditure and Arms Production Programme.
A major factor in the global increase in military spending in 2025 was a 14 percent increase in Europe to $864 billion.
"Spending by Russia and Ukraine continued to rise in the fourth year of the war in Ukraine, while ongoing rearmament efforts by European NATO members led to the sharpest annual increase in spending in Central and Western Europe since the end of the Cold War," the report says.
Russia's military spending rose by 5.9 percent in 2025 to $190 billion, creating a military burden of 7.5 percent of GDP. Ukraine, the seventh-largest government spender in 2025, increased its spending by 20 percent to $84.1 billion, or 40 percent of GDP.
"In 2025, military spending as a share of government spending reached its highest level on record in both Russia and Ukraine," said Lorenzo Scarazzato, a researcher with SIPRI's Military Expenditure and Arms Production Programme.
"Their spending is likely to continue to grow in 2026 if the war continues, given Russia's rising oil revenues and Ukraine's expectation of receiving a significant European Union loan," the researcher noted.
The 29 European NATO members spent a total of $559 billion in 2025, and 22 of them had military spending of at least 2.0% of GDP, according to SIPRI methodology. Germany was the largest military spender in the group, with its spending rising 24% year-on-year to $114 billion. Germany's military burden exceeded the 2.0% threshold for the first time since 1990, reaching 2.3% of GDP in 2025. Spain's military spending rose 50% to $40.2 billion, which also brought its military burden to over 2.0% of GDP for the first time since 1994.
"In 2025, military spending by European NATO members grew faster than at any time since 1953, reflecting Europe's ongoing drive for self-reliance as well as growing pressure from the United States to increase burden-sharing within the alliance," said Jade Guiberto Ricard, a researcher with SIPRI's Military Expenditure and Arms Production Programme. "As states strive to meet new NATO spending targets agreed in 2025, there is a risk that the lines between military and other 'defense and security-related' spending will blur, reducing transparency and further complicating the assessment of military capabilities."
Israel's spending fell by 4.9% to $48.3 billion as the war in Gaza concluded in 2025, while spending in Iran contracted for the second consecutive year, falling by 5.6% to $7.4 billion.