SIPRI YEARBOOK 1997

6. Military expenditure*
Paul George, Agnès Courades Allebeck and Evamaria Loose-Weintraub

NATO military spending continued to decline in 1996, led by a reduction of almost 5% in the USA over 1995. As NATO expenditure is the dominant component of overall world military expenditure, it is clear that the decline in aggregate global security expenditure noted in recent years was maintained in 1996.

The 3 dominant spenders in South-East Asia, Malaysia (an increase of more than 15%), Singapore (an increase of 7%) and Thailand (an increase of almost 23%) maintained the region's reputation as the fastest-growing defence spender in 1996. Despite the lack of comparable data for some important countries, there is no evidence that defence spending has declined in the Middle East since last year.

The levelling out of defence spending in South Asia appears to have continued in 1996. However, the lack of growth in official Indian defence spending in real terms distorts the overall picture. Military expenditure grew in real terms by some 2% in Pakistan and by a staggering 29% in Sri Lanka in the same period.

Appendices 6A and 6B contain tables of NATO and world military expenditure.
Appendix 6C explains the sources and methods for the data collection.