Global military spending soared nearly 3% in 2025, driven largely by rising defense spending in Europe and Asia, according to a report released Monday by a respected arms watchdog group.
According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) in its annual report “Trends in Global Military Expenditure,” European defense spending will increase by 14% from 2024 to $864 billion, while in Asia and Oceania it will increase by 8.1% to $681 billion.
Overall, nearly $2.9 trillion will be spent on military programs worldwide in 2025, an increase of 2.9% from the previous year. According to SIPRI, this figure is equivalent to 2.5% of global gross domestic product (GDP), the highest percentage since 2009.
The United States, China, Russia, Germany and India were the biggest spenders, together accounting for 58% of the global total.
The report notes that the year-over-year increase in total spending is down from the 9.7% increase recorded in 2024, but is largely due to the United States not approving new spending to support arms deliveries to Ukraine in 2025. SIPRI calculates foreign military aid based on donor country calculations.
Excluding the US from the statistics, global defense spending increased by 9.2% in 2025, the report said.
Still, the United States remains the world’s largest military spender, at $954 billion in 2025, followed by China with an estimated $336 billion and Russia with an estimated $190 billion.
But the spending increases were led by America’s allies around the world, revealing some of the generational shift.
“Military spending by European NATO members in 2025 increased faster than at any time since 1953, reflecting Europe’s continued pursuit of self-reliance along with increasing pressure from the United States to increase burden-sharing within the alliance,” Jade Guiberteau Ricard, a researcher in the SIPRI Military Expenditure and Weapons Production Program, said in a statement.
NATO countries with significant increases include Belgium (59%), Spain (50%), Norway (49%), Denmark (46%), Germany (24%), Poland (23%), and Canada (23%).
Germany’s total military spending is $114 billion, ranking it fourth in the world.
In Asia, Japan increased military spending by 9.7% to $62.2 billion, the report said. According to the report, Japan’s defense spending as a share of GDP was 1.4%, the highest since 1958.
“U.S. allies in Asia and Oceania, such as Australia, Japan and the Philippines, are increasing military spending not only due to long-term regional tensions but also due to heightened uncertainty over U.S. support,” said SIPRI Senior Research Fellow Diego López da Silva.
Meanwhile, Taiwan, a democratically autonomous island that the Chinese Communist Party claims as part of its territory despite never having ruled, increased military spending by 14.2% to $18.2 billion (2.1% of GDP), the largest increase since at least 1988, according to SIPRI.
Under the Taiwan Relations Act, the United States is legally obligated to provide Taiwan with the means to defend itself, and it supplies Taipei with defensive weapons.
China’s defense spending rose 7.4%, the largest year-on-year increase in a decade and the 31st consecutive year of increase, as the government works to meet its 2035 goal of modernizing its military, the report said.
As a percentage of GDP, Ukraine is the world’s largest military spender, estimated at 40%. Kiev is in its fourth year of fighting Russian aggression. Ukraine is ranked 7th in the world.
Russia allocates 7.5% of its GDP to the military, and spending has increased by 5.9% since 2024.
“Military spending as a share of government spending in 2025 reached record levels in both Russia and Ukraine,” said SIPRI researcher Lorenzo Scarrazzato. “If the war continues, their spending is likely to continue rising in 2026 due to rising revenues from Russian oil sales and the prospect of large European Union loans from Ukraine.”
Looking at other regions, Saudi Arabia became the Middle East’s largest military spender with $83.2 billion, an increase of 1.4% from the previous year.
Israel follows Saudi Arabia in the region, spending $48.3 billion. This was a 4.9% decrease from the same period last year, and according to SIPRI, the decline was due to a easing of hostilities in the Gaza Strip after Israel and Hamas agreed to a ceasefire in January 2025.
Iran’s spending fell by 5.6% in real terms, but high inflation of 42% and funding from off-balance-sheet oil sales mean Iran’s military spending is likely to increase, the report said.
“Official statistics almost certainly underestimate the true level of Iranian spending. Iran also uses off-budget oil revenues to finance its military, including the production of missiles and drones,” said SIPRI researcher Zubaydah Karim.
In South Asia, India’s military spending jumped 8.9% to $92.1 billion due to the conflict with neighboring Pakistan. New Delhi ranks fifth in the world, spending $80 billion more than Islamabad.
Overall military spending in Africa increased by 8.5% to $58.2 billion. If the entire continent were a single country, this number would rank it 11th, behind Japan and ahead of Israel. Algeria is the continent’s biggest spender, ranking second only to Ukraine in terms of GDP devoted to the military (25%).
According to SIPRI, an even larger increase in defense spending is expected this year.
“Given the scope of the current crisis and the long-term military spending goals of many states, this growth will likely continue through 2026 and beyond,” SIPRI researcher Xiao Liang said in the report.
The United States is expected to be a major driving force. Congress has already approved more than $1 trillion in defense spending in 2026, as the war with Iran is now in its third month and the US government is losing about $1 billion a day.
The Trump administration has proposed a $1.5 trillion defense budget for 2027.
