Around the world last year, military budgets increased by 2.6% from 2017, totaling over $1.8 trillion according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), a leading think tank, ONA reported citing Sputnik.
Some of the biggest drivers of this increase were the US, China, and India while Russian defense spending declined.
"The increase in US spending was driven by the implementation from 2017 of new arms procurement programs under the Trump administration," Aude Fleurant, director of SIPRI's Arms and Military Expenditure (AMEX) program, said in a Monday statement. US defense spending increased by 4.6% in 2018 compared to the year prior.
The think tank noted that while reliable global figures on defense spending have really only been available since 1988, last year's were the highest recorded since then. Its analysis also excludes "expenditures such as current spending on previous military activities, civil defense, veterans benefits, demobilization, weapon destruction and military involvement in non-military activities, such as policing," the think tank was careful to note, which explains why some of their numbers differ from those given by nations' defense ministries.
China's military spending has continued to increase as well, 2018 being the 24th consecutive year of Beijing's budget increasing, putting it in second place worldwide, and along with the US, accounting for roughly half of global military spending.
India's massive modernization of its military helped catapult it to the fourth slot, while Russia's contracting defense budget saw it slip to number 6 worldwide, having declined by 3.5 percent as compared to 2017.
Globally, the average spending was $239 per human on the planet.
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