Jane's Information Group is a British publishing company specializing in military, aerospace and transportation topics. If the report is correct, global defense outlays will continue their five-year consecutive growth into next year to hit a post-Cold War record of a whopping $1.67 trillion.
US
According to the report, released on Monday, the 3.3 percent projected growth in 2018, the fastest in a decade, is driven by the burgeoning US defense budget which jumped from $636.2 billion in 2016 to $642.9 billion in 2017.
According to Jane’s analyst Guy Eastman, Washington will be spending more on “ballistic missile defense, shipbuilding, missiles and munitions, space-based systems, and C4ISR [Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance] systems.”
Middle East
In the Middle East, defense spending is trending upward again after a brief letup last year. Iran slightly outspends Israel, but both are dwarfed by Saudi Arabia, which has ramped up its defense budget to a very impressive $50.9 billion.
Europe
In Europe, nine NATO member-states, whose military budgets have been growing since 2015, will meet the 2-percent-of-GDP benchmark for defense outlays in 2018.
They already meet NATO’s benchmark for defense outlays.
Asia and the Pacific
Countries in the Asia-Pacific region have been spending less on defense in 2017 due, among other things, to smaller increases in China and India.
After the US, China and India are the second and third ranked countries in defense spending with $192.5 billion and $52.4 billion respectively.
The Jane’s Annual Defense Budgets Report tracks 99 percent of global defense expenditures from 105 of the world’s largest defense budgets.
It was released by global information analyzer and distributor IHS Markit.
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