Rearmament: the denominator nobody quotes
The world spends less of its economy on its militaries than in any Cold War year — and the rebound since 2018 is real but starts from a record low.
Every few months a headline announces record global military spending. Measured in dollars, it is true. Measured against the size of the world economy — which is what "how militarised are we?" actually asks — the picture inverts.
The world spends 2.47% of GDP on its militaries. The 1962 peak was 6.14%. The end of the Cold War was 3.32%. Today is 59% below 1960 and below every single year of the Cold War.
The rearmament is real, and it is dateable: the world trough was 2018, and the line was already rising before the invasion of Ukraine. But it is a rebound off the lowest base the modern record contains, not a return to Cold War militarisation. Underneath, the movers are not the obvious ones — Poland now outspends the United States as a share of its economy, Japan has broken a half-century 1% norm, and China, whose nuclear arsenal is growing fastest, spends a falling share of GDP.
Share of GDP is not a measure of capability, and this series ends in 2024 while SIPRI's 2025 figures exist. Data: SIPRI via World Bank Open Data (`MS.MIL.XPND.GD.ZS`).
The two Cold War poles went opposite ways
The United States peaked at 9.42% in 1967, bottomed at 3.09% in 1999, and sits at 3.42% — barely above its post-Cold-War floor after two decades of war.
Russia is the genuine outlier in this dataset: 2.73% in 1998 to 7.05% in 2024, and nearly double its own 2021 share of 3.58%. That is a war economy, and it is visible as one in a single line.
@andrewdun · 1h ago
The rearmers are not who you would guess
Poland now spends a larger share of its economy on defence than the United States — 4.15% against 3.42% — having been at 1.75% in 2008. It is the sharpest sustained increase of any major economy here.
Germany is the case people think they know, and the numbers are smaller than the rhetoric: 1.12% in 2015 to 1.89% in 2024, a 69% rise that still leaves it below the 2.51% it spent in 1990.
Japan has broken the 1%-of-GDP norm it held for half a century, reaching 1.37% from a 2007 low of 0.88%.
@andrewdun · 1h ago
China: the arsenal grows, the share falls
China's military spending as a share of GDP: 2.45% in 1990, 1.61% in 2021, 1.71% in 2024 — a falling share, below the world average for most of the period.
Read that against the nuclear record, where China's warhead stockpile went 350 to 620 between 2020 and 2026, the fastest expansion of any arsenal. Both are true: absolute spending has grown enormously and the economy grew faster. The share is the measure nobody quotes.
A caveat that matters: China's official defence budget is widely held to understate actual spending, and we have not verified the size of that adjustment. Treat the direction as robust and the precise percentage as soft.
@andrewdun · 1h ago
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World military spending as a share of global GDP. 6.03% in 1960, a peak of 6.14% in 1962, 3.32% at the end of the Cold War, a trough of 2.12% in 2018, and 2.47% in 2024.
"Record military spending" is a dollar claim measured against a world economy several times larger. On this measure 2024 is 59% below 1960 and below every year of the Cold War. The rebound is real — +16.7% off the floor — and it starts from the least militarised the modern record contains.
Note the turn: 2018, not 2022. The line was rising before the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Share of GDP is also not a measure of capability — a flat share on a doubled economy is a doubled budget.
@andrewdun · 1h ago