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Global military spending hits record as Europe drives rearmament cycle

Global military spending hits record as Europe drives rearmament cycle

Money Moves

SIPRI's 2025 fact sheet documents the 11th straight annual rise, with European budgets up 14% as US spending falls

April 27th, 2026: SIPRI reports record $2.89 trillion in global spending

Overview

Europe's defense budgets jumped 14% last year to $864 billion, the steepest annual rise since the Cold War. Germany alone added 24%, reaching $114 billion and overtaking every other European spender. Meanwhile, US military spending fell 7.5% to $954 billion as Congress declined to authorize new Ukraine aid during 2025. The world's military burden — defense as a share of gross domestic product — climbed to 2.5%, its highest level since 2009.

The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) is documenting something that has stopped looking like a reaction and started looking like a cycle. Eleven straight years of rises. Order books at European arms makers stretching to the 2030s. Capital, factories, and engineering talent shifting from civilian sectors into munitions, air defense, and shipbuilding. Whatever happens in Ukraine, the industrial commitments now being made will outlast the war that triggered them.

Why it matters

Sustained rearmament is reallocating hundreds of billions from civilian budgets and locking in defense industrial capacity that will shape government priorities for a decade.

Play on this story Voices Debate Predict

Key Indicators

$2.89T
Global military spending, 2025
Real increase of 2.9% over 2024, the 11th consecutive annual rise.
2.5%
Global military burden
Defense spending as a share of world GDP, the highest level since 2009.
+14%
European spending increase
Steepest single-year rise on the continent since the end of the Cold War.
$864B
European defense spending
Now roughly 90% of US spending, narrowing a gap that was 2-to-1 a decade ago.
$114B
Germany's defense budget
Up 24% in one year, making Berlin the largest military spender in Western Europe.
-7.5%
US spending change
First real-terms decline in years, driven by no new Ukraine aid in 2025.
11
Consecutive years of rises
Global spending has not contracted since 2014, the year Russia annexed Crimea.

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People Involved

Friedrich Merz
Friedrich Merz
Leading the largest sustained increase in German defense spending since reunification
 Mark Rutte
Mark Rutte
Pressing all 32 allies to lift defense spending well above the 2% of GDP floor
 Donald Trump
Donald Trump
Conditioning US military support on European spending increases and direct cost-sharing
 Nan Tian
Nan Tian
Lead voice interpreting the 2025 spending data

Organizations Involved

Stockholm International Peace Research Institute
Stockholm International Peace Research Institute
Independent research institute
Publisher of the most widely cited annual military spending dataset

Independent Swedish institute that tracks global military spending, arms transfers, and conflict.
North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)
North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)
Military Alliance
Coordinating the largest sustained increase in member defense spending in alliance history

32-member transatlantic military alliance now driving Europe's sustained rearmament push.
German Federal Ministry of Defence (BMVg)
German Federal Ministry of Defence (BMVg)
Government ministry
Overseeing the largest defense buildup of any major European economy

Berlin's defense ministry, now managing the biggest military budget in Western Europe.

Timeline

  1. SIPRI reports record $2.89 trillion in global spending

    Report

    Annual fact sheet documents 11th consecutive year of rises, 14% European increase, and a US drop of 7.5%, with the global military burden at its highest since 2009.

  2. US closes year with no new Ukraine aid package

    Policy

    Congress does not authorize new Ukraine military assistance during 2025, contributing to a 7.5% real-terms decline in US defense spending.

  3. Merz forms new German government

    Politics

    Incoming chancellor extends and expands defense fund, locking in higher spending baseline through the late 2020s.

  4. Trump returns to White House

    Politics

    New administration signals end of unconditional Ukraine aid and demands sharper European cost-sharing.

  5. NATO Washington summit signals higher targets

    Policy

    Allies openly discuss raising the 2% spending floor; majority of European members are now at or above it.

  6. SIPRI: spending tops $2.4 trillion

    Report

    Spending climbs 6.8% in 2023 — the largest year-on-year rise since 2009 — as European increases accelerate.

  7. SIPRI: spending tops $2.2 trillion

    Report

    Global military spending rises 3.7% in real terms in 2022, the steepest annual increase since 2009.

  8. Germany announces Zeitenwende

    Policy

    Chancellor Olaf Scholz pledges a €100 billion special Bundeswehr fund and commits Germany to NATO's 2% target, ending decades of restrained spending.

  9. Russia launches full-scale invasion of Ukraine

    Conflict

    The largest land war in Europe since 1945 begins, triggering an immediate reassessment of defense budgets across NATO and partner states.

  10. NATO Wales summit sets 2% spending floor

    Policy

    After Russia's annexation of Crimea, NATO members reaffirm a guideline that each ally spend at least 2% of GDP on defense. Most fail to meet it for years.

Scenarios

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1

European defense industrial buildup becomes structural through the 2030s

European governments lock in long-lead procurement contracts — air defense, artillery, submarines, fighter jets — that extend production lines into the 2030s. Even a Ukraine ceasefire does not reverse the spending baseline, because order books are already committed and political consensus has shifted. Defense becomes a permanent claim on European budgets, with industrial policy increasingly built around it. SIPRI's data on multi-year procurement commitments supports this as the most likely path.

Discussed by: SIPRI, IISS, Bruegel, defense equity analysts at JPMorgan and Citi
Consensus —
2

US spending rebounds as Congress restores Ukraine and Indo-Pacific funding

Pressure from Pentagon planners over China readiness, plus shifting congressional politics, produces a fresh supplemental in 2026 or 2027. US spending resumes its long climb, and the 2025 dip reads as a one-year political artifact rather than a structural shift. European allies continue rising in parallel, and the transatlantic spending gap stabilizes at a new, narrower level rather than continuing to close.

Discussed by: CSIS, Heritage Foundation defense analysts, congressional appropriators
Consensus —
3

Asian arms race accelerates as China, Japan, India and South Korea all hit new highs

Japan completes its planned doubling of defense spending to 2% of GDP. South Korea expands its already-large indigenous defense industry. India increases procurement to counter both China and Pakistan. China's official spending continues 7%+ annual growth. The Indo-Pacific overtakes Europe as the fastest-growing region for military expenditure by the late 2020s, reshaping global arms-export flows.

Discussed by: SIPRI, RAND Corporation, Lowy Institute, Asian defense ministries
Consensus —
4

Spending peaks and reverses after Ukraine settlement

A negotiated end to the Ukraine war, combined with European fiscal strain from rising debt and pension costs, leads several governments to slow procurement growth from 2027 onward. Spending plateaus rather than continues climbing. This scenario depends heavily on a durable settlement holding — something most analysts treat as uncertain — and on European publics accepting reduced military readiness.

Discussed by: Some European fiscal hawks, RUSI commentators, IMF country reports
Consensus —

Historical Context

Reagan defense buildup (1981-1989)

1981-1989

What Happened

President Ronald Reagan oversaw a roughly 35% real-terms increase in US defense spending over his two terms, from about $300 billion to $400 billion in 1988 dollars. NATO allies followed at smaller magnitudes. The buildup financed new submarines, the B-1 bomber, and the early Strategic Defense Initiative, and was framed as a response to Soviet capabilities.

Outcome

Short Term

Defense industrial base expanded sharply; the Pentagon's share of federal spending peaked above 6% of GDP in the mid-1980s.

Long Term

The buildup is widely credited as one factor that strained Soviet finances ahead of the USSR's 1991 collapse, though the causal weight remains debated. It also created procurement and industrial overcapacity that took most of the 1990s to absorb.

Why It's Relevant Today

Reagan's experience is the canonical case of a peacetime Western rearmament cycle — and a reminder that such cycles tend to outlast the political moment that started them. The current European buildup is being compared to it directly by analysts at CSIS, IISS, and SIPRI itself.

Post-Korea NATO rearmament (1950-1955)

1950-1955

What Happened

After North Korea's 1950 invasion of the South, NATO members rapidly increased defense spending, with US outlays roughly tripling and European budgets rising sharply. West Germany was rearmed and admitted to NATO in 1955. The alliance institutionalized integrated commands and a shared force structure during this period.

Outcome

Short Term

European defense spending rose to historically high shares of GDP, with the UK and France above 8% in the mid-1950s.

Long Term

The institutional architecture built during this period — combined commands, US troops permanently stationed in Europe, German rearmament — defined Cold War security for the next 35 years.

Why It's Relevant Today

This is the precedent for treating a regional conflict (Korea then, Ukraine now) as the trigger for a durable, alliance-wide spending and force-structure shift. The 2025 SIPRI numbers suggest something structurally similar is occurring.

European peace dividend (1989-2014)

1989-2014

What Happened

After the Soviet collapse, European defense spending fell sharply in real terms for two decades. Germany cut its army from over 500,000 troops to under 200,000. The UK retired entire ship classes. Defense industries consolidated and shed capacity. By 2014, most NATO members spent well below 2% of GDP, and several below 1%.

Outcome

Short Term

Governments redirected freed-up funds to social spending, debt reduction, and tax cuts through the 1990s and 2000s.

Long Term

When Russia invaded Crimea in 2014, and again in 2022, European militaries discovered they lacked stockpiles, production capacity, and trained reservists. Rebuilding what was decommissioned has been one of the central drivers of current spending increases.

Why It's Relevant Today

The 2025 numbers are, in part, the bill for the peace dividend coming due. Reconstituting capabilities that took 25 years to atrophy cannot be done in two or three budget cycles, which is why analysts expect spending to keep climbing.

Sources

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