By Nebal Snan

KUWAIT: Kuwait’s military expenditure has dropped by 11 percent in 2021-22, with the country spending $8.2 billion on training and equipping forces for military operations, according to data released this week from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). Kuwait now ranks 30th in military expenditure worldwide, dropping four ranks from its spot as the 26th largest spender in 2021. Spending has however increased by 25 percent compared to ten years ago.

Military expenditures data from SIPRI are derived from the NATO definition, which includes all current and capital expenditures on the armed forces, including peacekeeping forces, defense ministries and other government agencies engaged in defense projects, paramilitary forces — if these are judged to be trained and equipped for military operations — and military space activities.

They also include military and civil personnel, including retirement pensions of military personnel and social services for personnel, operation and maintenance, procurement, military research and development and military aid. Total military expenditure by countries in the Middle East is estimated at $184 billion in 2022, up by about 4 percent from 2021 but down by 1.5 percent from 2013.  SIPRI attributes the increase in 2022 a 16 per cent growth in Saudi Arabia’s military spending. The kingdom was the largest spender in the region and the fifth largest worldwide, allocating an estimated $75 billion in 2022 to its armed forces.

On average, SIPRI found that states in the Middle East had the highest military burden, defined as military spending as a share of gross domestic product (GDP), in 2022. Spending reached 3.9 per cent of GDP in Middle Eastern countries, followed by 2.5 per cent of GDP in Europe, 1.7 percent in Africa, 1.5 percent in Asia and Oceania and 1.2 percent in the Americas. Arab countries swept the top 10 list of countries with highest military spending as a share of GDP. Kuwait ranked 9th, with 4.5 percent of its GDP going to its armed forces. Saudi Arabia came in second at 7.4 percent, Qatar third at 7 percent, Oman fifth at 5.2 percent, Jordan sixth at 4.8 percent and Algeria seventh at 4.8 percent.

World military expenditure rose by 3.7 per cent in real terms in 2022, to reach a record high of $2,240 billion. Global spending grew by 19 per cent over the decade 2013–22 and has risen every year since 2015, SIPRI data showed. Military expenditure in Europe rose by 13 per cent in 2022, the largest annual increase in total European spending in the post-cold war era. According to SIPRI, the exceptional growth was largely accounted for by substantial increases in Russian and Ukrainian spending. Many other European countries have also boosted their military budgets in 2022.