Talk:List of countries with highest military expenditures/Archive 4

Where did Israel go?
When I google "Israel military budget," an answer comes up in the quick answer window, citing this page. Yet Israel no longer appears on this page. This seems to suggest that it existed on this page but was recently deleted, though I haven't been able to find which reversion deleted it. (I'm kind of a noob when it comes to looking through edit histories.)

I'm not sure whether this was political vandalism, and oversight, or there was some legitimate reason to delete it. Anyone want to look into this?

Update: It was deleted by an IP on the 21st, along with Australia and Iraq, from the IISS chart. There was no edit summary and deleting them appeared to be the entire edit. I since put them back in, but as there was a subsequent edit, I didn't revert.

last I checked you can take Israeli military budget from it's official government site and it stands at approx. 84,000,000,000$ so probably someone in IISS and SIPRI is very misinformed... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.176.7.120 (talk) 06:24, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

Manybytes (talk) 07:26, 23 June 2015 (UTC)

average market exchange rates vs. current market exchange rates
This might be the #1 issue for this article. The difference between the two are so great that you have Israel on one list but disappear from another. Which list should be used?

-G — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.31.56.39 (talk) 19:04, 23 October 2015 (UTC)

Why just Top 15?
Seems like a very arbitrary number. Those lists should be expanded for all countries, where data is available. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 04:38, 27 October 2015 (UTC)

North Korea estimates
Should really mention NK estimates which would place it on the top... --166.104.240.87 (talk) 03:45, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

Data from Global Peace Index on military expenditure
Would be helpful, see --166.104.240.87 (talk) 03:48, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

Updated Military budget 2016
Uk -http://www.ukpublicspending.co.uk/uk_budget

India -http://www.defencenews.in/article/Indias-Defence-Budget-Hiked-by-10-percent--Crosses-$50-billion-3205

Japan - http://thediplomat.com/2015/12/japan-approves-record-defense-budget/

France -http://www.upi.com/Business_News/Security-Industry/2015/10/02/France-to-increase-defense-spending-in-2016/4561443814370/

Russia -http://thediplomat.com/2015/11/russias-military-spending-to-increase-modestly-in-2016/ — Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.184.187.193 (talk) 07:13, 1 March 2016 (UTC)

Deletion of IISS Figures
The IISS figures which purport to show expenditure figures actually show budget figures (see here and compare: https://www.iiss.org/-/media//images/publications/the%20military%20balance/milbal2016/mb%202016%20top%2015%20defence%20budgets%202015.jpg?la=en). Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought budget and expenditure were two different things? A budget is the total amount of money a country has allocated to spend, whilst expenditure is what it actually spent. They're two different things.

I recommend we move the IISS figures to a new article on budgets and only use the SIPRI expenditure figures for this one. --TheArmchairSoldier (talk) 16:41, 2 April 2016 (UTC)

Tables don't sort on rank correctly
I have no idea how to fix this, but the tables don't sort correctly when they sort by rank. They're sorting on the first digit rather than the whole number, so it goes 1, 10, 11, 12...19, 2, 20, 3, 4  etc. 86.8.22.13 (talk) 23:35, 8 April 2016 (UTC)


 * Fixed this 96.45.202.82 (talk) 19:28, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

Get rid of "Rest" line in expenditure column
I changed the name "Rest" in the table of total expenditure to read "Non-US", which is what it is (otherwise it makes no sense when you re-sort the table). That said, it seems a little bit political to include vs. just presenting each company independently. Should we delete? 96.45.202.82 (talk) 19:31, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

Added EU
I added the EU to this page because the EU was already on the List of countries by GDP (PPP). Why have it on one and not the other. We need to have it consistent across Wikipedia. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Legohead1 (talk • contribs) 14:23, 20 May 2016 (UTC)


 * And removed it again because the listing claimed it to be in two specific lists (by the International Institute for Strategic Studies and Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, when in fact it came from somewhere else completely.


 * I would note that it would be astonishing if a body with no armed forces (such as the EU) managed to still spend over $200bn per year in military spending. What are you claiming they spend it on?  Paperclips? Kahastok talk 17:43, 20 May 2016 (UTC)

Per Capita Expenditures
The per capita expenditure numbers are off for India. A simple check of budget/population gives a much lower number. Could it be a typo? Panoramalama (talk) 22:52, 28 June 2016 (UTC)

New figure
I've just finished creating a new figure for this article, see below:

I'd like to replace the current figure with it for the following reasons: The result was created in R; the source code is rather short and simple. It can be found in the description of the image on wikimedia.
 * The current figure uses a very odd scale. Above 1 it is approximately logarithmic (with an inconsistent factor of 1.333-2 between ticks) and what happens below 1 is entirely unclear.
 * The figure appears to omit data for a few countries without providing a reason (in contrast, even though there are not 2014 data, Venezuela is shown with data, presumably from 2013?)
 * Looking at the current figure causes alarm, even though it shouldn't. Everything is red; even countries with a low spending. I wanted to add colours that are pleasanter to look at (for countries where it is appropriate).

Thoughts / comments? Pipping (talk) 17:27, 14 December 2016 (UTC)


 * Looks good. I have no objections. Antiochus the Great (talk) 17:51, 14 December 2016 (UTC)

I've also added version for 2013 and 2015 now. 2013 covers essentially the same countries but is older. 2015 is noticeably less complete. I suggest sticking to 2014 for now. Pipping (talk) 19:17, 14 December 2016 (UTC)

GDP on the SIPRI list
Some of the expenditures as a % of GDP's on the SIPRI list aren't mentioned in either of the sources given in this article, so I'd like to know how they were estimated - that is, with whose estimates of GDP; the IMF's, World Bank's, or UN's? Example: Oman, it's military expenditure is listed as being 9.9 billion in 2015, in the second source, but it's % of GDP isn't listed in the first source (which some of them are). The second source lists no %'s of GDP that are the military expenditures. What is odd is that the IMF lists Omans GDP as 64.1 billion (USD) in 2015, the World Bank lists it as 70.3, and and the UN as 81.8. Calculating the expenditure as a % of GDP using these three estimates would give us 15.4, 14.1, and 12.1% respectively, leading me to the conclusion that another estimate was used. Jahelistbro (talk) 22:48, 10 April 2017 (UTC)

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North Korea
Shouldn't there be some explanation for the absence of any figures on North Korea? James Galloway (talk) 15:23, 25 May 2017 (UTC)

Figure confusing? military expenditures absolute vs. relative to GDP
''I've opened a new section for this discussion about the figure at the top of the page because it does not touch on the topic "old vs. new figure" but rather "should we change the current figure/should we add another figure?" Pipping (talk) 20:39, 11 May 2017 (UTC)''

I have a vague objection to this figure as it isn't really the millitary expenditure, it's the millitary expenditure/gdp. This makes it seem like Russia is the biggest spender(as these sort of graphs are usually X per capita or area), which isn't true by a long shot, but only becomes clear if you know the GDP of Russia. I think a clearer diagram would be the direct spending amount. Does anybody else agree? byo (talk) 06:14, 1 April 2017 (UTC)


 * Maybe we should include both? Jahelistbro (talk) 17:32, 17 April 2017 (UTC)


 * It's worth pointing out that e.g. targets for military spending have in the past been formulated as (1% of the GDP) or (2% of the GDP). So talking about military spending relative to the GDP is not at all an unusual concept. Pipping (talk) 22:37, 11 May 2017 (UTC)


 * I've taken a stab at this. I've had to use a logarithmic color map and treat spending above or below a certain threshold as identical so that one would still be able to see something. I obtained the data by taking the earlier data (which is expressed in % of the GDP) and multiplying it by the GDP of that country, from the same year, in today's US dollars (divided by 100 to cancel the percent). This is the result (see below). (This produces no data for Venezuela because the world bank does not have the GDP of that country for 2014) Pipping (talk) 12:15, 13 May 2017 (UTC)




 * I've now gone ahead and added it to the actual article. Pipping (talk) 14:43, 20 May 2017 (UTC)
 * A nation's military strength is determined by the absolute military budget number, not by the average. Hence, all important international organisations give absolute numbers first.Ghatus (talk) 12:44, 27 May 2017 (UTC)
 * Thank you for your reply. I'm afraid your reasoning is not without flaw and not entirely relevant, though. It also does not fully explain why you reverted my change. Here's why:
 * It's not that simple: Yes, maintaining a large army comes with a certain cost. But so does growing it. You cannot tell the strength of an army in the year 2014 by its military spending in 2014. Not without knowing how much of the spending went into new acquisitions.
 * This article is about military expenditures, not about military strength (which would be much harder to gauge anyway -- what's stronger, a thousand foot soldiers or a tank?).
 * If your point is that absolute spending is more important than spending relative to the GDP then reverting my change (which added a figure with absolute spending) and taking us back to a state with spending relative to the GDP only, makes the situation worse and not better. Here I'm assuming that you intentionally undid the addition of a world map with absolute expenditures. Yes, I also removed the bar chart that shows the top five in absolute spending because otherwise the article would have become too crowded but I saw that as no great loss because that information is easily obtained from the tables.
 * Finally, I do not know what kind of average you are referring to. Neither the figure with absolute expenditures nor the one with expenditures relative to GDP contain any kind of averaging.
 * Pipping (talk) 20:49, 28 May 2017 (UTC)

Is the absence of Per Capita spending and most nations intentional?
Is there a reason to not include per capita military spending? Using spending as a % of GDP doesn't give the whole picture since GDP per capita is far from constant. Since military spending comes from public money, this gives a different and meaningful way of understanding military spending by expressing what an average citizen pays their government annually to build, maintain, and operate its military (which neither %GDP nor absolute spending conveys).

The SIPRI military database has this information, and has information for a much wider range of nations than are included in the article:

Is there a reason this page is so anemic? I'll expand it in the next few days unless I hear a good reason it excludes presumptively relevant information.

142.229.115.112 (talk) 18:22, 30 May 2017 (UTC)


 * I'm happy to see you bring this up. I was thinking about per-capita spending only this week. It gives a rather different perspective on a few of the numbers. So e.g. when evaluating the calls for Nato members like Germany to increase their military spending it's worth noting that while e.g. Russia spends noticeably more in absolute terms and considerably more relative to its GDP, in terms of per-capita spending, Russia is on the same level as e.g. Germany. I've taken the world bank data for 2015 on
 * * GDP per capita [USD ]
 * * Military expenditure [% of GDP ]
 * * GDP [USD ]
 * and multiplied them together to obtain
 * {| class="wikitable sortable"

! country !! GDP [10^6 USD] !! mil. exp. [%GDP] !! GDP p. cap. [USD] !! mil. exp. p. cap. [USD] !! mil. exp. [10^6 USD]
 * France || 2,418,835.53   ||              ~2.1 || 36,352.5          || ~760                  ||                ~51000
 * Germany || 3,363,446.82  ||              ~1.2 || 41,178.5          || ~490                  ||                ~40000
 * Poland || 477,066.45 || ~2.2 || 12,558.9 || ~280 || ~10000
 * Russia || 1,365,865.25   ||              ~4.9 || 9,329.3           || ~460                  ||                ~67000
 * Turkey || 717,879.79 || ~2.1 || 9,125.7 || ~190 || ~15000
 * United Kingdom || 2,861,090.73 || ~1.9 || 43,929.7 || ~830 || ~54000
 * }
 * So maybe another table or figure that shows things like that would be good. Is there a good reason to prefer the SIPRI data to the world bank data or vice versa btw? Pipping (talk) 11:19, 1 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Turkey || 717,879.79 || ~2.1 || 9,125.7 || ~190 || ~15000
 * United Kingdom || 2,861,090.73 || ~1.9 || 43,929.7 || ~830 || ~54000
 * }
 * So maybe another table or figure that shows things like that would be good. Is there a good reason to prefer the SIPRI data to the world bank data or vice versa btw? Pipping (talk) 11:19, 1 June 2017 (UTC)
 * }
 * So maybe another table or figure that shows things like that would be good. Is there a good reason to prefer the SIPRI data to the world bank data or vice versa btw? Pipping (talk) 11:19, 1 June 2017 (UTC)
 * So maybe another table or figure that shows things like that would be good. Is there a good reason to prefer the SIPRI data to the world bank data or vice versa btw? Pipping (talk) 11:19, 1 June 2017 (UTC)

Rank 9 - Botswana: military expenditure is greater than the country's GDP
Appears to be an error in SIPRI list. Botswana does not have a military expenditure of 45.1 billion. This is more than the GDP.

From the SIRPI document it is shown as 514 million. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.53.10.182 (talk) 04:57, 19 November 2017 (UTC)

Comparative spending
Rather than just raw numbers, perhaps comparative spending (rather than just raw stated numbers) should also be included in some form, such as stated in this source.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 21:33, 26 May 2018 (UTC)
 * , IMO, there are two issues with this. First, this is not a well established way to publish these numbers. Second, we still need someone to publish the numbers this way. Do you have a source which does that?

SIPRI
Hi all,

Think we should include a note saying that SIPRI includes government paramilitary organisation expenditure - e.g. gendarmie in France — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2.31.163.79 (talk) 16:48, 6 February 2018 (UTC)

Would somebody mind explaining to me exactly how SIPRI came to such a low percentage when politifact came to a spending as percentage of GDP, accounting for both mandatory and discretionary spending, of ~16%? Melias C (talk) 22:09, 20 May 2018 (UTC)
 * If I understand that source correctly then politifact looks at only the federal government spending while SIPRI looks at the overall government spending which might included states well. Adamgerber80 (talk) 22:43, 29 May 2018 (UTC)

Move page?
Is there any reason this page name uses "expenditures" rather than "expenditure"? Expenditure is usually used noncountably in this context and the lede even uses "expenditure" in the bold part where it mentions the page name. Thoughts? 60.248.185.19 (talk) 07:41, 31 July 2018 (UTC)

Addition of EU stats and adding other countries on the list
Hi I did read your email and would appreciated it if you would rather continue the discussion here. Primarily, because this makes the discussion public and other editors can also chime in when required and secondary reason is that I don't check my email that frequently. Now to the points you have raised, (1) This is a list about countries by military expenditures not economic unions/groupings. EU by no means of imagination is a joint military group and cannot be included in the list. Even NATO cannot be. Moreover, both the lists are based on SIPRI and IISS which, AFAIK, do not release any of these numbers but only do so for each individual country. (2) About adding countries beyond 15 in the SIPRI list. Here SIPRI does release it's data publicly but limits the reproduction of it's database/lists to only 10% of the content. This is very important and we cannot extend the list further without committing a Copyright violation which is harmful to Wikipedia and will lead to that specific content being deleted. Hopefully this answers your questions. Adamgerber80 (talk) 22:43, 10 August 2018 (UTC)

Expand list
According to the SIPRI report list should be expanded from 15 to 40. Ytpks896 (talk) 15:24, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

Please check chart
An improbable number of countries in a row are spending 2.2 percent of their income on the military--it looks like a glitch. Nareek (talk) 18:22, 26 July 2018 (UTC)

Canadian defence expenditure is wrong. The number in the pie chart is stated to be in USD, in fact it is the amount in Canadian dollars. If it is converted correctly it should be 25 to 30% lower. This correction affects listing and status throughout the article. Refer to Canadian government expenditures and estimates website to confirm if in doubt. How much else is less than accurate if a simple check can find this fault. CPO1321HT (talk) 21:05, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

IISS 2021 (15 February 2022)
Worthy of updating the table on this article? See here. David (talk) 18:10, 26 February 2022 (UTC)

Germany's increase in defence spending
In response to Germany's announcement of an increase in defence spending and ‎User7355608's edit, I wanted to point out that Germany's announcement is of a fund of €100bn, which sounds like it will be multi-year expenditure. It seems like Germany's defence spending will go from about 1.5% to 2% of GDP. Germany to set up €100bn fund to boost its military strength Kookiethebird (talk) 07:34, 28 February 2022 (UTC)


 * For future reference, here is the paragraph that had been on the article page before being removed:
 * On February 27, 2022, in response to the ongoing escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian War, Germany announced it would create a special fund of €100bn (US$110bn), "for strategic investments in the Bundeswehr’s readiness and modernization after decades of budget cuts" and would spend at least 2% of its GDP on defence, up from 1.5%. It would give Germany the third highest defence budget, with a forecast annual budget of US$83.5bn in 2024, up from US$57.5bn in 2021.
 * Kookiethebird (talk) 20:35, 4 March 2022 (UTC)

OR research
I removed someone's not published own original research with budget datas from 2022 and gdp from 2017 and that calculeated without source what hold exact numbers. Things needs to be published in realiable source to get into Wikipedia. This is encyclopedia not a personal blog.79.101.163.186 (talk) 01:03, 22 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Can you clarify your comments? You keep saying the content is "OR", but it has sources attached. -  wolf  02:35, 22 March 2022 (UTC)
 * One source state just total spending by country in 2022 and the other one just total gdp in 2017 not even the same year. And that is all. No gdp percent, no per capita for defence in any of that two sources. This type of stuff should be published in a relevant source as it is.79.101.163.186 (talk) 03:32, 22 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Well, the editors of this page can only work with what is there. Do you have any sources to suggest? -  wolf  03:45, 22 March 2022 (UTC)
 * It should stay how it was the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute fact sheet and the IISS first 15 or so countries as it was that is the most relevant sources but even they especially about % of gdp work mostly with estimates for some countries. Also I already saw to some numbers are different in different tables for the same category. We can't provide here not true numbers and if it is just estimates that should be noted in a clear way. 79.101.163.186 (talk) 04:07, 22 March 2022 (UTC)

Australian defiance budget up 8% & 22%
Assistant Minister for Defence the Hon Andrew Hastie MP said through the $270 billion investment into the capability and potency of our Defence force, we continue to ensure Australia remains ready and adaptable to the changing nature of warfare.

&

Australia's defence expenditure for the 2022–23 financial year will rise by 7.4% to AUD48. 6 billion (USD36 billion), the government announced in its annual budget statement on 29 March.

Australia’s Aukus nuclear submarines could cost as much as $AUD171bn, report

https://amp.theguardian.com/world/2021/dec/14/australias-aukus-nuclear-submarines-estimated-to-cost-at-least-70bn

AUD$ @ 0.75 to one U.S dollar. So $171bn AUD is stains $115bn U.S dollars just for the submarine’s.

https://amp.theguardian.com/politics/2022/apr/05/aukus-pact-extended-to-development-of-hypersonic-weapons 49.178.131.46 (talk) 16:53, 21 April 2022 (UTC)

Australian F-35 jets.
In 2002, the Australian Government committed to buying up to 100 F-35 fighter jets

The cost was estimated at $16 billion. 49.178.131.46 (talk) 02:01, 22 April 2022 (UTC)

Missing numbers on Taiwan
If someone can fill that in. Tried to look into that myself but there have been a lot of recent updates to Taiwan's defense spending and I couldn't readily sort out what was the most up to date. 173.73.238.86 (talk) 02:31, 1 August 2022 (UTC)

India Education Program course assignment
This article was the subject of an educational assignment supported by Wikipedia Ambassadors through the India Education Program.

The above message was substituted from by PrimeBOT (talk) on 20:00, 1 February 2023 (UTC)

Changes in data
Please refrain from making any edits in numbers until statistics for 2022 become available and the existing source can be replaced to reflect changes across the entire set of data; using additional sources to edit the budgets of individual countries should not be avoided to retain consistency and reliability of this article. Ppt91 (talk) 00:20, 7 February 2023 (UTC)

Detail to be fixed
The map doesn't match the table: Russia's miltary expenditure was 3.1% of GDP; not >4. New figures to come soon anyway. Tireatute (talk) 10:01, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

Untitled Section
Please a request only request... you may add millity budgest 20 country name in cludes Pakistan milltry budget. Before you have only 20 countryes name. in this 20 list not  Pakistan in it. Thanks, — Preceding unsigned comment added by 39.62.41.223 (talk) 04:02, 1 March 2023 (UTC)