India becomes fifth-largest military spender in 2025

• India was the fifth-biggest military spender in the world in 2025, after the United States, China, Russia and Germany, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) report published on April 27.

• India increased its military spending by 8.9 per cent to $92.1 billion in 2025.  

• India’s conflict with Pakistan in May 2025 — which involved the use of combat aircraft, drones and missiles — pushed up military spending during the year. 

• Revised capital outlays for military aircraft systems were 50 per cent higher than originally budgeted, while operations and personnel costs for the Indian Air Force were revised upwards by 18 per cent from the original budget.

What is SIPRI?

• SIPRI is an independent international institute dedicated to research into conflict, armaments, arms control and disarmament. Established in 1966, SIPRI provides data, analysis and recommendations, based on open sources, to policymakers, researchers, media and the interested public.

• SIPRI was established on the basis of a decision by the Swedish Parliament and receives a substantial part of its funding in the form of an annual grant from the Swedish government.

USA remains the biggest spender

• Global military expenditure increased to $2,887 billion in 2025, the 11th year of consecutive rises, bringing the global military burden — military expenditure as a share of gross domestic product (GDP) — to 2.5 per cent, its highest level since 2009. 

• Taken together, spending by the top five — the USA, China, Russia, Germany and India — reached $1,686 billion, equivalent to 58 per cent of the global total.

• The USA remained the biggest spender, accounting for a third of all military spending in 2025.

• At $954 billion, US military expenditure in 2025 was 7.5 per cent lower than in 2024 but was still 11 per cent higher than in 2016. 

• The USA’s share has declined steadily since 2020 and fell by 4.3 percentage points between 2024 and 2025, reflecting both a year-on-year reduction in US spending and widespread increases elsewhere. 

• In 2025 the USA continued to prioritise investment in its nuclear modernisation and advanced conventional weapon programmes in order to maintain US military dominance in the Western Hemisphere and deter China in the Indo-Pacific.

• China, the world’s second largest military spender, allocated an estimated $336 billion to its military in 2025. This accounted for 1.7 per cent of China’s GDP in 2025, which was the same level as its average military burden between 2016 and 2024. 

• China’s military expenditure has increased each year for 31 consecutive years — the longest streak of any country in the SIPRI Military Expenditure Database.

• In 2025 Russia’s military expenditure reached an estimated $190 billion, following a year-on-year increase of 5.9 per cent. This marked the slowest annual rate of growth in Russian military spending since the full-scale

invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

• In 2025 Germany was the fourth biggest spender globally as its military expenditure reached $114 billion. The 24 per cent year-on-year increase in 2025 marked the third consecutive year of double-digit percentage growth

in German military spending.

• The main contributor to the global increase in military spending in 2025 was a 14 per cent rise in Europe to $864 billion. Spending by Russia and Ukraine continued to grow in the fourth year of the war in Ukraine.

• Ongoing rearmament efforts by European NATO members led to the sharpest annual growth in spending in Central and Western Europe since the end of the cold war.

• The 29 European NATO members spent a combined total of $559 billion in 2025, and 22 of them had military spending of at least 2 per cent of GDP, according to SIPRI’s methodology.

• Military spending by Spain increased by 50 per cent to $40.2 billion, also bringing its military burden above 2 per cent of GDP for the first time since 1994.

• Between 2024 and 2025, military spending by the United Kingdom decreased by 2 per cent to $89.0 billion. France’s military expenditure rose by 1.5 per cent to $68 billion in the same period.

• Saudi Arabia’s military spending increased by 1.4 per cent to reach $83.2 billion, making it the eighth biggest military spender in the world.