Dubai, UAE – Saudi Arabia has become the world’s fifth-largest military spender, according to a report by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).
The country increased its military spending by 16 percent to reach an estimated $75 billion, surpassing the United Kingdom, Germany, and France. It is the only Middle Eastern nation in the top 10 list.
The Middle East, with Saudi Arabia in the lead, had the highest military burden in 2022, with spending making up 3.9 percent of gross domestic product. Europe had the second highest burden at 2.5 percent and Africa had the third highest at 1.7 percent.
Diego Lopes da Silva, a senior researcher in SIPRI’s Military Expenditure and Arms Production Program, said the region’s high burden is due to ongoing conflicts, including Saudi Arabia’s military coalition against the Houthis in Yemen.
Saudi Arabia has jumped from the eighth to the fifth position as the world’s largest military spender, surpassing the United Kingdom, Germany, and France.
The country was the only Middle Eastern nation to make it to the top 10 global list, according to the Trends in World Military Expenditure 2022 report by theFor, SIPRI.
The total Middle East expenditures reached an estimated $184 billion in 2022, an increase of 3.2 percent from the previous year. However, this total does not include the Palestinian territories, Arabic-speaking North African countries such as Egypt, Morocco, and Algeria, or the United Arab Emirates, which has an estimated defense budget of $23.2 billion in 2023, according to data analytics company Global Data.
SIPRI reported that it has not acquired data on the United Arab Emirates’ military spending since 2014.
Saudi Arabia continued to lead a military coalition against the Houthis in Yemen, and the eight-year-long conflict worsened again in 2022, as missile and air strikes by both sides intensified. Meanwhile, in Israel, despite a drop in military spending in 2022, the burden is still high due to Israeli military attacks on Palestinian territories and intensified strikes on Syria.
The report also highlighted that the Middle East saw a slight drop in military spending of 0.4% in 2022 compared to the previous year, which could continue as the region has seen a gradual increase in normalization with states previously considered rivals, particularly countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). Qatar’s relations have warmed since 2021 with Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt, and Bahrain since the signing of the Al-Ula Declaration in Saudi Arabia in 2021, brokered by the United States and Kuwait.
Despite the perceived improvements, the report suggested that a change in military burden would still take some time to take place, even if relations improve and the conflicts come to an end. As a result, the Middle East will likely remain the region with the highest average military burden in 2023.
Globally, the report revealed that world military spending grew for the eighth consecutive year, reaching an all-time high of $2.24 trillion, a 3.7 percent increase from 2021. The United States, China, and Russia were the three largest spenders, collectively accounting for nearly 56 percent of global military spending.