{"id":304995,"date":"2017-04-24T16:13:39","date_gmt":"2017-04-24T15:13:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/us-military-spending-grew-for-1st-time-in-6-years-in-2016-study\/"},"modified":"2017-04-24T16:13:39","modified_gmt":"2017-04-24T15:13:39","slug":"us-military-spending-grew-for-1st-time-in-6-years-in-2016-study","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/us-military-spending-grew-for-1st-time-in-6-years-in-2016-study\/","title":{"rendered":"US military spending grew for 1st time in 6 years in 2016 \u2013 study"},"content":{"rendered":"
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While US military spending grew for the first time in six years, Russia became the third-largest spender in 2016 due to Saudi Arabia\u2019s drastic fall, according to new figures from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).<\/p>\n

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The US remains the world\u2019s biggest military spender, with its military expenditure growing by 1.7 per cent between 2015 and 2016 to $611 billion, according to a new SIPRI study<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Read more<\/p>\n


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While America saw its first annual spending increase in six years, 2016 still fell short of its all-time peak in 2010. Consecutive spending shrinkage, according to the study, was caused by the economic crisis and partial US troop withdrawal from Afghanistan.<\/p>\n

\u201cDespite continuing legal restraints on the overall US budget, increases in military spending were agreed upon by Congress,\u201d<\/em> the Director of the SIPRI Arms and Military Expenditure (AMEX) program Dr. Aude Fleurant said. \u201cFuture spending patterns remain uncertain due to the changing political situation in the USA.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

China remains the second-largest spender \u2013 its military expenditure increased by 5.4 per cent to $215 billion, according to the study.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Russia moved into third place, increasing its spending by 5.9 per cent to $69.2 billion. While the expenditure increase played a certain role in scoring this place, it was mainly caused by a huge drop in Saudi Arabia\u2019s spending, which moved into fourth.<\/p>\n

Saudi military expenditure shrank in 2016 by 30 per cent to $63.7 billion, \u201cdespite its continued involvement in regional wars,\u201d<\/em> the study stated. Other oil-price dependent countries experienced similar dramatic drops, namely Venezuela, South Sudan, Azerbaijan and Iraq.<\/p>\n

\u201cFalling oil revenue and associated economic problems attached to the oil-price shock has forced many oil-exporting countries to reduce military spending,\u201d<\/em> a researcher with the SIPRI AMEX program Dr. Nan Tian said. \u201cFor example, between 2015 and 2016 Saudi Arabia had the biggest absolute decrease in spending of $25.8 billion.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Military expenditure in Western Europe rose for the second consecutive year amid NATO military activities going alongside with the \u201cRussian threat\u201d<\/em> narrative, which persisted in the Western media.<\/p>\n

READ MORE:\u00a0NATO military games on Russian border: \u2018Summer Shield\u2019 or \u2018Summer Sword\u2019?<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cThe growth in spending by many countries in Central Europe can be partly attributed to the perception of Russia posing a greater threat,\u201d<\/em> a senior researcher with the SIPRI AMEX program Siemon Wezeman said. \u201cThis is despite the fact that Russia\u2019s spending in 2016 was only 27 percent of the combined total of European NATO members.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Total global military expenditure rose to $1,686 billion in 2016, falling\u201conly\u201d $13 billion short of the all-time peak of 2011, when the world spent a hefty sum of $1,699 billion on military items.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Via RT<\/a>. This piece was reprinted by RINF Alternative News<\/a> with permission or license.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Published time: 24 Apr, 2017 12:10Edited time: 24 Apr, 2017 12:10 While US military spending grew for the first time in six years, Russia became the third-largest spender in 2016 due to Saudi Arabia\u2019s drastic fall, according to new figures from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). The US remains the world\u2019s biggest military […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":304996,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-304995","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304995","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=304995"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304995\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/304996"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=304995"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=304995"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=304995"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}