The latest report by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) shows that, after allowing for some data uncertainties, world military spending in 2011 as essentially unchanged from that in 2012. This breaks a 13-year-long run of continuous military spending increases. It might be a cause for celebration if it still didn't represent a totally objectionable allocation of people's funds.
It is difficult to assess whether this leveling of military spending represents long-term change, since some countries have diminished their spending while others have increased it. If the leveling is due mainly to some countries' economic crises, might higher spending resume as soon as these crises end?
For example, most European countries' dire economic situation may mean that spending will continue to fall for the next two to four years. This is probably the case with countries such as Greece (down 26 percent since 2008), Spain (18 percent), Italy (16 percent), Ireland (11 percent) and Belgium (12 percent), whose economies have been ravaged by the recent crisis. In contrast, the United Kingdom, France and Germany — the top three spenders in Western Europe — have made only cosmetic cuts amounting to less than 5 percent.