The world spent 2.24 trillion $ in the military in 2022.

SIPRI has just released new data on military spending for the year 2022, and figures are once again disheartening. During the 1st year since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, we’ve seen an increase in most of the biggest spenders, which has pushed world military expenditures over 2 trillion USD for the second time in a row, growing a 3.7% above inflation.
You can find the SIPRI fact sheet here.

Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine has, of course, been a major factor in driving increases in the budgets of those nations and NATO countries – with a knock-on effect in other parts of the world. Despite the considerable rise of 9.2% in the Russian budget, it remains dwarfed by NATO spending – which is over 14 times its size.

Stuart Parkinson, Co-chair of the UK branch of the Global Campaign on Military Spending (GCOMS-UK) and Executive Director of Scientists for Global Responsibility (SGR)

On the occasion, our campaign is holding actions all across the world, including press conferences in Barcelona, Berlin, Seoul, Rome, Manila and Wellington, and more media work in Australia, the UK and USA. To strengthen the impact of this, we’re also putting together a Social Media Storm. Amid dramatic environmental and socioeconomic crises, we’re joining our voices and taking action to urge governments across the world to place their efforts into addressing the climate crisis, instead of making it worse (see also our Appeal War Costs Us the Earth).

It is time for us to join our voices and call on governments around the world to cut military spending, and to instead invest in common and human security.

The increase in military spending for 2022 would have suffice to cover the annual UN climate finance goal. It’s just a matter of priorities, and our governments have got them all wrong.

Visit our GDAMS Shared Folder, where you’ll find images, infographics and posting exemples and other materials, and use today your social media (Twitter, Facebook and/or Instagram) to spread the word and draw attention to the issue. We will be using these hashtags: #GDAMS #WarCostsUsTheEarth

Together with the Transnational Institute (TNI) and the European Network Against the Arms Trade (ENAAT) we’ve prepared a series of infographics analysing military spending levels from different perspectives (global, NATO, EU, climate, war profiteers…).
You can download them here. They will be available in Spanish, Italian, Catalan, French, Italian and Japanese soon.