Azerbaijan spends more on defence than United States

Nineteen countries of the world, including Azerbaijan, spend on defence, as a percentage of their GDP, more than the US. This is reported by haqqin.az with reference to  the Stockholm Peace Research Institute.

In absolute terms, the US is ahead of the rest of the world, but as a percentage of GDP, 19 countries spend more. It is worth noting that the US spends 3.3% of its GDP on defence.

Oman spends the most on defence, this indicator is 16.2% of GDP. In descending order, it is followed by South Sudan – 13.8%. Then comes Saudi Arabia with 13.7% and Algeria with 6.2%.

The list of countries that spend on defence in the range of 4-6% of their GDP looks like this: Israel and Russia – 5.4%, Azerbaijan and Bahrain – 4.6%, Armenia 4.5%, Lebanon 4.1%, and Ukraine 4%.

Less than 4%, but more than the US in percentage terms spend: Mauritania and Myanmar with 3.9% of GDP, Brunei with 3.7%, Angola, Colombia and Kyrgyzstan 3.5%, and Pakistan 3.4%.

Not so long ago, very few of the above listed countries spent more than the US in percentage terms, but regional tensions caused the militarisation of these countries. For comparison, India spends on defence only 2.3% of GDP, and China 1.9%.

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