US military spending drops as other regions boost defenses

U.S. military spending fell by 6.5 percent last year as other countries increased their spending on defense, according to a report released Monday by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.

Despite the Pentagon’s decline in spending to $610 billion in 2014, the U.S. remains the top military spender in the world, the report said.

{mosads}The drop in defense spending is the result of the Budget Control Act’s deficit-cutting measures. The 2011 law limited the federal government’s spending on both defense and non-defense domestic spending over the course of a decade. A 2013 budget deal relieved the spending limits for 2014 and 2015, but didn’t reverse the caps completely.

Since its peak in 2010, U.S. defense spending has fallen by nearly 20 percent, but the current level is 45 percent higher than the level in 2001, just before the 9/11 attacks. U.S. military spending is still at historically high levels, the report said, and mirrors the level from the previous peak in the late 1980s.

While military spending also fell last year in western Europe, it rose in Asia, the Middle East, Eastern Europe and Africa. Besides the U.S., the five biggest military spenders are China, Russia, France and Saudi Arabia.

Ukraine increased its defense spending by 20 percent last year due to hostilities with Russia, according to the report. Ukraine’s defense spending is expected to double this year.

Worldwide military spending totaled $1.8 trillion in 2014, researchers found, down 0.4 percent from 2013.