Russia moved to fourth place in the sales of arms ranking, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).
In 2019, 3.9% of Russia's GDP went to military spending, amounting to $65.1 billion.
According to the SIPRI report, in 2019 the U.S. was responsible for 38% of global military expenditure, totaling $732 billion. The increase over its 2018 budget alone amounted to the equivalent of Germany's total expenditure in 2019.
China has been increasing its military expenditure steadily since 1994, but its budget has jumped by 85% since 2010. However, in terms of percentage of GDP, this has not changed considerably and almost always lies at 1.9%.
On the Asian continent, the military expenditure of China's rival, nuclear power India, is also considerable, rising last year by almost 7% to $71.1 billion, Deutsche Welle reported.
Of the 15 countries in the world with the highest defense budgets, six are NATO members: Canada, France, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom and the United States. Their combined military expenditure makes up for almost half of the world's total figure.
Global military expenditure reached $1.9 trillion (€1.7 trillion) in 2019, the highest annual sum in real terms since 1988. That sum marked an increase of 3.6% over 2018, the largest annual increase since 2010.
