the UK spends $74.9 billion for a population of 68 million.
Russia spends $109 billion for a population of 144 million.
China spends $296 billion for a population of 1,400 million.
So, the UK spends $1101 per person, almost one and a half times as much as Russia’s spend of $757 per person and more than 5 times as much as China’s $211 per person.
That looks like this.
So, perhaps the UK is on more than enough of a war footing as it is; as its participation in so many wars, overtly and covertly, demonstrates.
If the UK were to go for parity with Russia’s per capita spend, it could save about $20 billion a year (£16 billion). If it were to go for parity with China, it would save $60 billion a year ($48 billion). We could do a lot with that. An additional dividend from these savings might actually be peace.
The United States, of course, is in a league of its own, with a per capita spend of $3,210. If they were to spend what the Russians do, that would free up $687 billion every year. Think what could be done with that.
Lists of military spending are usually done in absolute figures.
Using these, the UK spends more on its military than every other country in the world apart from the USA, China and India. More than Russia, more than Germany. More than France. More than Japan. The sixth largest economy, but the fourth biggest military spender.
When you look at per capita military spending however, that’s the burden that that spending puts on each individual citizen, the UK comes in at number three.
For 2022 that looks like this for the ten countries that spend the most in absolute terms.
Per capita military spending
In US Dollars
USA
2434
Saudi Arabia
1635
UK
1020
South Korea
984
France
870
Germany
674
Russia
455
Japan
425
China
204
India
55
So, the burden of military spending on every UK citizen is more than double that of every Russian citizen, and over five times that on every Chinese citizen. So, to match the Russian level of per capita spending, we could cut our expenditure by half. If we wanted parity with China’s spending per citizen, we could cut down to a fifth of the current level.
It should also be noted 1) that the top six of these countries, plus Japan, are allies of the United States and 2) there is not majority support in the UK to increase military spending. A poll by yougov/datapraxis in May which asked voters to choose between
(a) ‘The war in Ukraine has showed that my country should be spending more on defence, even if that means that we must cut money on other areas like health, education and crime prevention’, and
(b) ‘Despite the war in Ukraine, my country should not be increasing spending on defence as that could require cutting money on other areas like health, education and crime prevention’.
showed 36% against increased expenditure to 25% in favour.
The figures for absolute military spending that these calculations are based on come from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute for 2022. The figures for population are from UN figures for 2019, so the calculation won’t be exact, but aren’t likely to be significantly different.
Urban ramblings 