A military budget of an entity, most often a nation or a state, is the budget and financial resources dedicated to raising and maintaining armed forces for that entity. Military budgets reflect how much an entity perceives the likelihood of threats against it, or the amount of aggression it wishes to employ. It also provides an idea of how much finances could be provided for the upcoming year.
Generally excluded expenditures are:
The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute estimates that in 2007 military expenditures for the world were $1,339,000,000,000.
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In the Saturday Review magazine in February 1898, indicates that the percentage of tax revenue spent on military budgets as follows:
The yearly report from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute shows that the purchase of military products by NATO member nations during the year 2003 rose 11 percent relative to 2002 (6.5 percent in volume). In some countries, this budget has been increased to the level maintained during the Cold War.
The military budget of the United States leads in this increase; U.S. purchases account for 47 percent of world military expenditures in 2003, which totaled about US$956 billion. The funds for the War in Iraq and the supplementary expense of US$83 billion account for much of this increase; other spending only accounts for 3.5 percent of the increase.
The US spends almost as much money on defense as all the other countries in the world combined.
The military budgets of the United Kingdom, France, Germany and Italy represent about 15 percent (US$120 billion) of world military spending.[1] France and the United Kingdom have increased their equipment expenses, not only to act in United States military operations with the same technological level of their ally, but equally to be able to act independently in smaller military campaigns such as in Libya.
Among non-NATO nations, Japan spent US$46.9 billion on military resources in 2003, The People's Republic of China, US$32.8 billion, and Russia, US$13 billion, (5 percent, 4 percent, and 1 percent of the world total, respectively).
Budgets 2010 for NATO countries in billions of US dollars
| Country | Budget (in Billions) |
|---|---|
| United States of America | 698.000[2] |
| France | 59.642 |
| United Kingdom | 59.354 |
| Germany | 45.248 |
| Italy | 38.198 |
| Canada | 20.164 |
| Spain | 15.803 |
| Turkey | 15.634 |
| Netherlands | 11.604 |
| Greece | 9.369 |
| Poland | 8.320 |
| Norway | 6.322 |
| Belgium | 5.382 |
| Portugal | 5.213 |
| Denmark | 4.588 |
| Czech Republic | 2.529 |
| Romania | 2.164 |
| Hungary | 1.323 |
| Croatia | 1.060 |
| Slovakia | 1.010 |
| Slovenia | 0.788 |
| Bulgaria | 0.698 |
| Lithuania | 0.427 |
| Estonia | 0.336 |
| Latvia | 0.268 |
| Luxembourg | 0.255 |
| Albania | 0.201 |
| Iceland[3] | N/A* |
* Iceland maintains no armed forces