World military spending last year fell for the first time in 14 years, with the US share of the global total slipping below 40 per cent.
The world spent $1.75tn on its militaries in 2012 – equivalent to 2.5 per cent of GDP or about $250 a person, a 0.5 per cent decrease in real terms from 2011, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute said in its annual review published on Monday.
Spending in China, much of the rest of Asia, the Middle East, Russia, Latin America and north Africa rose, while in Europe and the US it declined as austerity measures hit budgets and the end of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq shrunk discretionary defence spending.
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