Military Trends

By a preliminary estimate, world military expenditures fell by 4 percent in 1996, to $701 billion. ¹ (See Figure 1.) They are now 39 percent below the peak level of $1,144 billion that they reached in 1984. (All data are expressed in 1995 dollars unless otherwise noted.) Relative to global economic output, military spending now stands at 2.6 percent, down from 5.7 percent in the mid-1980s. ²