(19 May 2021) The defense industry is one of the few that have not taken a hit in the economic aftermath of COVID-19. According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, in 2020 most countries increased their military spending from the previous year or kept it unchanged. Only 36 out of 148 countries analyzed by the Institute have cut military spending by more than 5% year-over-year. In 2020, world...

(30 June 2021) While it’s true that major powers aren’t engaging in the kind of devastating large-scale wars that rocked the first half of the 20th century, data from the Institute for Economics and Peace shows that the state of global peace is deteriorating. According to the Institute's 2021 Global Peace Index report, between 2012 and 2021 the peace index score deteriorated in 87 countries (out of 158 for which...

With the international community still assessing the implications of NATO's first deployment test of the Very High Readiness Joint Task Force (VJTF) in June in western Poland, the question becomes: how does NATO rank among other military alliances worldwide? For the purposes of the June exercise, 2,100 soldiers and over 300 vehicles were deployed to Poland within four days, using six trains, 16 flights, and 14...

United States, despite the cuts in military spending during Barack Obama presidency, remains the military leader of enourmous size, though US military expenditures share in GDP relatively low, compared to some countries (Middle East in particular, as shown on ranking gadget). Explore the country and regional trends on historical line chart by selecting the country in the ranking list or easily identify...

World military expenditure totalled $1.8 trillion in 2014, a fall of 0.4 per cent in real terms since 2013, according to figures released by Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) in the latest update of its military expenditure database. World military spending, while falling for the third year in a row, has levelled off as reductions in the United States and Western Europe were largely matched by...

On September 11, the UN Security Council adopted its 8th sanction resolution against North Korea. The resolution came in response to the country’s nuclear test on September 3 in violation of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty of 1996 (CTBT) banning nuclear explosions regardless of purpose. The test was the sixth violation by North Korea. Previously, North Korea conducted nuclear tests in 2006, 2009, 2013,...

The Global Firepower database published earlier this year provides an interesting perspective on the relative military strength of the former-Soviet Union (FSU) member states bordering Russia as compared to Russia. The contrast is so sharp that any of the FSU countries would almost certainly be unable to defend themselves from Russian military advancement without the direct involvement of NATO or other allied...

Nine countries in the world are nuclear-capable: China, France, India, Israel, North Korea, Pakistan, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States. As of January 2017, these nuclear powers possessed approximately 14,935 nuclear weapons, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). Almost 40 percent of total nuclear forces are warheads in central storage that would require some...

During the mid-to-late 2000s, Nigeria struggled to reign in the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta, better known simply as MEND. MEND is a militant group based in the southwest of Nigeria in the Niger Delta, Nigeria's primary onshore oil production region. The group sought increased economic benefits for residents of the Niger Delta from the country's oil production and reparations for destruction of...

The 2017 Global Peace Index reflects the reality of war and peace today with Syria, Afghanistan, and Iraq ranking as the least peaceful countries of the 161 evaluated for the index. The United States experienced the greatest decline in the index since last year, slipping 11 places to rank 114th, directly following Armenia and Rwanda and preceding El Salvador and China. But, what’s in the index? The Global Peace...

Approximately one third of all victims - about 77,000 people - were claimed in the war in Syria alone during the period. An additional 40,000 casualties are attributable to a conflict minimally discussed by Western media - the civil war that erupted in December 2013 in South Sudan, the world's youngest country. The war in Ukraine, which began in 2014, had already taken at least 4,843 lives. Some ongoing...

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Global Firepower (GFP) provides a unique analytical display of data concerning today's world military powers. Over 100 world powers are considering in the ranking which allows for a broad spectrum of comparisons to be achieved concerning relative military strengths. The Global Firepower ranking is based strictly on each nations potential conventional war-making capabilities across land, sea and air. The nuclear...