Britain falls to eighth place in a world list of military spending after being overtaken by Germany
BRITAIN has sunk to 8th place in a world list of military spending, having been overtaken by Germany.
A new international league table of government’s defence cash reveals Berlin has leapfrogged the UK to take 7th place.
Germany hiked its spending by 10% in the last year to take it to US$49.3billion, while the UK spent $48.7bn on its army, navy and air force in 2019.
France spends even more on its forces, at $50.1bn, taking 6th place in the global league and leaving the UK in third place in Europe.
Just five years ago in 2015, the UK boasted the world’s fourth largest defence budget.
But successive rounds of defence cuts have seen the MoD lose 15% of its budget since 2010, the respected Stockholm International Peace Research Institute found who compiled the table.
Despite government promises, its annual report also found the UK’s total defence cash is only 1.7% of the country’s GDP, breaching the longheld NATO minimum target of spending 2%.
SIPRI’s estimate of the UK’s military expenditure in 2019 is significantly lower than the government’s, which insists on including non-military items such as pensions.
Labour's Shadow Defence Secretary John Healey told The Sun: "These figures show the reckless scale of the UK's defence downgrade under the Tories.
"While countries have invested in their armed forces, Conservative ministers have seen our military as a soft target for short-sighted cuts over this last decade.”
Mr Healey argued: "The coronavirus crisis has shown again how much we rely on our expert armed forces.
“Conservative Ministers should stop taking them for granted, and invest to keep the country safe."
A series of NATO countries have hiked their defence spending in recent years, under pressure major pressure from Donald Trump.
The US President threatened threatened to pull out of the transatlantic alliance if the 28 other members states didn’t do more to share the burden.
The US still spends by far the most, with the Pentagon getting an annual budget of £732billion.
China is second on $261bn and India third, spending $71.1bn.
Total military spending climbed in 2019 for the fifth consecutive year to a new high of $1.9 trillion.
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Gulf countries like Saudi Arabia and Oman spent the most on their militaries as a proportion of GDP, at 8%, while Mexico and Switzerland spend the least, 0.5% and 0.7%.
An MOD spokesman said: “The UK is the biggest spender on Defence in Europe and second only to the United States in NATO, spending over £42 billion this year.
“The UK reports its expenditure to NATO definitions and SIPRI acknowledges that there is an ‘$11.2 billion gap’ between their estimates and the official data.”
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