Russia's EU neighbours boost arms spending

Fear of Russia saw easterly EU states post some of the sharpest increases in arms spending in the world last year, according to Swedish think tank Sipri.

Polish spending rose by 33 percent to $10.5 billion. Romanian spending climbed by 22 percent and is budgeted to climb by 53 percent again this year.

Slovak spending grew by 17 percent. Two tiny Baltic states, Lithuania (33 percent) and Latvia (14 percent), also posted significant hikes.

Put into context, the increases are much steeper than, for instance, Saudi Arabia’s (5.7 percent). The Saudi spending is vastly higher overall ($87.2bn), but its relatively modest increase comes despite the fact Saudi Arabia is locked in an arms race with Iran and fighting a proxy war in Syria.

The Sipri report attributed the trend in central Europe to “escalating fear of a threat from Russia" following its invasion of Ukraine and its show of strength in Syria.

It noted that overall spending by Nato’s European members, including Turkey, went down by 0.3 percent to $250 billion.

But the Russian threat, coupled with the war on Islamic State in Syria and Iraq, prompted Nato’s main European powers - the UK, France, and Germany - to signal hikes for 2016.

Russian expenditures also continued to climb in 2015, rising by 7.5 percent to $66.4 billion.

The figure is 3 percent less than Russia had planned to spend. Sipri also said that “falling oil and gas prices, coupled with [EU and US] economic sanctions” mean that its 2016 military budget will see a real-terms cut of 9 percent.

But Russia’s 2015 budget was a whopping 91 percent higher than the figure for 2006, highlighting the scale of Russian leader Vladimir Putin’s decade-long rearmament programme.

Looking further afield, Sipri noted that US spending continues to dwarf that of any other country on the planet.

The main Nato ally, which recently announced new troop and armour deployments in Russia-bordering Nato allies, spent $596 billion last year - more than China, Saudi Arabia, Russia, the UK, India, France and Japan added together.

Global spending itself also climbed by 1 percent to $1.7 trillion.

Commenting on the global picture, Sam Perlo-Freedom, a Sipri analyst, said: “On the one hand, spending trends reflect the escalating conflict and tension in many parts of the world; on the other hand, they show a clear break from the oil-fuelled surge in military spending of the past decade.”

“This volatile economic and political situation creates an uncertain picture for the years to come,” he added.