Military expenditure

After a 10-year period of decline, world military expenditure is increasing once again: by 2004 it was close to its peak at the height of the Cold War. What does this increase entail and how can it be interpreted? Is it an indication of a detioratiing security environment or of increasing security? Is spending on the military an effective way of providing security in the current security environment? In responding to these important questions, a good starting point is to analyse the trends and patterns in military spending. Military expenditure is a rough measure of the level of government financial allocations for military purposes. As such, it can measure the priority given to military means of achieving security - assessed according to government perceptions - or of achieving some other types of national objectives, as formulated in national security doctrines. This paper considers trends in the global military spending data, discusses the limitations of the data, and suggests what sort of information is needed to improve analysis of the new security environment. Text in both English and French. Parallel title: Les depenses militaires.