Defence Expenditures of NATO Countries (2009-2016)

NATO collects defence expenditures from Allies on a regular basis and presents aggregates and subsets of this information. Each Allied country’s Ministry of Defence reports current and estimated future defence expenditure according to an agreed definition of defence expenditure, and represent payments actually made, or to be made, during the course of the fiscal year. NATO also makes use of up-to-date economic and demographic information available from the Directorate-General for Economic and Financial Affairs of the European Commission, and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.

In view of the differences between this definition and national definitions, the figures shown may diverge considerably from those which are quoted by national authorities or given in national budgets. Research and development expenditures related to major equipment are included in equipment expenditures and pensions paid to retirees in personnel expenditures

NATO defines defence expenditure as payments made by a national government specifically to meet the needs of its armed forces or those of Allies. A major component of defence expenditure is payments on Armed Forces financed within the Ministry of Defence (MoD) budget. Armed Forces include Land, Maritime and Air forces as well as Joint formations such as Administration and Command, Special Operations Forces, Medical Service, Logistic Command etc. They might also include "Other Forces" like Ministry of Interior troops, border guards, national police forces, customs, gendarmerie, carabinierie, coast guards etc. In such cases, expenditure should be included only in proportion to the forces that are trained in military tactics, are equipped as a military force, can operate under direct military authority in deployed operations, and can, realistically, be deployed outside national territory in support of a military force. Also, expenditure on Other Forces financed through the budgets of ministries other than MoD should be included in defence expenditure.

Pension payments made directly by the government to retired military and civilian employees of military departments should be included regardless of whether these payments are made from the budget of the MoD or other ministries

Expenditures for peacekeeping and humanitarian operations (paid by MoD or other ministries), the destruction of weapons, equipment and ammunition, and the costs associated with inspection and control of equipment destruction are included in defence expenditures.

Research and development (R&D) costs are to be included in defence expenditures. R&D costs should also include those for projects that do not successfully lead to production of equipment.

Expenditure for the military component of mixed civilian-military activities is included, but only when this military component can be specifically accounted for or estimated.

Financial assistance by one Allied country to another, specifically to support the defence effort of the recipient, should be included in the defence expenditure of the donor country and not in the defence expenditure of the receiving country.

Expenditure on NATO Common infrastructure is included in the total defence expenditure of each NATO country only to the extent of that country's net contribution.

War damage payments and spending on civil defence are both excluded from the NATO definition of defence expenditure.

NATO uses United States dollars (USD) as the common currency denominator. The exchange rate applied to each Ally is the average annual rate published by the IMF. The values for defence expenditure are expressed in current prices; constant prices; current prices and exchange rates; as well as constant prices and exchange rates.

Prior to 2010, the defence data relating to France is indicative only. Iceland has no armed forces. Monetary values, from 2009 for Slovak Republic, from 2011 for Estonia, from 2014 for Latvia, and from 2015 for Lithuania, are expressed in Euros. Albania and Croatia joined the Alliance in 2009.

To avoid any ambiguity, the fiscal year has been designated by the year which includes the highest number of months: e.g. 2014 represents the fiscal year 2014/2015 for Canada and United Kingdom and the fiscal year 2013/2014 for the United States. Because of rounding, the total figures may differ from the sum of their components.

I worked with a couple of guys from Germany for a year back in the early nineties. When we got around to how the USSR collapsing would save NATO countries including the US a lot of money they disagreed. They said half of what ends up in the "Defense" spending category actually had nothing to do with defense and wouldn't go away even with the USSR gone because they were "pork" they couldn't get enough support to fund any way other than pilfering it out of the funds for the military.

I don't know if that's true, but looking at the way things are categorized for the charts I think I see a couple of loopholes you could drive truckloads of money through to fund all kinds of non-defense related goodies.

Thoughts? Anyone familiar with how well European countries segregate defense spending from other spending?

We’ve been much more interested in defending Europe than the Europeans are. Every military man and woman ought to be taken off that continent after these 73 years of babysitting.

Yep. They’re quite capable of defending themselves. The EU has an economy that’s about 5% larger than ours. The EU’s economy is five times the size of Russia’s. They have a population of over 500 million.

Why again are we paying for their defense?

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