February 17, 2025
Last week, US President Donald Trumpsaid he would soon meet with the leaders of Russia and China to discuss arms control and a proposal to slash all three countries’ military budgets in half. That’s a radical idea that would have a significant impact on all three economies and on global security more broadly – after all, the US, Russia, and China combined account for about half of all global defense spending, with the US alone clocking 40%.Russia’s military spending has soared in recent years – growing more than 40% in 2024 alone – due to the war in Ukraine, and China’s has been rising as well as Beijing muscles up in Asia and beyond. Globally, military spending last year reached a new high of $2.46 trillion, according to the International Institute for Strategic Studies. Here’s a look at the top military spenders in the world, and a breakdown of what, in particular, the Pentagon spends its money on.
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Participants hold placards during a protest to condemn the U.S. and Israeli attacks on Iran and commemorate students killed in a strike on a girls' primary school in Minab in southern Iran on February 28, in front of the U.S. embassy in Seoul, South Korea, March 12, 2026.
REUTERS/Kim Soo-hyeon
175: The number of people killed at an Iranian girls’ school in a strike on Feb. 28. Initial intelligence reports suggest that the US was to blame for the strike, per the New York Times, after the military used a now-defunct set of coordinates to deploy the hit.
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