There was a 5 percent drop in Turkey’s military expenditures last year, with its military spending falling to $17.7 billion in 2020 from $20.4 billion in 2019, according to a report from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).
SIPRI released its report on developments in military expenditure worldwide on Monday.
The report showed that Turkey ranked 16th in terms of military expenditure in 2020, one spot below its ranking of 15th in 2019. Israel replaced Turkey as the 15th country with the largest military budget in 2020.
The report noted that the fall in Turkey’s military spending in 2020 was an exception as it had registered a record increase of 77 percent in its military expenditure between 2011 and 2020. Turkey’s military spending began to rise sharply after 2015, according to the report.
The total military expenditures of 11 Middle Eastern countries including Turkey stood at $143 billion in 2020, 6.5 percent less than in 2019. Among these 11, only four of them, Egypt, Israel, Jordan and Oman, increased military expenditures last year.
The SIPRI report also showed that worldwide military spending last year rose 2.6 percent compared to 2019 figures, reaching $1.981 trillion despite the coronavirus pandemic.
The United States had the highest amount of military expenditure in 2020 with $778 billion, which made up 39 percent of the global total, followed by China with $252 billion, India with $72.9 billion, Russia with $61.7 billion and the United Kingdom with $59.2 billion.