Countries Spending the Most of Their Budget on the Military
This chart ranks countries by military spending as a share of total government expenditure, showing how much of the state budget goes to defence rather than to health, education, pensions and everything else combined.
About This Dataset
Countries Spending the Most of Their Budget on the MilitaryUkraine devotes 54% of all government spending to the military, meaning more than half the state budget goes to defence, with Belarus close behind on 50.7%. These two figures are extraordinary: no other country listed exceeds 30%. For Ukraine it reflects a state at war, while Belarus's near-identical share comes without active conflict, making it arguably the more remarkable entry. Myanmar's 29.1% is a junta funding a civil war against its own population. Below them sit the Gulf states and Israel, all between 19% and 23%. Singapore's 20.1% is the outlier, a wealthy, peaceful city-state that maintains heavy defence spending as deliberate deterrence policy. Every country here spends more on arms than most nations spend on healthcare.
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Countries Spending the Most of Their Budget on the Military
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