Militaire uitgaven krimpen in EU, groeien in VS (en)

BRUSSELS - The US is spending more on its military than EU countries, China and Russia put together. Meanwhile, as US President Barack Obama pulls troops out of Europe, the financial crisis is seeing EU capabilities erode.

America spent $711 billion (€548bn) at current prices on its armed forces last year, according to figures published on Tuesday (17 April) by Swedish NGO the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (Sipri).

The number compares to $496 billion spent by the EU27 ($281bn), China ($143bn) and Russia ($72bn) combined.

Obama declared earlier this year that he is pulling resources from Cold-War-era bases in Germany to put them in places such as Australia instead in what he dubbed the "Pacific [Ocean] century." But at the same time the financial crisis is seeing EU countries' power erode while Russia's armies slowly get back on their feet.

Looking at expenditure in comparable prices in 2008 and 2011, the EU was spending $289 billion a year before the crisis, but the figure is $281 billion today.

At the same time, Russian spending went from $57 billion to $64 billion, even though it is still a far cry from back in 1988, when it was pumping in some $330 billion a year.

With Chinese expenditure soaring from just $17 billion in 2008 to $129 billion in 2011, it is easy to see why Obama is looking to the other side of the world. But the Sipri report is likely to make painful reading for countries such as France and Poland, which are calling for EU countries to pool resources in the teeth of UK opposition.

"Everybody knows that sooner or later Nato will be finished because the US will pull out and create some kind of new structure," a Polish diplomat told EUobserver.

Zooming in on individual EU member states, the financial crisis has had a different impact in different places.

In the hardest crisis-hit country, Greece, military spending went from $10.1 billion in 2008 to $7.5 billion today. But Athens is still among the top EU spenders in terms of ratio to GDP (2.3%) due its perceived threat from fellow Nato member and EU candidate country Turkey.

Spending remained more-or-less constant in the other two EU-and-International-Monetary-Fund-bail-out states: Ireland and Portugal. But it plumetted in potential bail-outees Italy and Spain.

In the Union's top three military powers - France, Germany and the UK - Germany and the UK have shaved off a few hundred million dollars. But France cut $2.5 billion.

In the Middle East, where talk of war between Iran and nuclear-armed Israel or between Shia Muslim Iran and its Sunni Muslim enemies is getting louder, it is also easy to see why the UN believes Iran might be building a nuclear bomb.

Iran and its ally Syria are estimated to be spending just $8-billion-or-so a year.

Israel spent $16.4 billion in 2011 on conventional arms alone (it dooes not admit having nuclear weapons). The Western-armed Sunni-controlled axis - counting Bahrain, Jordan, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Yemen - spent $81 billion.