英闻天下——523 World Military Expenditure Falls: SIPRI

 　　World military expenditure¹ has fallen for the first time since 1998, amounting to 1.75 trillion US dollars.

 

　　In real terms spending is down half a percent from 2011.

 

　　These latest figures on spending have been released by Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, SIPRI.

 

　　CRI's Chen Xuefei reports from Sweden.

 

　　Global military spending fell in 2012 to 1.75 trillion US dollars, that is about 2.5 percent of global gross domestic product or GDP. Although the fall was only half a percent in real terms, this was the first decrease since 1998. Elisabeth Shons, former program leader of the military expenditure and arms production in SIPRI and co-author of the paper explained why the expenditure decreased.

 

　　"The main reason is that the military expenditure in the United States has fallen. And the reason to that is the end of the operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, we saw withdrawal² of American troops from Iraq in December 2011 and there is an ongoing³ drawdown of military forces from Afghanistan. So logically military spending in the United States should decrease rather drastically. We have not seen that yet. Possibly this will come in the future. There is a major and controversial debate about that in the United States right now."

 

　　Skons said that the decrease of military spending in Europe was due to the change of security policies and austerity policies in western Europe.

 

　　However, the global total is still higher in real terms than the peak near the end of the cold war. The attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001 prompted 8 years of rapidly increasing spending led by the US.

 

　　The US and its allies are still responsible for the great majority of world military spending. The NATO members together spent a trillion US dollars in military expenditure.

 

　　In regional comparison, Americas' military spending doubles that of Asia and Oceania's total while Europe's spending stood at 407 billion dollars, second to Americas.

 

　　The US military spending stood at 682 billion dollars in 2012, going a little below 40 percent of the world's total for the first time since the collapse⁴ of the Soviet⁵ Union. But it's still nearly 70 percent more than that in 2001.

 

　　Since the 2008 global financial crisis, 18 of the 31 countries in the European Union or European NATO have cut military spending by more than 10 percent in real terms.

 

　　Military spending in Eastern Europe increased by 15.3 percent in 2012, the largest regional increase. Besides Russia, Ukraine also increased its spending substantially—by 24 percent.

 

　　For CRI, this is Chen Xuefei reporting from Stockholm.

1 expenditure   

n.(时间、劳力、金钱等)支出；使用，消耗

参考例句：

• The entry of all expenditure is necessary.有必要把一切开支入账。
• The monthly expenditure of our family is four hundred dollars altogether.我们一家的开销每月共计四百元。

2 withdrawal   

n.取回，提款；撤退，撤军；收回，撤销

参考例句：

• The police were forced to make a tactical withdrawal.警方被迫进行战术撤退。
• They insisted upon a withdrawal of the statement and a public apology.他们坚持要收回那些话并公开道歉。

3 ongoing   

adj.进行中的，前进的

参考例句：

• The problem is ongoing.这个问题尚未解决。
• The issues raised in the report relate directly to Age Concern's ongoing work in this area.报告中提出的问题与“关心老人”组织在这方面正在做的工作有直接的关系。

4 collapse   

vi.累倒；昏倒；倒塌；塌陷

参考例句：

• The country's economy is on the verge of collapse.国家的经济已到了崩溃的边缘。
• The engineer made a complete diagnosis of the bridge's collapse.工程师对桥的倒塌做了一次彻底的调查分析。

5 Soviet   

adj.苏联的，苏维埃的；n.苏维埃

参考例句：

• Zhukov was a marshal of the former Soviet Union.朱可夫是前苏联的一位元帅。
• Germany began to attack the Soviet Union in 1941.德国在1941年开始进攻苏联。