Global defense expenditure is expected to hit $1.67 trillion this year, the highest since the end of the Cold War, according to the IHS Jane’s Defence Budgets Report released in December. Worries about an increasingly aggressive Russia – in the wake of Vladimir Putin’s annexation of Crimea in 2014 – have made Eastern Europe the region with the fastest growing defence spending. In 2018, military spending in the Baltic will be double the level it was in 2014 in real terms. In order, the top 10 biggest spending militaries in 2018 are forecast to be: US at $673bn; China at $203.3bn; India at $54.8bn; UK at $51.8bn; Saudi Arabia at 51.8bn; Russia at $43.1bn; France at $46.4bn; Japan at $44.2bn; Germany at $38.5bn; and South Korea at $36.7bn.
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Al Pacino: Scarface by Brian De Palma, 1983
reuters.com, Liz Lee, 06.04.2018
telegraph.co.uk, Alan Tovey, 18.12.2017