The U.S. is well known for its immense military and defense spending. In 2020, the nation ranked #1 in the world in terms of military spending at $778 billion outpacing the next nine highest spenders, which came out to $703.6 billion combined.

One factor is the military–industrial complex (MIC) which feeds into the U.S.’ defense dominance, with a longstanding tradition of the defense and weapons industries working closely with the U.S. government and armed forces.

A Breakdown of U.S. Military Spending

So what are these billions being spent on?

The U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) laid out the spending plan when they made their 2020 budget proposal. It included a few main areas to invest in, including:

• Air – $57.7 billion
• Maritime – $34.7 billion
• Ground systems – $14.6 billion
• Space – $14.1 billion
• Cyber – $6.9 billion

This is just the tip of the iceberg. The overall goal of the 2020 budget was to promote innovation and to strengthen competitive advantages to increase the military’s ‘readiness’ factor. Additionally, in an effort to sustain forces, a military pay raise of 3.1% was included.

Military Maintenance

Surprisingly, however, the U.S. actually does not have the largest military in the world in terms of personnel, and some of the other top 10 countries have larger or similarly sized militaries spread across different branches.

COUNTRY	ACTIVE MILITARY	RESERVE MILITARY	PARAMILITARY	TOTAL MILITARY
Russia	1,013,628	2,572,500	2,310,859	5,896,987
United States	1,374,699	845,000	2,918,161	5,137,860
India	1,440,000	2,096,000	1,585,950	5,121,950
South Korea	599,000	3,100,000	900,000	4,599,000
China	2,035,000	510,000	1,500,000	4,045,000
France	202,700	72,300	103,400	378,400
Japan	247,150	56,000	13,740	316,890
Saudi Arabia	227,000	0	24,500	251,500
United Kingdom	150,250	82,650	0	232,900
Germany	178,600	27,900	500	207,000

Russia is only the fourth highest spender, but they have the largest military size of any of the top 10, at around 5.9 million personnel.

All of these countries have militaries that number in the hundreds of thousands to millions, and many are a part of treaties and alliances that require them to upkeep their armies and weaponry — but none spend half as much as the U.S.

To this day, the U.S. is actively involved in a number of overseas conflicts and maintains a large military force with millions of personnel. Spending on areas such as weaponry and wages is significant in order to maintain jobs, as well as national defense.

Data Source: SIPRI