Allies surpassed the US in military budget purchasing power last year, new report shows

VIENNA — America’s allies now outspend it in purchasing power-adjusted defense budgets, a new analysis by the Economist shows.

Using data on global defense budgets collected annually by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, SIPRI, the London-based weekly calculated that American allies in the North Atlantic and Indo-Pacific spent 111% of what the U.S. did on its own defense in 2025.

The countries included in the tally are the 31 non-U.S. NATO members plus Washington’s treaty allies in Asia: Japan, South Korea, Thailand, Australia and the Philippines.

For the first time, spending by the U.S. treaty allies surpassed $1 trillion in 2025, adjusted for purchasing power, according to the Economist’s data. In absolute terms, it still lags around $200 billion behind Washington’s own defense spending, despite the year-over-year 7.5% decrease in the Pentagon’s 2025 budget.

America’s NATO allies in Europe and Canada alone don’t quite surpass American defense spending yet, coming in at 81% of the U.S. military budget, the Economist analysis said.

However, while the U.S. military spending has been more or less stagnant for several years, the allies’ defense budgets have seen record growth over the same time period, driven in large part by European rearmament as a consequence of Russia’s war in Ukraine.

The number doesn’t include Ukraine, which is not a NATO member and not a formal U.S. ally, but stood out in the data as the most significant defense spender by percent of GDP: A staggering 40% of Ukraine’s economy went to the military.

War spending in Europe surged 14% from 2024 to 2025, SIPRI’s data showed , making the region the main driver in a global surge in military spending to record levels at $2.9 trillion. Although the U.S. remains by far the largest single military spender - in absolute terms and adjusted for purchasing power - the uptick in budgets across the globe offset the significant reduction in the Pentagon’s own 2025 checkbook.

The United States still accounts for more than 20% of total global military spending, with the second-ranked China making up just 12.7%.

Linus Höller is Defense News' Europe correspondent and OSINT investigator. He reports on the arms deals, sanctions, and geopolitics shaping Europe and the world. He holds master’s degrees in WMD nonproliferation, terrorism studies, and international relations, and works in four languages: English, German, Russian, and Spanish.

维也纳——《经济学人》的一项最新分析显示，美国的盟友在按购买力调整后的国防预算方面，如今的支出已经超过了美国。

伦敦一家周刊利用斯德哥尔摩国际和平研究所（SIPRI）每年收集的全球国防预算数据计算得出，到 2025 年，美国在北大西洋和印太地区的盟友在国防上的支出将达到美国自身国防支出的 111%。

统计范围包括31个非美国北约成员国，以及华盛顿在亚洲的条约盟友：日本、韩国、泰国、澳大利亚和菲律宾。

据《经济学人》的数据显示，经购买力调整后，美国盟国的国防开支在2025年首次突破1万亿美元大关。尽管五角大楼2025年的预算同比下降了7.5%，但就绝对值而言，美国盟国的国防开支仍比华盛顿自身的国防开支少了约2000亿美元。

《经济学人》分析称，仅美国在欧洲和加拿大的北约盟国的国防开支就尚未超过美国，仅占美国军费预算的 81%。

然而，尽管美国军费开支多年来基本停滞不前，但同期盟国的国防预算却出现了创纪录的增长，这在很大程度上是由于俄罗斯在乌克兰发动战争后欧洲重新武装所致。

该数字不包括乌克兰，乌克兰既不是北约成员国，也不是美国的正式盟友，但该国国防开支占GDP的比例最高，因此在数据中显得尤为突出：乌克兰经济的40%都用于了军事开支。

斯德哥尔摩国际和平研究所（SIPRI）的数据显示，2024年至2025年间，欧洲的战争开支激增14%，使该地区成为全球军费开支飙升至创纪录的2.9万亿美元的主要驱动力。尽管美国仍然是迄今为止最大的单一军费开支国——无论从绝对值还是按购买力平价调整后来看——但全球军费预算的增长抵消了五角大楼2025年预算的大幅削减。

美国军费开支仍占全球军费总开支的 20% 以上，而排名第二的中国仅占 12.7%。

林努斯·霍勒是《防务新闻》的欧洲记者和开源情报调查员。他报道影响欧洲乃至全球的军火交易、制裁和地缘政治。他拥有大规模杀伤性武器不扩散、恐怖主义研究和国际关系三个硕士学位，并精通英语、德语、俄语和西班牙语四种语言。