The Military Imbalance: How The U.S. Outspends The World

The Military Imbalance: How The U.S. Outspends The World -- Aol Defense

A telling graphic from the International Institute for Strategic Studies's newly released report on global military spending (click here for the original).

The International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) has released its annual series of reports on international defense spending, The Military Balance 2012. The full text is subscriber-only, but a summary press release, detailed table of contents, and a very useful overview of one of the more interesting volumes, "Comparative Defence Statistics," are free online. The content of the comparative volume is important; it gives a view of the gigantic girth of the American defense budget.

First, however, to better appreciate what these figures reveal about the huge size of the US defense budget, a short discussion is needed about the caveats that some articulate to adjust the optics of the spending comparisons.

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