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April 25th, 2017 
Awake Goy 
nsnbc : One may discuss until doomsday why Saudi Arabia previously spent more on its military than the Russian Federation, or the fact that the USA spends more on its military than Russia and Saudi Arabia combined, but Russia has taken a third place as defense spender.
One may even buy into the narrative that “Russia became the third largest military spender despite financial troubles – and sanctions”. One may even argue that Russia, per square mile, spends very little on defense, especially when compared to the USA and especially when compared to Saudi Arabia.
But all “analysis, posturing, positioning and PR” set aside, here are the dry, raw and dusty numbers. Russia overtook Saudi Arabia as the world’s third largest defense spender in 2016, reports report the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) in its annual publication.
Russian defense / military spending increased 5.9 percent to $69.2 billion last year, falling just behind the United States and China. There is a large gap between Russia’s spending levels and China’s, which increased by 5.4 percent in 2016 to $215 billion. The United States was by far the largest military spender in 2016. Washington’s defense budget increased 1.7 percent to $611 billion.
Russia’s increased spending from fourth place in 2015 to third place in 2016 had less to do with Moscow’s spending increases than it did with Saudi Arabia’s spending decrease. SIPRI, reports that Saudi Arabia’s spending dropped 30 percent in 2016 to $63.7 billion.
CH/L – nsnbc 24.04.2017
Source Article from https://nsnbc.me/2017/04/24/russia-overtakes-saudi-arabia-as-worlds-third-largest-military-spender-sipri/
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