Military Spending as a Percentage of GDP

Picture: PR Watch

The charts on page 6 of this article from the Council on Foreign Relations (Walker, Dinah. Trends in US Military Spending. Council on Foreign Relations, 2013; reproduced below) discuss military spending as a percentage of GDP for the last 80 years.  They look closer at the time after WWII and then even closer at the time after the Cold-War.  What I find most interesting is that it is so much lower than what I thought it would be.  And relative to how much was spent (percentage wise) in the 1940s, it is really incomparable.  I’m curious what those dollar figures are.

From Trends in US Military Spending  

Chart generated on WorldBank.org

But, looking at the data from the interactive World Bank site, I can see that relative to other countries, the US spending is higher than most.  For example, France spends 2.3% GDP on their military.  War torn countries (or their neighbors), including Saudi Arabia (in blue, labeled incorrectly as a second France), South Sudan, Oman, spend the most, around 8% to 10%. But most countries spend below 3% GDP on defense.   Our friend Russia spends almost the same amount (4.5%) as the US, which is not too surprising given our continued Coolish-War with them.