Military spending by Asian-Pacific nations to surpass US' defence budget in decade

Military spending by nations in the Asia-Pacific region is expected to surpass US' defence budget in a decade, a new study of military spending trends has revealed.

The study titled 'Balance of Trade' published by IHS James states that countries like China, India, Indonesia and other Asian countries are expected to have a rise of 35 percent to 501 billion dollars in their annual defence spending by 2021 while US will have a decrease of 28 percent to 472 billion dollars by the same time.

The increased competition in the global arms market had led to the significant shift of increased spending by the Asian-Pacific nations thereby surpassing the US.

Janes' Paul Burton said that the shift in the spending is the biggest explosion in the arms trade the world has ever seen adding that the global trade in military hardware will double by 2020.

According to the study, Israel is expected to surpass US as largest exporter of unmanned drone aircrafts by this year and will be exporting twice as many in the next year.

In 2012, American firms sold US allies 430 million dollars worth of drones while Israel in the same period exported nearly 50 percent to 238 million dollars and is set to double again this year.

One of the authors of the study Guy Anderson has warned that US and its western allies are in a position to lose their hold in terms of technology in the defence industries over Asia, Middle east and rest of the world.

Anderson said that low-end defence equipment dominates the market as a result of which China's exports have double in the last five years adding that US faces threat from the Asian countries in terms of expenditure on the defence technology, the report added.