World Military Expenditures and Arms Transfers (WMEAT)

Summary

Often pulled with the SIPRI data are the World Military Expenditures and Arms Transfers reports. From its inception in the 1960s until 1999, WMEAT was prepared and published by the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, which was absorbed by the Department of State in 1999. These reports provides annual military expenditures, arms transfers, armed forces, selected economic data, and relative indicators consisting of pertinent military-economic ratios for each country of the world, as well as in-depth analyses of arms transfers and proliferation trends.

There are two parts: Military Expenditures and Armed Forces Personnel containing eight “world pages” and 170 country pages and the Arms Transfer Deliveries containing thirteen “world pages” (no country pages).

These reports have been discontinued because Section 5114(b)(4) of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2022 repealed the 1994 statutory provision that required the Department of State to publish an edition of WMEAT every year. Therefore, WMEAT 2021 is the last report. However, the table is still used in IFs.

Tables in IFs

Table	Definition	Unit	Years	Source	Original Source
GovtMil%GDP	Military expenditures as percent of GDP (ACDA)	Percent	1995-2017,2019	WMEAT report 2005-2021	https://www.state.gov/world-military-expenditures-and-arms-transfers/

Data Pulling Instructions

Navigate to https://www.state.gov/world-military-expenditures-and-arms-transfers/

Select the report you need (i.e World Military Expenditures and Arms Transfers 2021)

There are two types of tables; "Military Expenditures and Armed Forces Personnel" and "Arms Transfer Deliveries." Make sure you pick Military Expenditures and Armed Forces Personnel. Then download the associated Excel spreadsheet.

The data will be under "Percentage of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to which Military Expenditures are equivalent" or some variation. Some others may be "ME/GDP ("military burden")"

Use the highest value of the percentages in the "last year covered" section.