Dinah Walker, “Trends in U.S. Military Spending,” Council on Foreign Relations, 30 July 2013

The following charts present historical trends in U.S. military spending and analyze the forces that may drive it lower.

These charts draw on data from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) and from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA). Both data sets include spending on overseas contingency operations as well as defense. This distinguishes them from data used in the U.S. budget, which separates defense spending from spending on overseas operations.

Download Trends in US Military Spending 2013 [pdf].