Most Militarized Countries

The Global Peace Index is a scoring system adopted by the Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP). Every year, the non-partisan group ranks 163 countries based on factors within three main domains that contribute to peacefulness. This chart focuses on the militarization domain over the last 3 years. Contributing factors to a country's score include overall military expenditure as percentage of GDP, levels of armed services personnel, weapons imports and exports, nuclear weapons and UN peacekeeping funding.

Notable is the addition of Ukraine to the Top 10 in 2024 as it had the largest increase in military spending of any country.

To get the most accurate picture of militarization, the IEP has developed a new methodology for examining military capability in more detail. It takes into account the level of military sophistication and technological advancement, as well as the total number of heavy weapons. Standard approaches will often measure only inventory versus IEP’s new methodology which captures differences in capability. For example, such as accounting for older fighter aircraft vs aircraft with new technology.