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Global Defence Outlook 2016

Shifting Postures, Emerging Fault Lines

Economic development and flat defence budgets are reducing the reliance of the world economy on defence spending, but tensions are rising along five global “fault lines,” according to Deloitte’s global Public Sector Defence practices’ report entitled 2016 Global Defence Outlook.

Executive Summary

Rapid, sustained economic growth combined with broad-based declines in global levels of military operations continues to transform the global defence environment. Over the next five years, economic forces appear likely to continue moderating global defence postures. Deloitte’s unique seven-dimension Defence Posture Index (DPI), shows that only seven of the fifty largest defence spenders have raised their defence posture since 2011.

But, even as global defence postures moderate, weak global institutions and advancing technological capabilities raise the prospect of conflict along five global fault lines:

  • Russia/NATO: conventional forces confrontation in Eastern Europe,
  • China/Pacific States: maritime confrontation in the South China Sea,
  • States/Terrorists: asymmetric confrontation in Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia,
  • Mature/Emerging Nuclear Powers: emerging asymmetries among nuclear states, and
  • Information Economies/Emerging Economies: confrontation in cyberspace.

The 2016 Global Defence Outlook examines policies, practices, and trends affecting the defence strategies and resources of 50 nations whose combined defence budgets total over 95% of projected global defence spending in 2020. The Global Defence Outlook also explores implications for defense policymakers and offers recommendations for managing shocks along the fault lines.

Download the full report to learn more about the economic forces driving defence postures, and the policy implications of the five emerging fault lines.

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