Global Defense Outlook 2015

Executive Summary

Deloitte’s third annual Global Defense Outlook examines policies, practices and trends affecting the defense budgets and strategies of the 50 nations whose combined defense budgets total over 95% of global defense spending (the “Top 50”). This year’s report describes how violence from terrorism and battle has become chronic and concentrated in a few very poor countries, and also shows how vulnerability to cyber-attack is increasing rapidly in the world’s richest economies.

“Higher-income nations are reducing the growth of defense budgets to accommodate domestic economic priorities, and lower-income nations are generally increasing defense spending to accelerate economic development” said report author Jack Midgley, Director with Deloitte Tohmatsu Consulting in Tokyo. “Development is re-shaping global security, as the defense capabilities of rich and poor countries begin to converge”.

“Defense budget realities are driving governments and defense companies to promote defense exports, but a mismatch may be growing between defense market supply and demand” added Midgley.

Key Report Highlights:

• The global economy is becoming less militarized, with defense spending absorbing smaller shares of GDP, labor and government expenses.
• While rich countries are less exposed to battle-related deaths and terrorism, they have become much more vulnerable to cyberattack than their less-developed neighbors
• The worldwide levelling of military technology may have less to do with underfunding in America than with continued Asian economic development.
• Accelerating economic development has created new challenges for defense ministries struggling to recruit and retain the quantity and quality of personnel required to operate increasingly-sophisticated defense equipment.

Download the full report to learn how these new trends are affecting the global defense outlook for government's and the defense industry.