Security Assistance: Definition & 2025 Context ($2,740.0bn)
Security assistance is aid a state gives another state's military or security forces, distinct from that recipient's own defense budget, which summed to $2,740.0bn across 149 countries in 2025.
Key takeaways
- Security assistance is aid one state gives another state's military or security forces — it is not the same as that recipient's own military expenditure.
- World military expenditure (each country's own spending) totaled $2,740.0bn across 149 countries in 2025, per our calculation from SIPRI country-level data.
- SIPRI's dataset tracks national defense budgets, not bilateral security-assistance flows between states.
- The $2,740.0bn figure is a floor, not a full world total — some spenders, including North Korea, have no SIPRI series.
Verdict
Security assistance is cross-border aid to another state's forces, not the recipient's own defense budget — the two should not be conflated. For scale, national military expenditure (the figure SIPRI tracks) summed to $2,740.0bn across 149 countries in 2025, our calculation from SIPRI country data and a floor given gaps like North Korea's missing series.
At a glance
| World military expenditure, 2025 | $2,740.0bnOur calculation from SIPRI country-level data |
|---|---|
| Countries included | 149SIPRI-reported for 2025 |
| Figure basis | Constant 2024 USDSIPRI valuation standard |
| Data type measured | National military expenditureNot security assistance flows |
Security assistance is aid one state provides to another state's military or security forces — training, equipment, or funding — and it is distinct from that recipient's own defense budget. To size that distinction, our calculation from SIPRI country-level data puts total 2025 military expenditure (our sum across the 149 countries SIPRI reports, not a SIPRI-published total) at $2,740.0bn.
01 What "security assistance" means
Security assistance refers to resources one government transfers to help build another state's military, police, or border-security capacity. Common forms include foreign military financing, equipment grants or sales on preferential terms, training programs, and institutional support such as logistics or intelligence-sharing arrangements. The defining feature is that it crosses a border: a donor state gives, a recipient state receives.
02 How security assistance differs from military expenditure
Military expenditure — the figure SIPRI tracks and the one this site visualizes — measures what a country spends on its own armed forces: personnel, operations, procurement, and R&D funded from its own budget. Security assistance is a subset of cross-border flows layered on top of that; it is not part of the giving country's own defense budget line in the same way, and for the receiving country it may or may not appear in national spending figures depending on how the aid is delivered and accounted for. SIPRI's dataset — and the $2,740.0bn world total — captures the former, not the latter.
SIPRI's military expenditure series answers "how much does each country spend on its own forces?" It does not track bilateral security-assistance flows between states.
03 Why the $2,740.0bn world total matters for context
Security assistance is easiest to understand in scale against total global military spending. In 2025, SIPRI-reported military expenditure across 149 countries summed to $2,740.0bn (constant 2024 US dollars). That figure is the denominator against which any single country's spending, or any donor's assistance commitments, can be measured — for instance, a given aid package can be read as a share of the recipient's own budget, or of the $2,740.0bn world total, depending on the comparison a reader needs.
| Metric | Value |
|---|---|
| World military expenditure, 2025 | $2,740.0bn |
| Countries included | 149 |
This total is our calculation from SIPRI country-level data, not a figure SIPRI itself publishes. It sums the 149 countries SIPRI reports for 2025; some spenders are absent from the dataset (North Korea has no series, and several other states have gaps), so $2,740.0bn is a floor on world spending, not a complete count.
04 Who provides and receives security assistance
In practice, security assistance flows mostly from wealthier or larger military powers toward partner states building out their own capacity — often framed around alliance commitments, counterterrorism cooperation, or capacity-building after conflict. Because SIPRI's dataset records each country's own military expenditure rather than assistance given or received, this site cannot quantify assistance flows themselves; it can only show the scale of the underlying military budgets those flows interact with, via the $2,740.0bn 2025 total and the country-level entries behind it.
- Donor states — typically fund assistance from a separate foreign-aid or defense-cooperation budget, distinct from their own SIPRI-reported military expenditure line.
- Recipient states — may or may not record received assistance within their own national military expenditure figures, depending on accounting practice.
- World total — the $2,740.0bn figure reflects national military budgets only, across the 149 countries SIPRI covers for 2025.
05 Where to find country-level spending data
Readers who want the underlying country figures — the building blocks of the $2,740.0bn 2025 total — can consult the 2025 world rankings, which lists all 149 countries SIPRI reports for the year. For definitions of related budget terms, see the Glossary.
Frequently Asked Questions
- What is the definition of security assistance?
- Security assistance is aid — training, equipment, or funding — that one state provides to another state's military or security forces. It is distinct from the recipient's own military expenditure, which is what SIPRI's dataset tracks.
- Does the $2,740.0bn total include security assistance given between countries?
- No. The $2,740.0bn figure is our calculation from SIPRI country-level data on each of 149 countries' own 2025 military expenditure. It does not track aid or assistance transferred between states.
- What's the difference between security assistance and military expenditure?
- Military expenditure is what a country spends on its own armed forces from its own budget. Security assistance is a transfer from a donor state to a recipient state's forces, sitting outside that standard national spending measure.
- Is $2,740.0bn SIPRI's own published total?
- No — it is our calculation, summing the 149 countries SIPRI reports for 2025. SIPRI does not publish this exact combined figure itself.
defensebudget.org
Defense spending data, sourced from SIPRI
defensebudget.org tracks military expenditure for 160 countries using the SIPRI Military Expenditure Database. Pages are generated from that dataset and reviewed before publication.