Publication

As in previous editions, the 2015 version of BICC’s Global Militarisation Index weighs the relative importance of a country’s ‘military apparatus’ in relation to the rest of society as a whole. The assessment is specifically based on 1) a comparison between a nation's military expenditures, its gross domestic product (GDP), and its health expenditures (as a share of GDP); 2) the contrast between the total number of (para)military forces and physicians that are available, when compared to the overall population; and 3) the ratio of the number of heavy weapons systems that a country possesses compared to its overall population. Finally, and for the first time, the 2015 report uses the Human Development Index in order to examine the relationship between militarization and human development.