The quantity of pleasure being equal, push-pin is as good as poetry.” When 18th-century English philosopher Jeremy Bentham made this remark, he meant quite seriously that all pleasures could be equal in value regardless of their source. He argued that the joy derived from a child’s game of push-pin is similar to the delight of reading poetry.
His illustrious student, John Stuart Mill, however, was uneasy with this arithmetic view of human experience. Mill insisted that some pleasures were simply of a higher value than others, giving the argument a qualitative twist.
This oddly sobering philosophical quandary comes to mind as I sieve through the latest dataset from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). Because what SIPRI attempts, year after year, and especially every five years, is something unmistakably Bentham-esque and yet post-Bentham in effect: the true measurement of global trends in war-capacity.
While there is nothing remotely poetic about the clouds of despair descending on a warring world, SIPRI’s methodology highlights the origin and value of the weapons themselves, away from a simplistic count of crude tallies.
Analysts, defence industries and scholars scour its tables to see who is buying, who is selling and how the balance of military capability is shifting in “values”.
Counting cannons
The latest dataset, from 2021 to 2025, was released on 9 March. At the outset, it confirms what the geopolitical atmosphere is already reeking of—this is the era of war, and the world is re-arming.
The volume of major arms transfers has risen by 9.2 per cent compared to 2016-2020. The increase, largest since the early 2010s, is driven overwhelmingly by Europe’s rearming, followed by the Middle East.
Analysis from the International Institute for Strategic Studies, IISS, too, shows global military expenditure continues to climb through 2025. Europe now accounts for more than 21 per cent of global defence spending—an increase from around 17 per cent only a few years ago.
Globally, military expenditure has crossed the symbolic threshold of 2 per cent of GDP and the global military spending, currently at $2.7 trillion, is expected to surpass $7 trillion by 2035.
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Importers
Coming back to the SIPRI dataset, European countries have more than tripled their arms imports in the last five years, making the bloc the largest recipient region for international arms transfers with a staggering 33 per cent of total arms imports absorbed by Europe alone.
Much of the surge is linked to the grinding attritional war in Ukraine that has now entered its fifth year. Ukraine alone has received 9.7 per cent of global arms transfers between 2021 and 2025, making it the topmost importer. The ripple effects cut across the continent, with Poland and the UK emerging as the second and third largest arms importers, respectively, in Europe.
Before I move on to other regions, I have to highlight an interesting trend.
Much of Europe’s modernisation is accounted for by the US, South Korea and Israel. That said, European defence giants in France and Italy continue to export to outside regions instead of arming their own countries. The only big power to buck that trend is Germany, whose big arms exports have gone predominantly to Ukraine and to European security.
In the Middle East, regional spending has grown significantly since 2023. The bloc has emerged as the second top-most importer of arms after Europe at 26 per cent, and the trend would continue.
Closer to home, India remains the world’s second-largest importer of arms, even when overall imports have decreased marginally from 2016 to 2020. The noticeable trend for India is the clear diversification away from Russia as the main supplier, falling from 71 per cent in 2011-2015, to 51 per cent in 2016-2020 and to 40 per cent in 2021-2025.
France’s rise as a major defence supplier to India is corroborated by data. At least 29 per cent of Indian arms imports have come from France, and the trend would continue.
At this juncture, please again remember that SIPRI data tracks only those arms transfers that have been delivered. The ones being signed or in the final stages are not accounted for.
For our neighbours—China remains the largest supplier of weapons to Pakistan, which has emerged as the world’s fifth-largest recipient of major arms in 2021-2025, with its total arms imports increasing by 66 per cent compared to the 2016-2020 period.
China has supplied 80 per cent of Pakistan’s imports—showing how Islamabad-Beijing defence relationship remains entrenched for times to come.
Exporters
The suppliers of arms reveal yet another story about the distribution of power in the international system.
Despite frequent talk of a multipolar world, the US remains the undisputed giant of the arms trade. Its exports increased by 27 per cent in the latest five-year period, with shipments to Europe alone rising by an extraordinary 217 per cent.
France, now the world’s second-largest arms exporter, stands second with nearly 10 per cent of global exports. French weapons reach more than sixty countries, with India emerging as the largest buyer—helped by the global reach of the Dassault Rafale.
But perhaps the most dramatic shift has come to Russia. Once accounting for more than one-fifth of global arms exports, Moscow’s share has fallen sharply to 6.8 per cent in the last five years, with exports declining by 64 per cent compared to the 2016-2020 period.
The reasons are both obvious and ironic. A war meant to reinforce military prowess has instead sucked in Russia’s production capacity and undercut exports as everything is committed to winning the region of Donbas in Ukraine.
Other suppliers are also rising. Germany has overtaken China as the fourth-largest arms exporter. Berlin’s brush with militarisation at large is set to rise further with the constitutional debt brake now removed under its chancellor, Friedrich Merz.
Italy, too, has seen exports surge dramatically. Israel has also steadily expanded its share of the global arms bazaar as the seventh largest exporter, even as it remains mired in a multi-front conflict situation since 2023, from Gaza to proxies to Iran now.
Geopolitics, like markets, is volatile, and arms transfers give us insights into its anxieties.
Yet, it is worth pausing to understand the peculiar unit in which SIPRI measures these flows.
Also read: A quick end to Iran war is in India’s interest. But Modi has no influence over US or Israel
How to interpret TIVs
I explained earlier that SIPRI’s statistical data relates not to contracts or MoUs but to actual deliveries. These deliveries are quantified based on their values, not merely financial cost or numbers. And for that, the institute has developed a unique measurement unit: the Trend Indicator Value (TIV).
Adjustments are made for assigning values to how advanced a weapon is, as well as for second-hand equipment, which is usually assigned 40 per cent of the TIV of a new weapon. Refurbished or modified weapons before delivery get their value raised to 66 per cent of a new system.
Therefore, SIPRI calculates the final volume of transfers between states by their assigned TIVs using these values.
For this reason, TIV numbers should not be conflated with economic indicators. They do not merely represent military expenditure or the financial value of export licences. All such numbers are adjusted to their values.
A few examples should help at this stage:
In 2025, the US delivered six F-15 Advanced Eagle fighter aircraft to Qatar. One aircraft is valued at 75 million SIPRI TIVs (less than its financial cost at approximately $97 million). The delivery, therefore, represents 450 million TIVs.
Likewise, France transferred four “used” Rafale jets to Croatia in 2025. A new Rafale is valued at 55 million TIVs, but a second-hand aircraft is worth 22 million TIVs (40 per cent of the original value). The four aircraft represent 88 million TIVs.
The system also accounts for crucial components. The UK delivered two Trent-700 turbofan engines for tanker aircraft used by the UAE. Each engine carries a value of 6 million TIVs, making the transfer worth 12 million TIVs.
Licensed production arrangements are accounted for as well. When Australia received two K-9 Thunder 155-mm self-propelled guns produced domestically under licence from South Korea, each system was valued at 4.5 million TIVs, reflecting 9 million TIVs.
The above numbers may look abstract to a lay reader, but their purpose is evident—to reveal the real value of arms across the international system and, through that, the temper of the age we are living in.
Swasti Rao is a Consulting Editor (International and Strategic Affairs) at ThePrint. She tweets @swasrao. Views are personal.
(Edited by Saptak Datta)