That's a 37 percent increase in the last decade and the highest amount since 1988 -- a time when the Berlin Wall was an impossible hurdle for millions of East Germans and nuclear war was just a button push away.

The United States accounted for $528.7 billion, nearly half all money spent, SIPRI said, followed by Britain ($59 billion) and France ($53 billion).

"It is worth asking how cost-effective military expenditure is as a way of increasing the security of human lives, if we talk about avoiding premature deaths and disability due to current dangers. For example, we know that millions of lives could be saved through basic health interventions that would cost a fraction of what the world spends on military forces every year," SIPRI military expenditure expert Elisabeth Skons said.

The increase in U.S. military spending is mainly rooted in the costly missions in Iraq and Afghanistan and the ongoing war on terrorism, but those are not the only reasons, observers say.

"The United States has a global leadership demand, and the military expenditures reflect that," Sascha Lange, military expert at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, told United Press International Tuesday in a telephone interview. "The American arms industry, with its many big firms responsible for a large amount of jobs, not only carries security importance, but also economic importance."

SIPRI's data confirms Lange's statement: Some 40 U.S. firms accounted for 63 percent of the Top 100 arms sales worth a combined $290 billion in 2005.

"Parts of the U.S. arms industry have benefited substantially" from the policy decisions taken since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Elisabeth Skons and Eamon Surry concluded in their analysis of the arms production market.

Michael Brzoska, head of the Institute for Peace Research and Security Policy at the University of Hamburg, called the effects of the large increase of U.S. military spending "alarming," as many countries have followed suit.

"In some regions, for example Europe, military expenditures are growing even if there are no real political reasons to justify such an increase," Brzoska told UPI Tuesday.

Yet for some observers, the most alarming military expenditure growth didn't happen in the United States or Europe, but in Asia.

Based on SIPRI's best estimates, China last year for the first time overtook Japan as Asia's biggest military spender and the world's fourth-biggest, with a budget of $50 billion. India ranked No. 3 in Asia, with $24 billion, and Russia spent an estimated $35 billion.

In Germany, Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, a foreign policy expert of the conservative Christian Social Union, told Tuesday's Berliner Zeitung newspaper while there were no signs of Chinese "muscle flexing" yet, the growing Chinese arms expenditures "don't quite allow me to put my mind at ease."

But China still only accounts for an estimated 4 percent of global arms expenditures, compared with the United States' 46 percent.

Yet while the Chinese mainly "modernize" most of their traditional arms sectors, they are significantly building up their intercontinental ballistic missile arsenal, Lange said.

"Right now, China has maybe three dozens intercontinental missiles, but recent research, development, construction, manufacturing and testing activity shows that this number will grow over the next years."

Lange added that the U.S. missile shields in California and Alaska would not only be able to intercept rockets fired from North Korea, but also from China.

"That has also prompted Beijing to update its strategic missiles arsenal," Lange said.

He added that China has also forged ahead with its space program, as the country only slightly lags the United States and Russia and has "at least" matched Europe when it comes to manned missions, rocket and satellite activity.

Almost 50 percent more conventional weapons (by volume) were transferred internationally in 2006 than in 2002, SIPRI said. China and India were the largest importers of weapons, with the United States and Russia being the largest suppliers. Several Middle Eastern countries have also imported more weapons, the study said.

"The United States and the European Union countries continue to supply vast quantities of arms to the Middle East, despite the knowledge that it is a highly volatile region," SIPRI arms transfers expert Siemon Wezeman said.

The report added that there still is a future for the world's most dangerous weapons.

According to SIPRI's annual inventory of global nuclear forces, the United States, Russia, France, the United Kingdom and China together held more than 26,000 nuclear warheads at the beginning of 2007.

Although the total number of warheads is gradually being cut, all five countries are undertaking or planning major programs to update their nuclear weapon arsenals, SIPRI said.

"The decisions taken by the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council will keep nuclear weapons in their arsenals beyond 2050," said Ian Anthony, SIPRI's non-proliferation expert.

An international institute for research into problems of peace and conflict, especially those of arms control and disarmament, SIPRI was established in 1966 to commemorate 150 years of unbroken peace in Sweden.

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