A military budget of an entity, most often a nation

Nation

A nation may refer to a community of people who share a common language, culture, ethnicity, descent, and/or history. In this definition, a nation has no physical borders. However, it can also refer to people who share a common territory and government irrespective of their ethnic make-up...

 or a state

Sovereign state

A sovereign state, or simply, state, is a state with a defined territory on which it exercises internal and external sovereignty, a permanent population, a government, and the capacity to enter into relations with other sovereign states. It is also normally understood to be a state which is neither...

, is the budget

Budget

A budget is a financial plan and a list of all planned expenses and revenues. It is a plan for saving, borrowing and spending. A budget is an important concept in microeconomics, which uses a budget line to illustrate the trade-offs between two or more goods...

 and financial resources dedicated to raising and maintaining armed forces

Armed forces

The armed forces of a country are its government-sponsored defense, fighting forces, and organizations. They exist to further the foreign and domestic policies of their governing body, and to defend that body and the nation it represents from external aggressors. In some countries paramilitary...

 for that entity. Military budgets reflect how much an entity perceives the likelihood of threats against it, or the amount of aggression it wishes to employ. It also provides an idea of how much finances could be provided for the upcoming year.

Generally excluded expenditures are:

• Internal law enforcement
• Disabled veteran rehabilitation

The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute estimates that in 2007 military expenditures for the world were $1,339,000,000,000.
In the Saturday Review

Saturday Review (London)

The Saturday Review of politics, literature, science, and art was a London weekly newspaper established by A. J. B. Beresford Hope in 1855....

magazine in February 1898, indicates that the percentage of tax revenue spent on military budgets as follows:

• United States: 17%
• Russian Empire: 21%
• France: 27%
• United Kingdom : 39%, 40 million pounds or 2.5% of GNP.
• German Empire
  German Empire
  The German Empire refers to Germany during the "Second Reich" period from the unification of Germany and proclamation of Wilhelm I as German Emperor on 18 January 1871, to 1918, when it became a federal republic after defeat in World War I and the abdication of the Emperor, Wilhelm II.The German...
  
  : 43%
• Empire of Japan: 55%, 132 millions of yens.

The yearly report from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute shows that the purchase of military products by NATO member nations during the year 2003 rose 11 percent relative to 2002 (6.5 percent in volume).