The United States' defense expenditure in 2004 accounted for almost half of the global total and exceeded the 32 next most powerful nations combined, a prominent Swedish think tank said Tuesday.

The US spending has increased rapidly during the period 2002- 2004 as a result of massive budgetary allocations for the so- called "global war on terrorism," primarily for military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (Sipri) said in its annual report.

The US defense spending stood at 405 billion US dollars in 2003 and 455 billion dollars in the following year, said Sipri. US defense spending in 2004 was 47 percent of the world total, which, for the first time since the Cold War, exceeded 1 trillion dollars.

The world spent 1.035 trillion dollars on defense during the year, accounting for 2.6 percent of the world's gross domestic product, the Swedish government-funded institute said.

The Sipri report said unilateral action was overtaking collective measures to deal with global security issues.

"Many actions of the USA and other 'northern' powers since 2001 seem rather to have polarized attitudes further in the face of transnational threats," the report said.

However, unilateralism has not been proven to be effective, it said.

"It would be hasty to assume that the unilateral rather than the multilateral approach to wielding power will shape the globe's future."

"The events of the past few years have done little to bring global solutions closer," it said.

Source: Xinhua