World military spending hit a new record in 2008, boosted by the Iraq war, the return of Russia as a global player and the emergence of China, a Swedish think tank said in its annual report Monday.

World arms expenditure totalled 1.464 trillion dollars last year, a rise of 45 percent from a decade ago and representing 2.4 percent of global gross domestic product or 217 dollars for every person on the planet, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) said.

Compared with 2007, the figure rose by 4.0 percent in real terms.

"The introduction of the idea of 'the war on terrorism' has encouraged several countries to see their problems from a very militarised perspective, and is used to justify high military spending," Sam Perlo-Freeman, the main author of SIPRI's report on military expenditure, said in a statement.

"At the same time, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have cost an extra 903 billion dollars in increased military spending for the United States alone," he said.

The United States is, as expected, by far the world's biggest arms spender, according to the think tank.

It represented almost 42 percent of the 2008 total, more than the 14 other top countries combined in what SIPRI described as a legacy from former president George W. Bush.

Since 1999, US defense spending has soared by 67 percent in real terms to 607 billion dollars last year.

China, which like Russia has almost tripled its military expenditure in the past 10 years, was for the first time the world's second-biggest arms spender in 2008.

SIPRI estimated its spending at 84.9 billion dollars, which accounted for six percent of the global total.

That would put it ahead of France and Britain, which each accounted for 4.5 percent.

"China's increase has roughly paralleled its economic growth and is also linked to its major power aspirations," SIPRI said.

Russia, like China, took advantage of the recent years' economic boom prior to the global crisis to reassert its superpower ambitions, returning to fifth position on SIPRI's list in 2008 after a decline in the post-Cold War period.