Korean War: Annual U.S. military expenditure during Korean War from 1950 to 1953

The United States became involved in the Korean War in 1950, as it led a UN military force which entered the war on the side of the Republic of Korea (South Korea) against the communist forces of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea), and later the People's Republic of China. The war was fought in the context of the Cold War, the period of heightened geopolitical tensions and rivalry between the world's two military and economic superpowers, the United States and Soviet Union.

U.S. military expenditures and Korea

During this period the two sides engaged in a number of proxy conflicts, rather than fighting a direct war (hence the 'cold' war), of which the Korean War was one of the most consequential. The war killed at least 1.5 million people and has led to the Korean peninsula being divided between the North and South to this day. In order to maintain large standing armies, fund innovations in military technologies, and to support allied regimes, both sides spend vast sums of money on military expenditures during the Cold War. Annual U.S. military expenditure more than doubled over the course of the Korean war, from less than 15 billion U.S. dollars to over 50 billion. This expansion of military expenditures would be repeated during the Vietnam War (1964-1975) and in periods of heightened competition in military technologies with Soviet Union (particularly the early 1980s).