Mick Hartley

According to a U.S. State Department report, North Korea is by far the most aggressive country in the world in terms of the percentage of GDP it spends on defense. Pyongyang's military spending accounts for 23.3 percent of GDP, which is more than double the proportion of the next most heavily armed nation Oman (11.4 percent). No surprise there, but it's still interesting to see the figures.

Saudi Arabia comes in third (8.5 percent), followed by South Sudan (8.4 percent), Eritrea (6.9 percent), Israel (6.5 percent), Jordan (6.3 percent), Burma (6.1 percent), Yemen (five percent) and the UAE. (4.9 percent).

The U.S. ranked 15th with 4.3 percent of a much vaster GDP, Russia 20th (3.8 percent), South Korea 47th (2.6 percent), China 68th (two percent), and Japan 136th (one percent).

In terms of actual spend, the U.S. ranks first by a long margin with $701 billion, taking up 43 percent of the world's entire global military spending and about 8.6 200 times North Korea's $3.51 billion. 

The North also ranks second in terms of the ratio of military personnel to the working population at 7.9 percent, only topped by Eritrea's 8.1 percent.

China and Russia are surprisingly low down. Of course there's no guarantee that their figures are accurate.

With the US figure so dramatically high, you have to think it's nice of them to sit back and let other nations – Russia, Iran – flex their muscles over Syria. Clearly they're holding their firepower back for a real emergency: something more serious than a half million dead and a country destroyed….