The United States famously spends more on defense than the next seven countries combined, almost three times that of its nearest rival China and 10 times that of Russia. But that commonly used data is flawed, according to a handful of analysts and academics who have used a different calculation method that adopts a measure known as power purchasing parity (PPP), which compares what currencies can buy locally. The problem with PPP is that there is no commonly agreed-upon formula for military spending, says Richard Bitzinger, Visiting Senior Fellow, Military Transformations Program at RSIS. “So it is natural that most analyses of military spending would use the standard exchange rates.”