Growing global tensions mean - defence spending is about to hit its highest level since the Cold War peak of the Eighties.

Data prepared exclusively for The Daily Telegraph by IHS Markit Jane's defence analysts forecast that arms spending will hit US$1.67 trillion ($2.3t) in the coming year - overtaking the recent high seen in 2010 of US$1.63t ($2.3t).

Little data exist about the Soviet Union's defence spending when the Cold War was at its most intense, but Jane's experts believe that in the mid to late Eighties global funding for defence was between 10 per cent and 20 per cent higher than the current level.

The total expected spending for 2018 is 3.3 per cent up on last year's figure and is being driven by the US - the world's best funded military, accounting for 40 per cent of global defence budgets.

American forces are expected to benefit from a 4.7 per cent funding increase under President Donald Trump to US$673.3 billion ($960.8b) in 2018.

The arms budget in Britain - the world's fourth biggest defence spender - is expected to edge up 1.2 per cent to US$51.8b ($73.9b) in 2018, continuing the reversal which started in 2017 of a long-running downturn in spending for arms and troops.

The UK defence budget fell by an average of 1.7 per cent a year under the Coalition government from 2010 to 2015, but this ended in 2016 when the Conservatives pledged to boost spending by 0.5 per cent and keep it at 2 per cent of GDP.

This level was seen as enough to fund the £178b ($254b) equipment plan going out to 2025/26 to kit out the UK's forces with equipment including new domestically built aircraft carriers and submarines, as well as buying P-8 spyplanes, Apache helicopters and F-35 fighters from the US.

However, Fenella McGerty, principal analyst at Jane's, warned that the fall in sterling since the EU referendum and lower projections of the UK's economic growth mean that the spending plans are now in doubt.