Black Box: Military Budgets in the Arab World - POMED - 0 views
pomed.org/tary-budgets-in-the-arab-world
Arabs ArabWorld military spending economy budget transparency
shared by Ed Webb on 13 May 20
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As the double whammy of the pandemic and the collapse in oil prices slams Middle Eastern economies, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank are already providing several Arab governments with billions of dollars in emergency financing and anticipate requests from others. Many Arab states are especially vulnerable to such external shocks because of long-standing economic mismanagement, often exacerbated by exorbitant military spending.
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The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) laments that many Arab governments lack any semblance of transparency in their military budgets, making it impossible to know or even estimate the region’s defense expenditures. Among other problems, this opacity makes it difficult for international financial institutions (IFIs) to factor Arab defense budgets into the requirements for adjusting public spending that normally accompany their support.
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only four Arab countries—Jordan, Kuwait, Morocco, and Tunisia—have made all of their military spending data public over the past five years. While it is expected that war-ravaged countries such as Yemen or Libya would have trouble producing a full accounting, other states have the capacity but simply choose not to release the information.
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While we may not know exactly how much Arab regimes spend on their militaries, we do know that they are among the world’s leading importers of arms—an industry rife with corruption—and the largest recipients of military aid. As SIPRI has documented, six of the top 10 importers of major arms were Arab countries, totaling nearly one-third of all global imports ($146 billion) between 2015 and 2019. In 2017—the last year for which full data are available—four of the top 10 purchasers of U.S. arms were Arab countries, and nearly one-third of all U.S. weapons sales ($36.6 billion), along with roughly $5 billion in U.S. security aid, went to Arab regimes.
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When IFIs provide assistance, even emergency aid, to Arab governments, they should condition the funds on transparent budgets, including a full accounting of military expenditures