The emerging approach to the defense management process holds some prospect for resolving the controversy between donors & recipient countries over the appropriate level of military spending in developing countries. Its advocacy of applying sound public expenditure management principles to the military sector has the potential to ensure accountability & transparency in the process of military budgeting. However, there are a number of challenges that must be overcome if the new approach is to achieve these objectives in Africa. Chief among these is the building of local capacities to respond to the demands of the new approach. Adapted from the source document.
Over the past 40 years, military expenditure data have been used in a variety of political contexts. There have been two fundamental shifts in the use of such data. First, there has been a shift of focus from military expenditure in the countries belonging to the cold war military blocs in the North to that of the developing countries in the South in the post-cold war period. Second, in the UN there has been a shift in the aims of the use of military expenditure data away from disarmament and development towards transparency. This reflects broader changes in the international peace and security community, where the idea of disarmament as a direct path to development has lost ground, while the idea of promoting security through, for example, confidence building, conflict prevention and peacekeeping has gained ground. Increased awareness of the interdependence of security and development is resulting in new ideas on how to promote both. This will hopefully lead to increased use of non-military resources for security provision in the future. However, the picture is mixed since the first half-decade of the 21st century was dominated by the opposite practice: the application of huge military resources in the name of defending and promoting democracy. In general, it appears that data availability and accessibility have tended to improve over time, especially in terms of access to primary sources for developing countries. This is in part because of the general tendency for improved transparency and is possibly also promoted by the efforts of the UN, the international donor community and data-gathering organizations. However, in spite of the improved access to data, the quality of the data remains unsatisfactory. Tracking states' conflict-related expenditure is also a major challenge. The industrialized countries' new modes of financing procurement through private finance require further understanding in order to assess their implications for data quality. The relevance of military expenditure data for the analysis of peace and security issues has been a perpetual issue throughout the 40-year period. The use of military expenditure data to assess military strength, in spite of the fact that such data by their nature are an input measure, tends to lead to misconceptions, as the cold war experience demonstrates. The relevance of military expenditure data is further challenged in the current security environment, with fundamental questions posed by the increased focus on internal security and the changing concept of security. Human security, with its focus on the individual rather than the state, and the blurring of the dividing line between internal security and external defence mean that military expenditure data are of less relevance. This does not mean that data on military expenditure are of no utility, but rather that they need to be complemented by other types of data series in order to capture the dimensions of internal security and human security. Adapted from the source document.
World military expenditure in 2005 is estimated to have reached $1001 billion at constant (2003) prices and exchange rates, or $1118 billion in current dollars. This corresponds to 2.5% of world GDP or an average spending of $173 per capita. World military expenditure in 2005 presents a real terms increase of 3.4% since 2004, and of 34% over the 10-year period 1996-2005. The USA, responsible for about 80% of the increase in 2005, is the principal determinant of the current world trend, and its military expenditure now accounts for almost half of the world total. The process of concentration of military expenditure continued in 2005 with a decreasing number of countries responsible for a growing proportion of spending: the 15 countries with the highest spending now account for 84% of the total. The USA is responsible for 48% of the world total, distantly followed by the UK, France, Japan and China with 4-5% each. The rapid increase in the USA's military spending is to a large extent attributable to the ongoing costly military campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq. However, in 2005 the effects of hurricanes Katrina and Rita also played an important role. Most of the increase in US military spending resulted from supplementary allocations administered outside the regular budget, moving control of funding decisions from the Congress to the President. A factor that has aided the upward trend in military expenditure is the high and rising world market prices of minerals and fossil fuels. This is reflected especially in Algeria, Azerbaijan, Russia and Saudi Arabia, where increased proceeds from oil and gas exploitation have boosted government revenues and freed up funds for military spending. The boost in the military expenditure of Chile and Peru is directly resource-driven, because their military spending is linked by law to profits from the exploitation of key natural resources. China and India, the world's two emerging economic powers, are demonstrating a sustained increase in their military expenditure and contribute to the growth in world military spending. In absolute terms their current spending is only a fraction of the USA's. Their increases are largely commensurate with their economic growth. Adapted from the source document.
World military expenditure in 2004 is estimated to have been $975 billion at constant (2003) prices and exchange rates or $1,035 billion in current dollars. This is just 6% lower in real terms than at the 1987-88 peak of cold war world military spending. As a global average, 2004 world military expenditure corresponds to $162 per capita and 2.6% of world GDP. However, there is a wide variation between regions and countries in the scale and economic burden of military spending. The average annual rate of increase in world military expenditure over the 10-year period 1995-2004 was 2.4% in real terms. This average encompasses two distinct trends: first, the post-cold war reduction in military spending which culminated around 1998; second, an increasing trend since 1998, accelerating to an annual average increase of around 6% in real terms over the three-year period 2002-2004. The major determinant of the world trend in military expenditure is the change in the USA, which makes up 47% of the world total. US military expenditure has increased rapidly during the period 2002-2004 as a result of massive budgetary allocations for the 'global war on terrorism', primarily for military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. These have been funded through supplementary appropriations on top of the regular budget. The supplementary appropriations for this purpose allocated to the Department of Defense for financial years 2003-2005 amounted to approximately $238 billion and exceeded the combined military spending of Africa, Latin America, Asia (except Japan but including China) and the Middle East in 2004 ($193 billion in current dollars), that is, of the entire developing world. Thus, while regular military spending has also increased in the USA as well as in several other countries and regions, the main explanation for the current level of and trend in world military spending is the spending on military operations abroad by the USA, and to a lesser extent by its coalition partners. In 2004 there was a growing debate related to the sustainability of the current military efforts of the USA. Questions were raised about the contribution of military expenditure to the growing fiscal deficit and its future impact on economic growth. A related concern is whether military expenditure will crowd out non-military government expenditure. The debate has been exacerbated by uncertainties over future trends in expenditure for military operations in Iraq. There is a recognition that security is a prerequisite for sustainable development, which has led to a debate concerning the different ways in which donors should support security sector reform. Some countries fear that extending the definition of official development assistance to cover security-related issues may diminish overall support for social and economic aid, and could even result in cold war-style assistance with the strategic interests of donors dictating the direction of their aid policy. Two ongoing support programs for security activities in crisis-prone developing countries -- US assistance to Colombia and British support for the security sector in Sierra Leone -- are examples of emerging patterns of security assistance provided in the context of development assistance but which indirectly enhance security at home. Adapted from the source document.
World military expenditure, which has been increasing since 1998, rose by 6% in real terms in 2002 to $794 billion (in current prices), 2.5% of world GDP. This sharp acceleration in the rate of increase is overwhelmingly due to large increases by the US, in response to the events of 11 September 2001. However, the war on terrorism has not provoked similar increases in most other countries, in particular in Western Europe, where spending remained flat. Some other major spenders continued to increase military expenditure, including China & Russia, to promote force modernization, & India because of regional security factors. 8 Tables, 3 Appendixes. Adapted from the source document.
World military expenditure increased by about 2% in real terms in 2001 to $839 billion (in current prices) according to adopted budgets. Since 1998, when it reached its lowest point since the end of the Cold War, it has increased by 7%. When the actual expenditure figures for 2001 become available, the increase is likely to be greater because of additional expenditure generated by the 11 September terrorist attacks on the USA & the ensuing 'war on terrorism.' Five countries accounted for more than half of world military spending in 2001: the USA (36%), Russia (6%), & France, Japan, & the UK (5% each). The high-income countries have the highest per capita spending, while the countries where military spending imposes the heaviest economic burden are located in the Middle East & Africa. 8 Tables, 5 Appendixes. Adapted from the source document.
World military expenditure is increasing again after a 10-year period of post-Cold War reductions. The rise began in 1999 & continued in 2000. World military expenditure in 2000 amounted to 798 billion dollars (in current prices), according to provisional figures -- an increase of 3% in real terms over 1999 & of 5% over 1998. Military spending increased in all regions between 1998 & 2000. Those with the largest volume increases were North America & Europe, the result primarily of increases in the expenditures of the US & Russia. US military expenditure increased by 2.3% in real terms during the two years. Provisional figures for Russian military expenditure in 2000 showed an increase of 44% in real terms over 1998, but Russian military expenditure is only one-sixth of that of the US. The region with the steepest rise was Africa, where military expenditure increased by 37% in real terms between 1998 & 2000. This is the result of strong increases in the military budgets of countries involved in wars & in those contiguous to countries in conflict. 15 Tables. Adapted from the source document.
Transparency is commonly understood as the release of information by governments. A review of the availability of quantitative data on a multinational level about the arms life cycle 'from development to destruction', shows that government openness is not sufficient to provide the information required by representative institutions, the media and the public at large. Such openness is a prerequisite for democratic control and for the accountability of government actions at the national and international levels. However, transparency is relative. The value of information depends on features such as availability, reliability, comprehensiveness, comparability and disaggregation. Data rarely meet all these requirements for each phase of the acquisition cycle. There are variations between countries in the definitions that determine what they include and exclude in their reported data. The problem of definition is increasing, while the activities of arms producers remain partly beyond the control of the citizens of the countries where they operate. The dual-use nature of many current innovations in science and technology is making it both more important and harder to pin down and compare the financial commitment to specifically military research and development. The lack of internationally agreed definitions, or adherence to existing definitions, poses obvious problems for international comparisons. There is no systematic, reliable, valid and global -- or in most cases, even regional -- set of quantitative data on the arms life cycle. Persistent government preferences for secrecy are part of the explanation, as illustrated by the limited transparency in national arms inventories in general and in nuclear and biological weapons in particular. Although some progress has been made since the late 1960s towards greater transparency in nuclear arsenals, there remain large uncertainties about global inventories of nuclear weapons and weapon -- usable fissile material. For biological weapons, transparency could even be decreasing. More positive trends have been noted regarding data on chemical weapons, military expenditure and arms transfers. Destroyed chemical weapons as well as remaining stockpiles are reported as part of multinational agreements. Increasing transparency in arms transfers is partly the result of public demand and of governments' willingness to release more and better data. Data on military expenditure -- an important share of public finance in many countries -- have become, among other things, part of the policy debate about development assistance, and the changing character of threats and armed conflicts has also increased the demand for data on internal security expenditure and on the balance between expenditure for internal and external security. Such demands come not only from governments and their development assistance agencies, but also from foreign investors and non-governmental organizations. The Small Arms Survey illustrates the increasing political relevance of small arms and light weapons. However, the existence of national forces and stocks of weapons abroad, as well as access to foreign bases, makes it hard to keep track of the exact size and deployment of national inventories at a given time, let alone to assess operational military capability in a particular regional setting. Making the whole life cycle 'from development to destruction' transparent will call for major additional resources. Meeting that demand is a challenge to all governments and other organizations that count public transparency among their highest aims. Adapted from the source document.
