----- Original Message ----- From: Serbian News Network <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: NSP <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; BALKAN <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; SIEM NEWS <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Cc: NATO <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Saturday, March 17, 2001 3:48 PM Subject: U.S. Continues to Dominate World Military Expenditures [STOPNATO.ORG.UK] STOP NATO: NO PASARAN! - HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK --------------------------- ListBot Sponsor -------------------------- Start Your Own FREE Email List at http://www.listbot.com/links/joinlb ---------------------------------------------------------------------- U.S. Continues to Dominate World Military Expenditures Christopher Hellman, Senior Analyst, [EMAIL PROTECTED] The Bush Administration's recently released Fiscal Year 2002 budget blueprint includes a $324.8 billion request for the Pentagon. This is $14.2 billion more than this year, or 4.6 percent above current levels. As the world's lone super power, it is not surprising that the United States spends more on its military than any other nation. What is surprising is just how large the U.S. share of world military spending actually is, and the fact that while defense budgets are shrinking worldwide, U.S. military spending continues to grow. Consider the following. Russia, which has the second largest military budget in the world, will spend roughly one-sixth what the United States will, assuming its economy can afford it. China, which has the third largest military budget, recently announced that it would increase its military spending by almost eighteen percent. Yet the United States spends seven times what China spends. A word here about China's military budget, which has seen modest increases over the past several years. Last year, due to a slowing economy, it appeared that these increases might be plateauing, although some analysts warned that major increases might occur. Then, two weeks ago, citing "drastic" changes in the world military situation, China announced plans to raise defense spending by 17.7 percent this year, to roughly $17 billion. It is widely accepted that China's official defense budget significantly underestimates actual military spending - some analysts estimate by 60 percent or more - and that actual military spending is roughly $45 billion. In this context, the announced eighteen percent increase is actually a six percent increase. Further, given that in 1998 the Chinese government ordered the Peoples' Liberation Army to halt its commercial activities - a major source of the military's funding - the projected increase likely only shifts the source of funding to the central government and does not actually represent a significant spending increase. Some facts about U.S. military spending: World military spending, which was $1.2 trillion in 1985, stood at $809 billion in 1999. During that period, the U.S. share of global military spending continued to increase, going from 30% in 1985 to 36% in 1999. The U.S. military budget is more than twenty-two times as large as the combined spending of the seven countries traditionally identified by the Pentagon as our most likely adversaries - Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea, Sudan and Syria - which together spend just over $14 billion annually. The United States and its close allies - the NATO nations, South Korea, and Japan - spend more than the rest of the world combined. Together they spend thirty-seven times more than the seven rogue states. The seven rogue nations, along with Russia and China, together spend $116 billion, less than one-half the U.S. military budget. The United States alone spends more than the combined spending of next twelve nations. Miroslav Antic, http://www.antic.org/SNN/ ______________________________________________________________________ To unsubscribe, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
