President of Georgia Mikheil Saakashvili during a military parade held to celebrate the Independence day.
Photo: Dmitry Lebedev
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Georgia Leads in Military Costs Growth
One of the statements that has become very popular in Russia in the wake of the five-day war for South Ossetia is “the 30-fold increase in Georgia’s military budget in time of Mikheil Saakashvili.” It looks like Georgia really leads in acceleration despite that the figures hardly prove that particular increase.
The 30-fold growth in military spending of Georgia doesn’t appear completely correct. According to the most authoritative Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), Georgia set to accelerating its military costs not in time of Saakashvili, but rather in time of Eduard Shevardnadze.
The rates were moderate at first, but the record was hit in 2005, when the growth reached 165.5 percent. In view of that indicator, the growth of 69 percent in 2006 and 63 percent past year doesn’t appear so impressive. Besides, the comparison of 2007 and 2003 figures shows that the actual increase wasn’t above 10.26 fold.
Let’s take the SIPRI indicators for 2007 and 1998. The figures for Georgia are to be recalculated as SIPRI didn’t take into account the second increase in the country’s military budget in 2007.
Georgia, which military costs surged by nearly 1,300 percent (14 fold) over the decade is the absolute leader. It is followed by Democratic Republic of Congo that has been permanently in war for roughly half of a century already. But the military costs of that country grew no more than 633.7 percent over the decade. Latvia (594 percent) is the third leader, while Azerbaijan posted the growth of 553.9 percent and Kazakhstan had 304.9 percent.
The ratio of military costs to the GDP is also illustrative. Of interest is that the rating of countries with the accelerated growth in share of military costs in the national economy during the recent ten years doesn’t coincide with the first rating. The sole overlap is Georgia, which military spending soared from 1 percent of the GDP to 5.7 percent over the period.
Ukraine is likely to join the club of nations with high pace of the military costs. Defense Minister Yuri Ekhanurov suggested tripling the military budget in 2009 to about $7 billion ruble. This year’s indicator is around $2.2 billion.
www.kommersant.com
All the Article in Russian as of Sep. 02, 2008
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