The Military Expenditures of Less Developed Nations as a Proportion of Their State Budgets *

Abstract

Researchers in political and social sciences often use in their publications various indices of a nation’s military burden or expenditure, as part of their evidence or argumentation on a particular point. All budget and military expenditure figures are for 1974 unless otherwise indicated. All non-1974 military expenditure figures are for current, not constant, expenditure. All National Budget figures originally expressed in local currency. A serious and growing qualification is that, for an important group of countries — particularly those involved in conflict — though the figures may respresent their outlays from their own resources, it may not represent all the funds they expend on miliary expenditure. The basic trend over the past 20 years has been the relatively rapid rate at which military expenditure has increased in the Third World, compared with military spending on the European and North American continents. In 1976, this figure had fallen to 70 per cent.