Defense Spending in the Persian/Arabian Gulf

Source: SIPRI

A modern military costs money, especially if one is developing a capable air force and navy. This are big ticket items. Let of us for a moment look at what is being spent by states bordering the Persian/Arabian Gulf, as this seems to be the flashpoint “de jure.”

Saudi Arabia is the big spender there with 67.6 billion spend on defense in 2018 (source: SIPRI 2019 fact sheet). This actually makes it the third largest defense budget in the world, ahead of India, France, Russia, UK, Germany, etc. It spends 8.8% of its GDP on defense.

Some other Gulf states are also spending heavily. Oman spends 12.1% of its GDP on defense, although its GDP is small. Bahrain spends 4.1% of its GDP on defense. In comparison the U.S. spends 3.2% of its GDP on defense, China 1.9%, Russia 4.3%, Iraq 3.9%, Ukraine 3.4%, France 2.3%, UK 1.8% and Germany 1.2%.

In contrast, Iran spends 13.2 billion (or 19.6 billion in 2019 according to IISS). This is 3.1% to 4.6% of Iran’s GDP. This is around 20% to 30% of what Saudi Arabia spends and around 2% to 3% of what the U.S. spends.

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Christopher A. Lawrence
Christopher A. Lawrence

Christopher A. Lawrence is a professional historian and military analyst. He is the Executive Director and President of The Dupuy Institute, an organization dedicated to scholarly research and objective analysis of historical data related to armed conflict and the resolution of armed conflict. The Dupuy Institute provides independent, historically-based analyses of lessons learned from modern military experience.
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Mr. Lawrence was the program manager for the Ardennes Campaign Simulation Data Base, the Kursk Data Base, the Modern Insurgency Spread Sheets and for a number of other smaller combat data bases. He has participated in casualty estimation studies (including estimates for Bosnia and Iraq) and studies of air campaign modeling, enemy prisoner of war capture rates, medium weight armor, urban warfare, situational awareness, counterinsurgency and other subjects for the U.S. Army, the Defense Department, the Joint Staff and the U.S. Air Force. He has also directed a number of studies related to the military impact of banning antipersonnel mines for the Joint Staff, Los Alamos National Laboratories and the Vietnam Veterans of American Foundation.
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His published works include papers and monographs for the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment and the Vietnam Veterans of American Foundation, in addition to over 40 articles written for limited-distribution newsletters and over 60 analytical reports prepared for the Defense Department. He is the author of Kursk: The Battle of Prokhorovka (Aberdeen Books, Sheridan, CO., 2015), America’s Modern Wars: Understanding Iraq, Afghanistan and Vietnam (Casemate Publishers, Philadelphia & Oxford, 2015), War by Numbers: Understanding Conventional Combat (Potomac Books, Lincoln, NE., 2017) , The Battle of Prokhorovka (Stackpole Books, Guilford, CT., 2019), The Battle for Kyiv (Frontline Books, Yorkshire, UK, 2023), Aces at Kursk (Air World, Yorkshire, UK, 2024), Hunting Falcon: The Story of WWI German Ace Hans-Joachim Buddecke (Air World, Yorkshire, UK, 2024) and The Siege of Mariupol (Frontline Books, Yorkshire, UK, 2024).
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Mr. Lawrence lives in northern Virginia, near Washington, D.C., with his wife and son.

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One comment

  1. The per capita spending is higher for China and Russia, beyond 7-8% actually, this can be calculated. You will not get accurate figures for authoritarian regimes anyway, making these comparisons somewhat meaningless (for non democratic societies, based on the CPI index, 2018 figures).

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