How Much Do Countries with Military Presence in the Middle East Invest in Their Armies?
From Gaza to Aleppo, from northern Iraq to southern Yemen, forces from different countries are gathering, vying for influence, for decisive victories, and for new rules of engagement in the region. Russian flags in southern Syria, American and Turkish flags in the north, and Iranian flags in Damascus, Beirut, Baghdad, and Yemen. Behind these forces are countries that are allocating part of their budgets and economies to support their armies and enhance their combat readiness.
The Middle East is witnessing the emergence of various military actors who are fighting in different places or mobilizing their forces on the fringes or inside these countries. These actors significantly influence the military balance in the region. The United States, Israel, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, and Russia stand out for their significant military presence. The armies of Syria, Lebanon, and Yemen are also notable, but these countries often have more armed militias or foreign forces than regular troops. In addition, these nations generally do not provide comprehensive military information, making it difficult to gain clear insight into their military capabilities.
This paper aims to study the military spending of militarily active countries in the Middle East in recent years from various aspects. The first, most important, and most indicative measure of the volume of spending is the military expenditures in US dollars.
Military expenditure 2012- 2022 (current USD) Israel, Iraq, Turkiye, USA, Iran, Russia , Saudi Arabia
The United States spends more than twice as much annually on its military as all other countries combined. Following the US, Russia spends less than a tenth of what the US does, yet its expenditure is more than 12 times that of Iran in 2022. Notably, 2022 is considered the year with the highest military spending compared to the rest of the years in the period being studied. If the total military spending in Middle Eastern countries in 2022 is viewed as a single financial block, the spending ratios would reflect as the figure shown.
Spending ratios as the military expenditure is a single financial block
The indicators for Lebanon, Yemen, and Syria are not available for this period, which is considered a period of battles and wars, especially in Syria and Yemen. Therefore, the latest available figures for these countries can be obtained and compared to the previous countries. We choose Iran from the previous countries as it is already militarily present in those countries.
Military expenditure 2011 (current USD) Iran, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen
Excluding countries outside the Middle East, Saudi Arabia spends the most on its military of any country in the region whose military fights outside its borders, and Iran spends the least. This has political and economic implications.
Military expenditure 2022 - Turkiye, Iran, Israel, Saudi Arabia
Military expenditure (% of GDP)
The ratio of military spending to GDP is an important indicator of a country's economic capacity to support its military sector. It also indicates the importance of the military structure in that country and its priority compared to other sectors, to the point that it takes up a large percentage of income at the expense of some other sectors for countries suffering from a weak GDP.
Among the countries with a military presence in the Middle East for which data are available, Saudi Arabia appears to have the highest military spending as a percentage of GDP, reaching more than 13 percent in 2015, followed by Israel, whose military spending as a percentage of GDP has hovered around 5 percent over the past decade.
Military expenditure 2011 - 2021 (% of GDP) Turkiye, USA, Israel, Russia, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia
One of the most important criteria for looking at this indicator is knowing the level of GDP, as it is known that the Kingdom is one of the highest GDPs in the region and the world, so military funding may not affect the funding of the rest of the sectors, such as countries suffering from economic crises, especially in recent years, such as Turkey, Iran, Iraq, and the rest of the region in general.
