Putting the regional 'arms race' into perspective
Is Latin America in the grip of a new arms race? Though experts disagree on the details, they do concur that at least the trend towards lower military spending has been halted, and in several countries reversed — markedly so in some cases.
Carlos Malamud, senior researcher on Latin America at Spain's Real Instituto Elcano, notes that the trend towards declining defence spending actually changed in 2005. Between 1995 and 2004 the region's combined military spending fell from 1.77% of GDP to 1.31%, one of the lowest rates in the world. Last year, he says (without offering an overall figure) there were increases across the region.
This, he reports, has continued into 2006, with Venezuela's military spending expanding by 33% to more than US$2bn, followed by Colombia (up 10%) and Chile (up 4.5%). He says that Ecuador and Brazil have also increased their military spending, but not in similar proportions.
The Red de Seguridad y Defensa de América Latina (Resdal), a private thinktank that monitors the region's defence budgets, comes up with a picture that differs considerably in the details. It has no 2006 data for Venezuela, but shows Brazil's spending up by 29% to US$17.2bn, Colombia's up 14.3% to US$4bn, Argentina's up 11.8% to US$1.9bn and Mexico's up 10% to US$3.3bn. In Resdal's tally, Chile's defence spending this year falls by 6.5% to US$2.9bn.
It is worth noting that even with its current increase, Venezuela is far from being the region's biggest military spender: it ranks fifth in absolute terms, after Brazil, Colombia, Mexico and Chile. In relative terms, in 2005 it ranked sixth, spending on defence 1.2% of its GDP. Ahead of it were Ecuador (3.3%), Colombia (2.9%), Chile (2.7%), Bolivia (1.9%) and Brazil (1.7%).
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Military spending in Latin America |
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| Country | 2005 | 2006 | Country | 2005 | 2006 |
| Ecuador | 3.3 | - | Argentina | 1.0 | 0.9 |
| Colombia | 2.9 | 3.0 | Dominican Republic | 0.9 | - |
| Chile | 2.7 | 2.4 | Paraguay | 0.8 | - |
| Bolivia | 1.9 | 1.8 | Nicaragua | 0.7 | 0.6 |
| Brazil | 1.7 | 1.7 | El Salvador | 0.6 | 0.6 |
| Venezuela | 1.2 | - | Honduras | 0.6 | - |
| Peru | 1.4 | 1.3 | Guatemala | 0.4 | 0.4 |
| Uruguay | 1.3 | 1.2 | Mexico | 0.4 | 0.4 |
| *Ranked by spending in 2005 | |||||
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Variations in 2006 |
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| Country | 2005 | 2006 | % var. |
| Brazil | 13.3 | 17.2 | 29.0 |
| Chile | 3.1 | 2.9 | -6.5 |
| Colombia | 3.5 | 4.0 | 14.3 |
| Mexico | 3.0 | 3.3 | 10.0 |
| Argentina | 1.7 | 1.9 | 11.8 |
| Source: Resdal | |||