ABSTRACT
After the Arab Spring, the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) entered into a new phase of political confrontations. The unrest is expected to continue for decades before the region stabilizes. Uncertainty about these changes may lead MENA countries to build up their security capacity as a deterrent against external threats, such as Iran and Israel, or internal ones. The military build-up in this region will persist for years to come. Currently this region spends 7.4% of its gross domestic product (GDP) on the military, while the global average is 3.1%. It has been argued that the discovery of a new natural resource greatly increases the risk
of conflict, especially if the resource is oil (Bannon and Collier, 2003). In many cases, increasing oil revenues have been accompanied by rapid increases in military spending and arms imports. According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI, 2010), rising prices and new oil and gas exploitation have given governments windfall revenues, some of which have found their way into military spending. There are many reasons to believe that high levels of resource revenue dependency may
lead to high levels of military spending and arms purchases. First, the military acts as the protector of regimes in MENA countries, as demonstrated by the Arab Spring: regimes fell
Defence and Peace Economics, 2015 Vol. 26, No. 1, 5-13, https://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10242694.2013.848574
