ABSTRACT
The military budgets of the Middle East states show gains and losses over the past four years, but the general trend is towards signifi cant increases. As with all the fi gures in this section, the statistics need to be viewed against the base fi gure. For example, the defence budget of Mauritania increased by a factor of 4.8 but its budget comprised only 0.07 per cent of the total Middle Eastern defence budget. The other major increases were by the following factors: Afghanistan 2.9, Libya 2.9, Yemen 1.3 and Algeria 1.3. Particularly high gains were also reported by Sudan (99 per cent), Iran (82 per cent), Israel (62 per cent), Bahrain (60 per cent), Qatar (48 per cent), Syria (41 per cent), Lebanon (42 per cent) and Saudi Arabia (39 per cent). At the opposite end of the spectrum from Mauritania, it should be noted that the Saudi Arabian defence budget is 32.2 per cent of the total Middle Eastern defence budget.
