Saudi Arabian monarchy, world’s fourth biggest military spender

This video from the USA is called US-Saudi Weapons Deal.

From daily The Morning Star in Britain:

Saudi Arabia becomes the world’s fourth biggest military spender

Monday 14th April 2014

Country’s spending in the sector rose 14% in 2012/13

Saudi Arabia has leapfrogged Britain, Japan and France to become the world’s fourth largest military spender, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (Sipri) announced today.

According to the institute, military spending in the Middle East had gone up 4 per cent in real terms, with Saudi Arabia’s up 14 per cent from 2012 to 2013 to reach £40 billion.

The rise makes the country one of 23 to double military spending since 2004.

Sipri said the rise could be down to increasing tensions with Iran, but that the desire to stave off Arab Spring-style uprisings with loyal security forces was likely a major factor.

Worldwide military spending saw a real-terms drop of 1.9 per cent in the period to £1.05 trillion, but this was skewed by the huge 7.8 per cent fall in US expenditure.

That was “the result of the end of the war in Iraq, the beginning of the drawdown from Afghanistan, and the effects of automatic budget cuts passed by the US Congress in 2011,” Sipri said.

Once the US is removed from the picture, spending actually increased by 1.8 per cent.

China’s budget increased 7.4 per cent, though this remained steady at 2 per cent of GDP.

It is the world’s second-biggest spender, though its estimated £113bn budget is less than a third of the £383bn spent by the first-place US.

“The increase in military spending in emerging and developing countries continues unabated,” said Sipri military expenditure chief researcher Dr Sam Perlo-Freeman.

“While in some cases it is the natural result of economic growth or a response to genuine security needs, in other cases it represents a squandering of natural resource revenues, the dominance of autocratic regimes or emerging regional arms races.”

Imperialist bloc Nato continued to account for well over half of the world’s military spending at around £570bn.

That was down around 6 per cent, driven in part by Nato’s belated military withdrawal from the Middle East but also austerity across much of Europe.

As President Barack Obama must have noticed during his visit, there is a panicky tone to almost everything the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia does these days, whether it’s campaigning for two years to win a coveted seat on the UN Security Council only to give it up immediately after the vote, or its public pronouncements of going it alone in the chaos of Syria, or its break with its fellow Arab state Qatar, or the closing of the Al Jazeera office in Riyadh, or the banning of the books of renowned Palestinian poet Mahmud Darwish. Or, of course, its opposition to diplomacy over Iran’s nuclear program and the prospects of a US-Iranian thaw: here.

Last week’s “Abdullah Sword” military exercises in the north-east of Saudi Arabia brought together 130,000 troops, as well as military jets, helicopters and ships. With the notable exception of Qatar, all the GCC countries were there to observe the exercises, as well as the head of Pakistan’s army: here.

The US is paying the cost of supporting the House of Saud as cracks begin to appear: here.

May 1, 2014 6:56 p.m. ET. Saudi Arabia’s rulers capped a large military exercise on Tuesday by publicly parading their ballistic missiles for the first time. The King of Bahrain, the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, Kuwait’s Defense Minister and the Pakistani Chief of Army Staff were also in attendance, according to Jane’s Defense Weekly. Don’t think they weren’t trying to send a message: here.

Saudi Arabia bans 420 books at Riyadh International Book Fair in wide-ranging crackdown: here.