The New Year began. Former Soviet republics of Central Asia drafted their budgets and charted defense expenditures.

Military potential of the Central Asian member states of the CIS is available at News.ferghana.ru/archive.

This process has a distinct peculiarity that distinguishes it from recent years. In general, gain in the military budgets of the Central Asian countries outran the growth of their economies. Thus, whereas the growth of GDP of the former Soviet republics of Central Asia in dollar terms is expected to be no less than 9-10%, growth of their military expenditures will amount to 48%. Along with this, Kazakhstan doubled its defense expenditures compared to 2006. For the first time throughout the entire history of this country, these expenditures exceeded $1 billion and amounted to $1.22 billion (in 2006, they amounted to $0.6 billion). This is the highest rate of military expenditure growth in the post-Soviet space.

(Besides Kazakhstan, only Azerbaijan in the CIS approached this speed of national military budget growth in 2007.) Meanwhile, it should be noted that such military expenditures are not burdensome for Kazakhstan, as they amount only to 1.2% of the GDP. Kazakhstan managed to increase its military expenditures due to the active growth of its economy. Because of this growth, it began intensive rearmament of its army, the establishment of a navy in the Caspian Sea, and an effort to make its armed forces professional by 70%.

It is interesting that Uzbekistan still spends as much money on defense as it does. Compared to 2006, the allocations for defense purposes in this country grew almost by $100 million in 2007 reaching $902.4 million or about 4.8% of the GDP. According to the percentage of defense expenditures in the GDP, this is the highest result in the CIS (Azerbaijan with 4.5% of the GDP holds second place). The GDP of Uzbekistan amounts only to one-fifth of the GDP of Kazakhstan, although in regard to military expenditures, this ratio is 8:10. It is possible to explain Tashkent's big defense expenditures by the difficult social and political situation in the country, as well as to destabilization attempts similar to those made during the events in Andizhan in May 2005. Proceeding from this situation, the incumbent Uzbek regime has to spend a considerable amount on defense and the maintenance of its troops.

The military budget of Turkmenistan is the third largest in Central Asia. Compared to 2006, it grew by 37% and amounted to about $116 million. However, this sum is evidently spent only on the maintenance of troops. Larger sums are obviously spent on their armament and these expenditures pass through other articles of the budget. Thus, in exchange for gas, Ashkhabad repaired, modernized and bought new armament and combat hardware worth almost $500 million from the Ukraine.

What Turkmenistan spends on its national security servicce and polcie is classified. This country has population of 5 million. Security agencies have no less than 50,000 servicemen and law-enforcement agencies have almost 100,000 servicemen, which amounts to about 3% of the population of the republic. Thus, it is possible to presume that Turkmenistan spends no less than $500-600 a year on defense and security.

According to military expenditures in Central Asia, the outsiders remain Tajikistan ($52.2 million) and Kyrgyzstan ($40.4 million). These expenditures amount to about 1.5% of the GDP of these countries on average. Defense and security in these countries are maintained on a sufficient level mostly due to Russia assistance and the presence of military bases of Russia on their territories (the 201st military base in Tajikistan and the Kant AF Base in Kyrgyzstan).

Military potential of the Central Asian member states of the CIS is available at News.ferghana.ru/archive.

Analysis of information on military budgets from official sources and Ferghana.Ru experts