The Failed States Index 2005: The War Dividend

Power, as Mao said, may come from the barrel of a gun, but a lot of gun barrels don’t necessarily produce a powerful state. We compared the index rankings to state spending on the military and found that weak states come with small, medium, large, and super-sized defense budgets. Yemen is the eighth most vulnerable ...

578494_091022_wardividend5.jpg
578494_091022_wardividend5.jpg

Power, as Mao said, may come from the barrel of a gun, but a lot of gun barrels don’t necessarily produce a powerful state. We compared the index rankings to state spending on the military and found that weak states come with small, medium, large, and super-sized defense budgets. Yemen is the eighth most vulnerable state, spending a whopping 7.8 percent of its gross domestic product on the military. The most vulnerable state, Ivory Coast, spends only 1.2 percent. Liberia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo also have small defense budgets. A large military is no sign of stability, however: Five of the world’s top 10 military spenders (as a percentage of gross domestic product) — Eritrea, Angola, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and Bahrain — are vulnerable states.

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