Fun comparison: Kyrgyzstan vs USA

Recently, I came across the SIPRI (Stockholm International Peace Research Institute) yearbook. It's a thick 700+ pages yearbook with summaries on armaments, disarmament and international security. I would leave it as it is until I flipped the page on military expenditures.

In 2011 there were hot debates about the military expenditure in the US. Well, the expenditures by the Ministry of defense on national defense according to SIPRI yearbook made up 716.3 bln USD in 2012. It is a big amount, but roughly makes up about 5% of US GDP.

Picture source

http://www.texasgopvote.com/issues/restore-families/house-approves-national-defense-authorization-act-fiscal-year-2014-005572

For me, as for the Kyrgyz citizen, it is a big amount of dollars flowing to "fight with global terrorism activities." Just for the comparison GDP of Kyrgyzstan roughly makes up about 0.4% of US GDP. Per capita GDP of KR ($1,160) makes up around 2.3% of US per capita GDP ($49,965) in 2012.

So, talking about the US Ministry of defense military expenditures, they are almost 12 times more than the Kyrgyz GDP. Thus, it makes sense for KR to think of it as a big deal, but for US..., it is only 5% of total GDP...

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