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In 1983, the total defence budget of all Arab countries totalled $46,052 million. The Gulf states alone accounted for $26,847 million of that, which is 58 per cent. Yet those states manage to deploy only 5.6 per cent of the total Arab tank force and only 6.6 per cent of the total Arab strength in front-line combat aircraft.
In 1983, Libya's defence budget peaked at $709 million. Saudi Arabia's defence budget the same year was $21,952 million, after several years at roughly that level. Yet Libya contrives to deploy 2900 main battle tanks and 496 front-line combat-aircraft, while Saudi Arabia owns just 450 tanks and a pitiful 65 front-line aircraft. The question has to be asked: Where has all that Saudi money gone?
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This is a good point.
But the reality is a little trickier.
Defense Budgets today are of three types, depending on which country we are talking about:
1) Western-aided Budgets (E.g. Egypt, Jordan)
2) Non-aided Budgets in Western Alliance (E.g. Saudia, Kuwait, UAE, Bahrain, Oman et cetera)
3) Non-aided Budgets not in Western Alliance (E.g. Syria, Libya, pre-2003 Iraq, Algeria et cetera)
Note that counties in (1) can have very low defense budgets and still have a lot of tanks, aircraft et cetera, because the United State just gives it to them for free.
The countries in (2) need higher defense budgets because they actually have to pay for their tanks, aircraft et cetera. In addition, by the nature of their Western-tilt they must buy all their hardware from expensive producers in the West (US, NATO).
The countries in (3) can have lower defense budgets than the countries in (2) and still have more tanks and aircraft et cetera because they can purchase lower-cost equipment in undervalued currencies from Russia, Ukraine, China. Example, MIG-31 is 25 MM$ whereas a Euro/US equivalent is 100 MM$. Ukrainian T-90s are 3 MM$, US Abrams are 9 MM$ and so on. So Russian or Chinese supplied countries can have 3-4-5 times the number of tanks and aircraft as US-supplied countries for the same international dollar expense.
So we cannot directly compare defense budgets with number of tanks, aircraft et cetera.
We must first account for the following differences:
1) Does this country get Western Military Aid (i.e. Free Weapons)?
2) Does this country buy from the West or from Russia/China?
3) Does this country actually make anything or does it import everything
Upon closer examination, it appears that the GCC countries do not get aid and they are forced to buy very, very expensive equipment from the West/US/Nato because of their alliance status.
