Iran’s defense budget will increase by 127 percent in the coming year under the budget proposal submitted by Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Kayhan news outlet, which is closely tied to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, reported on Thursday.
Ahmadinejad submitted his budget proposal to the Iranian Parliament (Majles) on Wednesday. The proposal calls for $500 billion of government spending for the Iranian year that begins on March 20, according to Iranian media sources and Ahmadinejad’s website. If approved by the Majles, the budget would constitute a 5.6 percent decrease from the current year.
Despite the overall spending cuts, state-owned companies that operate “independently,” national defense and the nuclear program are all slated to receive sizable budgetary increases. Iran’s annual defense spending is usually officially listed at around $10 billion but most experts believe the real number is between $12 and $14 billion. By contrast, in 2010 Saudi Arabia spent over $45 billion on military spending alone, while the six countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council spent nearly $65 billion in the same year, according to the Center for Strategic Studies Military Balance. The U.S. defense budget has been roughly 70 times greater than Iran in recent years.
President Ahmadinejad did not elaborate on how the extra defense spending would be allocated. As I noted in a recent op-ed published on World Politics Review, however, Iran’s military strategy overwhelming relies on the strategic triad of its ability to conduct unconventional warfare through proxy forces; a ballistic missile arsenal and delivery systems; and an asymmetrical naval force that Iran has amassed in order to threaten Gulf shipping routes. If past trends are any indication, then, these three areas are likely to see the greatest budgetary increases.
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