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Originally Posted by highthief
Both nations (France and Germany) are in the top ten (maybe top five) in terms of military spending and economic power. Why would sub them out for poorer, less powerful, less advanced nations?
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You're right. 4 and 6 in fact. Here are the top 16 compiled by globalsecurity.org:
United States $466.0 billion FY04 actual [see Note 8]
China $65 billion 2004 [see Note 1]
Russia $50 billion [see Note 6]
France $46.5 billion 2000
Japan $44.7 billion FY05
Germany $38.8 billion 2002
United Kingdom $31.7 billion 2002
Italy $20.2 billion 2002
Saudi Arabia $18.3 billion FY00
Korea, South $16.18 billion FY04
Brazil $13.408 billion FY99
India $12,079.7 million FY01
Iran $9.7 billion FY00
Australia $9.3 billion FY01/02 est.
Israel $8.97 billion FY02
Spain $8.6 billion 2002
From here:
http://www.globalsecurity.org/milita...d/spending.htm
I wonder why france and germany are so high? Probably because of arms exports like "Mirage" aircraft from France and "H&K" firearms from Germany.
Interesting.
-bear