Talk:List of countries with highest military expenditures/Archive 2

Italy Budget

the italian budget is 19,811 billion of euro..38 billion dollars for 2008 http://www.scribd.com/doc/5207716/Budget-Difesa-ITALIA-2008 without consider the out defence budget inversion

" —Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.225.166.137 (talk) 22:35, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

EU

The national military budgets of Europe are out of EU jurisdiction therefore should not be included. You all know it so stop with the pro EU garbage on every page in wikipedia!!! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.115.217.48 (talk) 21:12, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

My, my, the inclusion of the EU appears to have irked some here, for a reason that I can't quite fathom. The article doesn't suggest that the EU itself has any control over the individual armies. If we were to draw that conclusion from the table, we would also be concluding that there is a single NATO army, a World army, an EU army, as well as a UK army that is separate to these hypothetical NATO, World and EU armies, and also a French, German, and so on.

Also, the EU is used in a comparative sense in other lists on Wikipedia, and does serve as a useful marker point. Its inclusion is not necessarily pro-EU. To assume that there is any political motivation behind its inclusion in (or omission from) the list surely goes against the principle of assuming good faith.

As Wikipedia is an encyclopædia, surely it should simply include as much information as possible in these tables? If figures were available for all Commonwealth members combined, then it should be included. If figures were available for all Schengen nations, that, too, should be included. If Texas were to decide to declare how much it contributes to the US total expenditure, then it should, surely, too, be included. These things should not be ranked, but should be on the list, for comparison, and to provide information. Omitting such data is not very helpful. 62.49.22.228 (talk) 00:01, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Nothing wrong with it if Nato is kept and the EU is not numbered —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.115.217.48 (talk) 17:36, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

NATO has it own unified command,

NATO responce force: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NATO_Response_Force And others: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Military_units_and_formations_of_NATO --Conor Fallon (talk) 19:34, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

My, my, the inclusion of EU in every list is obviously the work of people who live in dreamland and are tarnishing the credibility of Wikipedia. We can do without the "comparative nature" of placing the EU figure here. Well be happy to get a calculator to protect the CREDIBILITY OF WIKIPEDIA —Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.128.34.47 (talk) 16:17, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

♠ So when will the mighty EU pay their fair share of world defense? Will they continue to be only listed just below the US, yet remain at the bottom in defense of liberty? What is the purpose of having NATO and the EU listed?? Where are their counterparts for comparison? In the dreams of those who want the EU to share a place in history like the US did during the Cold War. --THE FOUNDERS INTENT ^TALK 18:39, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Well, for one they refrain from constantly invading other countries. Apart from that, there's Eurocorps and the European Union Force, which both take part in UN peacekeeping missions. Lars T. (talk) 20:30, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

These true "EU" forces might be more relevant to list than the combined numbers of every European country. The EU doesn't act militarily as a group aside from these specific organizations (if they did, we couldn't forget Poland), so listing all of their combined militaries as if they were one group is kinda misleading. Somedumbyankee (talk) 22:01, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

ACTUAL EU MILITARY SPENDING

The actual spending of the EU military is less than only 6 billion US Dollars

This is so because the budget of the European Union is :

€862 billion for the period 2007-2013. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_Budget)

So thats 862 billion / 7 years = 123 Billion Euros a year....

The Military budget of the EU would most likely come from its EXTERNAL ACTIONS EXPENDITURE

of 4% of that figure so the total amount would be only

123 x .04 = 4.92 Billion Euros

Converting that to dollars would be 5.97 billion USD

That is considering they use the whole 4% on the military.... —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 210.1.104.40 (talk) 18:13, 10 May 2007 (UTC).

sorry but you have made a mistake: the EU does not have a millitary force in the sense of an army (although there is a rapid rection force being built) EU millitary spending is a total of all EU countries millitary budgets

So if the EU does not have a military force, what is the sense of getting a calculator and adding all of the member states expenditures and placing it under EU TOTAL? Isnt that useless for what ever reason?

YES IT IS USELESS. but these pro EU retards can't seem to figure it out! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.115.217.48 (talk • contribs)

You may disagree with them, but try to be civil, ok? Parsecboy 14:51, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

For years comparisons about the USD and the ECU (European Currency Unit) were treated the same way and many anti-Europeans used to say that ECU shouldn´t be included as it was not a currency...Well, now there is the EURO and the European Central Bank (ECB)which are on the verge of becoming the strongest and more reliable currency and Central Bank in the World. All came from the former ECU and its institutions...The same will be on time with the European Defense spending; It is true that Europe right now is just an American Protectorate under the Dictatorship of an American Generalissimo called Bantz J. Craddock, SACEUR (Supreme Commander) of NATO-Europe and most Europeans are not eager to spend money to defend American private interests. But once the machine is running, it will arrive on time. Jacques Chirac tried and failed. There will be another tries until the goal is reached. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.57.48.156 (talk) 19:54, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

EU ?

Why is the EU in this list ? NATO is a defence organisation, so OK. If the EU is included as a regional grouping of countries, then why not include too groupings like ASEAN and the AU ? The sole addition of the EU in this list looks like either a case of eurocentricism or pro-European puff. Has it not been considered that some EU member states are constitutionally neutral ? Has it not been considered that the european constitutional treaty has not been passed - so the WEU still exists and, as a defence organisation, perhaps has more legitimacy to be included in this list than the EU ? I vote for removing the EU from this list, or else add in the many other world organisations that would have a greater or equal claim to be included in this list.--jrleighton 03:46, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

Please read the talk page archives and see what me and other 2-3 users discussed about this. Eurocopter tigre 08:39, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

I have. A lot of veribage: what was the conclusion - none from a first look. The points I raise above still stand. --jrleighton 00:17, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

Hello, I believe that the EU should not be here because our military is not controlled by the EU Government and is 110% sovereign in every way. I disagree with adding the figures up because the EU is a lap dog of America and we are not. We do not agree on most of the things the EU pushes like its constitution. Adding the countries up is a complete disrespect and should not be placed for statistical purposes.

And what is the serious point being made here ? --jrleighton 00:17, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

EU Defense spending is slowly developing. Right now, EU is just a NATO Dictatorship under the Supremme Commander of NATO Europe, which is an American. Europe is not Free. We are under an American Military Dictatorship. But we will be FREE. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.57.48.156 (talk) 19:47, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

Expenditure

Sorry if this question seems a bit stupid, but are the military expenditure numbers from the graph and table in USD per year?--203.214.47.242 (talk) 09:32, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Yes they are, (look at the header of the 3rd column), sadly the conversions are often very out of date, especially for the top 10 countries.

This is what makes this whole article a bit meaningless, maybe we should give the local currencies as we well and let the user convert, (or offer more conversions). FFMG (talk) 09:39, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

US/China

1. The US defense budget was being grossly overstated. The real 2009 number is 515.4 billion, not the 700+ requested by the President. Use the real number. Refer to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_budget_of_the_United_States

2. China's official defense budget is nowhere near the actual number, with most of the defense spending left out of the official budget. China does not include strategic weapons, foreign purchases, R&D, and its large paramilitary forces in its budget. In addition, China's budget understates what spending is reported. The US DoD estimate is double to triple the official number: 97 to 139 billion. Independent research groups and think tanks all provide estimates much higher than the official budget. Either use a range, or provide a footnote noting that the real budget/spending is disputed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.5.17.124 (talk) 11:11, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

Do you have any reference to your second point? Why should we accept the value given by one country, (the US), as better/more accurate than the value given by another, (China)?

I agree that the values are probably wrong, but I cannot really see why we should accept the values given by the US as 'more' true than the value given by China. FFMG (talk) 11:15, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

Adding a column for showing %age of GDP

How about adding a column for showing how much each country is spending on defense in percentage of GDP? --SMS ^Talk 21:02, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Given that the table is sortable, that would remove the need for the table at the end of the article. However care would have to be taken to make sure the numbers are from the same year. Lars T. (talk) 17:45, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

US Military Budget

Is actually $651,163,000,000 - from the link provided. You actually have to scroll all the way down to see the total number, not just look at the number on the top and go "ohhh, that loooks so good, let me write it on Wikipedia". Also, does anyone know if that includes nukes? 68.165.233.75 (talk) 02:01, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Burma expenditure

since there is no estimate of Burma's military expenditure, i wonder why it is ranked the 137th in the list ! Khaled Khalil (talk) 05:06, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

European Union

This page is entitled List of COUNTRIES by military expenditures.

The last time I checked, the European Union is not a COUNTRY. I think it should be immediately removed. Otherwise, other trading blocs such as the African Union, ASEAN, NAFTA, and MercoSur must be added to this list.

Either way, I will be writing to the Wiki administrators about this if it is not removed anytime soon. --Yoganate79 (talk) 23:30, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

For the same reason we have the world I guess, for comparison. If you have figures for the other blocks you are welcome to add them. If a consensus is reached we will keep them, (or not).

And, of course, you are welcome to write to admins, but I am not entirely sure what they have to do with it. FFMG (talk) 04:21, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

Heh, just as an old discussion about the EU entry gets archived, yet another one starts. Lars T. (talk) 16:41, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

Germany spending more than France?

This surely can't be right, the list states that the germans spend 57,5 billion dollars as opposed to the french spending 57 billion. German spending in 06 was somewhere in the area of 39 billion I thought? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 127.0.0.1 (talk • contribs) 13:19, 12 August 2007

Spending can drastically increase. It has been two years Lemniwinks (talk) 02:54, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

You are replying to a 2 year old note? FFMG (talk) 04:33, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Please update on Iran, they now use 10.5 % or $36 billion of their budget on military

These are 2009 figures. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_of_Iran —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.108.232.65 (talk) 13:19, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Never mind, it was 2.5 % after all. 83.108.232.65 (talk) 20:25, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

China &Russia Military Budget

Hi Pal

• China and Russia have MUCH defferent account system about Military budget from Western Countries.
• For Example ICBM=Space Development(Science&Education Budget) Missile Development(Science&Education Budget),Even import 400Million USD Su30, if China Export 400Milion USD Tanks, then Su30 does not count military Budget
• Pentagon Report Say "Altough Experts may disagree about the exact amout of military budget in China,most arrive same conclusion,Beijing siginificantly under-report its military expenditure"Sec1:32[1]
• Currently US have enough power to force China Disarmament,but the superiority is eroding day by day.
• 假癡不癲(Traditional Chinese doctorine/proverb -Pretend lacking in ability, let enemy drop their guard and Punch)

[2] --Jack332 (talk) 17:49, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

I am not sure who 'Pal' is, but let me reply anyway.

Do you have references for the Chinese and Russian claims you are making? Do you then know the exact budget of those 2 countries so we can add/subtract an accurate amount?

And, why only China and Russia? Why not France, the US, South Africa and so on? I am sure some Japanese expert disagrees with the Bangladeshi military expenditure, so why limit ourselves to the US estimate of China?

Why must we believe, (or even care), what the pentagon says? What do they know? They have been very wrong in the past.

Who cares what the US can do, this article is not about what the US could do to China?

What makes you believe that the reference given by a Chinese official is less trustworthy than some US expert and adjusted by yourself? If they claim they spend $70bn[3] who are we to question it? And if we question them, why not question all the countries, I have no doubt they are all lying to a certain extent.

Finally, if you still disagree with the Chinese budget, (or have some better references), then you need to update the article on the Military budget of the People's Republic of China itself. Once the value is changed there we can update the value here. FFMG (talk) 06:18, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Hi　

• Chinese force is almost 6-10Times as much as Japan
• You better Visit List of countries by size of armed forces

• Fighters US2100 China1900 Rus1600 TWN390 SK390 JPN360
• LANDTroops　Chi1600K　NK1000K US650K SK550K Rus430K TWN220K JPN150K
• Tanks Rus28000 US7800 Chi7500 NK3500 SK2300 Taiwan900+600 JPN600
• Anphibous Transportation US900Tanks China400Tanks Rus210Tanks
• Sub US72 Rus62 China 60
• Aircraftcarrer 50000tx2 Building 90000tx3 Plannning until Y2020
• And China's GDP will OVER German this year so how much 4%of German's GDP?

• If you live in France,You should know German Force well,and because I live in Japan I really know Chinese Force.
• Not Only Pentagon but also Japan's Chief Secretary of Prime Minister Mr Kawamura and TWN Defence Ministry and Japanese Defence Ministry are Same opinion. If you can read Japanese /Mandarin I can Show it to you.[4]
• Cold War have not finished at East Asia and China's Military expenditure now going to catch up Soviet Union,and China and DPRK are unilaterally aiming 2000 Balistic/cruising Missile to SK,TWN,and Japan more than Soviet Union's SS20x1845

• Anyway I proved that China is under reporting/have some issue about Transparency of their Military Expenditure by pentagon Report and Japan's PM Chief secretary's Comment. If you can not prove that "There are No under Report" then please give up to indicate Mis-leading digit

--Jack332 (talk) 15:24, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

The US is also "hiding" some military spending under other budget headings (e.g. $9.3 billion for nuclear weapons under Department of Energy budget). Lars T. (talk) 19:19, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

EU's place in the order

Clearly whoever is trying to establish EU in the second position below the US is doing so in order to try and at least pretend that there is an actual 'EU military budget' that is second place behind the US. This falls apart even on initial inspection, as EU doesn't even have a rank to begin with. EU's 'budget' is a simple addition of the individual military budgets of member countries, whose militaries are as independent from each other as any other country's, and it is therefore both misleading and inappropriate for it to be inserted between #1 and #2 as a rankless entity. Its rightful place is right at the top, along with "world" and "NATO", the two other rankless entities on the list. Placing it anywhere else suggests a strongly POV action. Meatwaggon (talk) 00:30, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

I don't think anyone is trying to pretend anything, the EU is used for comparison, just like no one is claiming there is a World budget or a NATO budget. This has already been (partly), discussed. FFMG (talk) 02:30, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

And you're obviously dodging the point, which is that EU' 'budget' is rankless, so it's meaningless to place it inside the rank order. By doing so, you are implying ever so subtly that EU has some kind of unitary budget that actually means anything at all in comparison to the ranked countries. It does not. And no, the discussion you linked to does not in fact have relevant discussion on EU's place in that list. If you had merely wanted to include this number just for comparison, placing it at the top with the other rankless numbers is a perfect way to compare rather than muddying the waters by sticking this rankless number among the numbers that actually have representation in reality. Meatwaggon (talk) 09:23, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

So why not put those three in alphabetical order? Yeah, exactly, because it makes no sense either. Lars T. (talk) 16:37, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Your post makes absolutely no sense. This is a numerically rank-ordered list, so suggesting that placing them alphabetically "makes no sense" is obvious, and is also nothing but a straw man argument. Meatwaggon (talk) 00:22, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

I am really sorry that you are looking for something that is not there, no one is trying to imply that the EU has a military, we are only using it as a comparison, (it clearly has no rank, it has 'total' and so on, the same a 'World' and 'NATO'), moving it the way you have makes absolutely no sense, you did not discuss it or tried to reach any form of consensus.

Please stop making changes because you are looking for something that is not there. FFMG (talk) 03:57, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Just the existence of an 'EU military budget' already implies that EU has some form of military unity that it does not. In addition, placing it INSIDE the ranking order instead of at the top with the other unranked quantities further insinuates a non-existent reality. Taking your logic to its ridiculous extreme, we could add in all sorts of subdivisions of "World" which are equally senseless, just for "comparison". East Asia, ASEAN, African Union, Central America, South America, etc. etc. etc. Shall we insert these into the rank order as well? And what the hell do you mean I "did not discuss it"? Did I not start this thread? Are you not replying to it? And what kind of consensus are you talking about? This is an either/or, on/off proposition, there is nothing to compromise and reach agreement on. Your reason, "comparison", makes absolutely no sense in terms of its relevancy to where this ephemeral 'EU military budget' should be placed. If you wanted a mere comparison, it does not matter whether it's at the top or inserted inside the rank order, so this reason sounds extremely fishy. The fact that you are fighting so hard to place the EU in the spot that you want suggests other motivations. Meatwaggon (talk) 05:47, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Please stop trying to imply that I have any motive behind the position of the EU figures, it just make sense, (to me and others), to have it in mathematical order. It is clearly unranked and flagged as a total rather than an actual value. You are making the wrong assumptions and accusations. Please try and remain civil, you are trying to force a change then _then_ discussing, this is what, 'the hell', I mean. You only started a discussion after your initial change was reverted.

The reason it was placed there is to give the reader an idea of other budgets, for example, the user can see the US budget in relation to the total EU figure or where the French budget is in relation to the World, NATO and EU budget. FFMG (talk) 08:00, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

In what way is it useful for the combined military budget of 27 sovereign states to be included, and not, say, the combined military budget of Africa? The EU is not a military alliance. How could it be, when four of the member states (Austria, Finland, Ireland and Sweden) are constitutionally neutral?

It's not as though the EU figure is actually directly comparable with the figures for sovereign states because there is a huge amount of duplication involved in maintaining 27 separate military structures.

From the looks of it, it's taken from data taken over different times in different countries. It's quite likely, indeed, that the definition of "military" is different depending on country - given that France includes the gendarmes, while the British figure does not include the local police. So not only are we adding things based on different dates, we're adding things based on different things. The number produced at the end is of no statistical value whatsoever. And that's ignoring the implication that the EU has its own military forces.

The actual EU defence budget is the cost of administering the European Security and Defence Policy. One would imagine that it isn't very much compared with the defence budgets of entities that actually have troops. Pfainuk talk 21:41, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Your post makes absolutely no sense. This is a numerically rank-ordered list, so suggesting that placing them out of order "makes sense" doesn't. Lars T. (talk) 19:51, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

@Pfainuk, the way I see it this is a different discussion altogether from Meatwaggon's original point of view. Should the EU budget/total be included in the list or not, (or, following your arguments, should the World, or NATO values be there as well). I _think_ it was originally listed because the EU does have some sort of military agreement that might make it worthwhile to give the reader some more information on the subject. The EU also has a common currency, (making it easier to quantify).

Maybe it was also added to indicate that the EU is not, in fact, a single country as such but it does have a budget. As I indicated earlier in the thread various discussions are in the archive.

And, regarding including the budget of Africa or others, maybe that would be useful, I don't know, the AU does not have a common currency, a budget or even a free trade area, so it would be difficult to make it clear to the reader. FFMG (talk) 06:20, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

It's a different discussion, perhaps, but I think it's a relevant one.

Personally, I would also be inclined to remove NATO and the world as well (though the total for the world could be given in the lead), or if not, make them pass the same hurdles as any EU entry. In all three cases, if it can be demonstrated that figures are statistically meaningful and that the spending is actually made by the entities concerned rather than by their members, then there is perhaps a case for inclusion using the expenditure by the international body. We could also give such numbers in a separate list, specifically noting the issues with the numbers.

So if we are to have an EU entry, we shouldn't just add up the figures for the member states. We should give the amount of money that actually comes out of the EU budget for military matters. That is, the cost of administering the European Security and Defence Policy. FWIW, the euro is a bit of a red herring because 11 EU countries - including the UK, which accounts for 20% of the figure we give on its own - don't use the euro.

The current annual EU military budget according to the article is equivalent to $312bn (over no fixed reference period) when the total EU budget in 2006 was only $143bn. Given that there has been no massive expansion in the EU budget since 2006, we may reasonably assume that the number we're giving as EU military expenditure exceeds total EU expenditure by a ratio of two to one. That simply doesn't make sense. Pfainuk talk 09:32, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

The EU is listed on many country rankings lists, such as List of countries by GDP (nominal) and many others. The listing of the EU is the sum of all EU member states and is for comparison purposes only, hence it is not given a rank number, however it is listed in rank order on the list so that it is clear to readers where on the list it ranks. The editor who brought up this issue and has pushed the weak excuse of the EU not having a unified military budget (then again nor does the world yet it is listed here) only wants the EU removed because he's Chinese living in the United States and is pissed the EU ranks higher than China, hence him wanting it removed or listed elsewhere so that the EU is not in the way of China appearing second. Maybe that sounds offensive, but true. 88.109.53.203 (talk) 15:53, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

NATO belongs on this list, the EU doesnt. The EU is an economic bloc so its understandable its contained on lists such as GDP, but in military terms it has very little role. BritishWatcher (talk) 16:07, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

Personally, I'd remove the world and NATO unless they could be shown to meet the same standards that I expect for the EU. I am only singling out the EU because it was the EU that was at the start of this discussion. No international organisation belongs on this list unless it has its own military expenditure independently of its member states. Any such entry should then list the amount spent directly by the organisation, not by its members.

The fact that the EU has no unified military is far from a "weak excuse". It's a very significant point because by including the EU in the list we rather imply that it does, and that it pays a sum equivalent to twice its annual budget on it. As BW says, including the EU makes a certain amount of sense in GDP lists as it is a common market and major economic bloc. But it is not a military bloc and has no military forces of its own.

That would be my view even if the figure listed was statistically meaningful (and thus could actually be used for comparison): in this case, it isn't. The figure is completely useless - indeed, worse than useless because it could be unwittingly used by someone under the false impression that makes some kind of statistical sense.

As it happens, the EU does have a certain level of unified military expenditure: the European Security and Defence Policy is not completely without financial cost. So the EU figure, if it has to be included, should be the cost of administering that policy. If so, i'd prefer it be listed in a separate list (for ease of use).

It is not helpful for you (the IP) to imply agendas on the parts of others. Since you may be new to Wikipedia, I suggest you read this. Pfainuk talk 18:08, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

expenditures

The list is not in the correct order according to the total expenditures in USD. For instance Australia funds its military with 24 billion AUD, not USD, however on the list it says it is 24 billion USD. The actual number in USD for Australia would be around 18.6 billion. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.12.70.105 (talk) 00:03, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

Well, be bold and change it, the article can be edited by everyone. FFMG (talk) 04:22, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

Actually, the original poster is just wrong - if you consult the reference, Australia's military expenditure is about AUS$29B, giving the listed figure correctly as USD$23B. Geoff NoNick (talk) 14:18, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

Time series

Is it possible to have a time series? It'd be interesting and encyclopaedic to see the expenditure of different countries in, e.g., 5-year intervals from 1945 to 2005. Umofomo (talk) 01:29, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

It is not very meaningful to compare one dollar in 1945 to one dollar in 2005. Clearly a dollar bought a lot more in 1945. A more meaningful statistic might be spending as a percentage of GDP, or we could have global military spending as a percentage of gross global product, i.e. the sum of the GDP's for all countries. Pnelnik (talk) 11:25, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

A Pie chart would be nice

It would be nice to have a pie chart for military spending, where the whole pie represents global military spending and a slice each for the major nations. It would also be good to have some sub-groups shown. For example all Asian countries could be placed beside eachother all being different shades of say green. All European Union countries could be together, with the individual states each having their own shade of say blue. After the major spenders UK, France etc, there would also be a slice for rest of EU.
Pnelnik (talk) 11:25, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

New Data from Sipri

I see that today ( 8-Jun-2009 ) the BBC has published new data from Sipri in an piece entitled Military spending sets new record. So perhaps this article could be updated. Pnelnik (talk) 11:25, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

I've updated this list with the most up-to-date figures from SIPRI. Nirvana888 (talk) 00:54, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Military expenditures of France discrepancy

In List of countries by size of armed forces, France is shown as having a budget of 37.9 US$ BN, while this article gives 67.6 US$ BN. PhilKnight (talk) 18:28, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

That article is using 10 year old data, (from a book, so I cannot really check). I'll drop a note on the talk page see if there is a strong argument why those values are used. FFMG (talk) 07:30, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Defence Expenditures of Turkey

Hello everyone, I'm new to editing Wikipedia, but it seems there is a huge overestimation regarding Turkey's defence expenditure figures.

According to numerous newspaper sources (and budget announcements) in Turkey, the Ministry of National Defense' budget for 2009 is 14.5 billion TRL, which approximately makes 9 billion US$ when exchange rate is taken as 1.55. How can we edit this in this article? Here is a resource: http://arama.hurriyet.com.tr/arsivnews.aspx?id=10389907 This part specifically: "the budget for the National Defense has increased from YTL 13.3 billion to YTL 14.5 billion for 2009". —Preceding unsigned comment added by Pathfinder tr (talk • contribs) 18:02, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Templates for deletion nomination of Template:Lists of countries

Template:Lists of countries has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for Deletion page. Thank you. Cybercobra (talk) 07:04, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

African Union

I was wondering why the AU's military budget was not included? 17:04, 4 July 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by MPA (talk • contribs)

Ecuador appears twice

There is an error because Ecuador appears twice.--88.24.240.170 (talk) 07:44, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

China's defence spending underestimated

The table shows China's %GDP spending as 1.7. According to the 2008 CIA Factbook used for this table, the figure is 4.3. This was recently updated to 3.8 due to China's growing GDP. I wonder whether the 1.7 figure has any basis in more recent analysis, or is this an error? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.168.71.137 (talk) 23:13, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

EU, NATO, and other unsourced figures

I removed the EU and NATO numbers as unsourced and likely statistically meaningless figures, and was reverted without explanation. Per WP:BRD and WP:AGF I'm bringing this to discussion.

The figure for NATO is unsourced since March, and the figure for the EU is unsourced since August. The figure for Iraq has been unsourced since June. Why were these unsourced figures re-added without explanation? Note that WP:V requires that those arguing for the inclusion of data must source it. This material has been challenged, please provide evidence for these figures or else do not revert me when I come back and remove them.

I describe them as likely statistically meaningless because they appear to be nothing but the sum of the figures for the individual states concerned. Being on the list, it is reasonably strongly implied that they are in some way comparable - even given the caveats in the spiel above. But these are not comparable. Because they are made up of multiple institutions, simply adding figures for what is implied to be an independent NATO and EU force includes certain costs several times - infrastructure that every armed force needs but only needs once is included in these figures for every state - thus artificially increasing the numbers.

As I note, inclusion in this list implies that there is such a thing as an EU armed force or a NATO armed force, independent of the member states of those organisations. There is not. The EU is not even a primarily military organisation and includes four members who are constitutionally neutral.

Then you have different countries including different things in their armed forces - the NATO figure, presumably, includes the French gendarmerie but not the FBI. If these figures are simply the total of the member states then there is no statistical basis to them at all - as we note in the article, we're adding together figures that relate to completely different things; how can we possibly expect them to have any meaning at all?

Finally, even if these figures counted the same things they are based on different time periods. These are not the total sums of what NATO and the EU members spent on what they called their military forces in a given time period because some figures are from 2008, others from 2009, still others from 2007. Even those from the same year are likely from different parts of that year. There is not just no benefit to their inclusion on this basis, there is benefit in removing such totally meaningless and likely misleading figures from Wikipedia to prevent unsuspecting readers from inaccurately assuming that they make any kind of statistical sense. Pfainuk talk 17:34, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Sorry if I reverted without a proper edit summary, I did it because the issue has already been discussed here[5][6] and in other similar articles[7][8], (there are more discussions than just those), the general 'feel' seem to be to leave both NATO and the EU for information purposes, (if nothing else). No one is claiming that they are countries or that they should be viewed as such, (hence the reason why they have no rank/number next to them), this is simply to allow the reader to compare various figures. Similarly this is why the world is listed as well.

Personally, the way I see it, when it comes to military comparison, (and a few other world comparison), it is not so unrealistic to have the EU listed as one, because should Mauritania want to attack Portugal then the it would effectively be fighting against the entire EU block, there is no denying that. Similarly, if China was to attack Albania then effectively China would be up against NATO, (well, on paper at least).

This is why those entries are not so far fetched. On the other hand, should we want to add the African Union then you would have a valid point, as they have almost no binding military agreements, (and they even attack each others from time to time).

Often the perception is that NATO and the EU are added because there is some obscure political hidden agenda, but in reality it is to improve the article and to give the reader, (in this case), a valid comparison of the various military expenditures. FFMG (talk) 11:30, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

The first point is the most obvious, I think. I do deny that a war between Portugal and Mauritania would effectively be a war between the EU and Mauritania. It would not necessarily mean that. Note that five EU member states - Austria, Finland, Ireland, Malta and Sweden - are formally neutral and would likely not get involved in any such war. Most of the rest would be involved as members of NATO, not as members of the EU. Let's be clear that the EU does not have any binding military commitments.

Note that an outside power has attacked an EU member state before - in 1982, when Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands. Regardless of your views as to the legal sovereignty of the islands, this was an attack on British forces by Argentine forces. And note that that war was fought between the UK and Argentina - and that even though the UK was at the time a member of both the EEC and NATO, no forces from outside those two countries were involved.

The UK did not have the legal right to demand military assistance from either organisation - in the case of NATO because the North Atlantic Treaty does not apply outside Europe, North America and the North Atlantic, and in the case of the EU because there was - and is - no binding military commitment involved.

So there is no evidence that such a war would come to involve the whole EU, and so any argument advanced on that basis must be dismissed per WP:CRYSTAL.

This list is not equivalent to the GDP lists. This list takes its entries from all over the place. The GDP lists get their information from clearly defined individual sources, whereas this one gets its data from whatever sources are handy. In the case of the EU, it is clearly more appropriate for it to be included in primarily economic lists than in primarily military lists such as this one.

But none of this is actually relevant to my central points, points that you have not addressed - that these figures are unsourced and that they are (or appear to be) statistically nonsense. The entries for NATO, the EU and Iraq are unsourced and have been challenged. Per WP:BURDEN, they need to be sourced or they need to go.

The entries for NATO and the EU appear to have been created by adding together bits of information that are not statistically comparable. What are these numbers actually supposed to mean? You say that they're there for comparison - but you can't draw a meaningful comparison between two numbers when one of those figures is meaningless.

Now, I would accept it if these organisations were in the table with the amount of money spent on administering their military components - that would be practically all of the NATO budget and the CFSP budget - if they could be sourced. We could then mention the figures we've got, couched in strong disclaimers, after the main table. But I don't accept that there is any benefit whatsoever in including unsourced and apparently meaningless figures as though they meant something. Pfainuk talk 17:59, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

My first point was obviously a small example simply used to illustrate a point. I am fairly sure that Portugal is big enough to handle Mauritania . But, I still insist that should Mauritania somehow gain the upper hand and start marching on Lisbon, I would expect a few French and Spanish soldiers to meet them somewhere along the way.

You example of the Falkland war is a good one, putting aside the fact that it was in 1982 and there wasn't any military agreement, (even less than now), France did help with the Exoset. Of course it is very hard to say what would have, could have, might have happened. But if things had spiralled out of control I have no doubt that some European countries would have stepped in to help the UK. The US would have probably reluctantly followed the EU. But as I said, it is impossible to guess what might have happened.

The fact remain that, if a country was to pose a credible threat to any member of the EU all other members would intervene.

As for the legalities of the existence of the EU Military force, there is an article about it, it does clearly point that there is no legal entity known as the Military of Europe, but it also mentions the rapid deployment force, EUFOR and so on.

So, because there is some form of cooperation they are listed, but _because_ the Military of Europe does not exist then it is not ranked as such.

The same could be said about NATO, although there is a stronger military agreement between member countries, but there is still no Military of NATO

Using WP:BURDEN, is not entirely true, as I said, we know that there is a clear cooperation so we can assume that all the members budgets will be pooled should the need arise, (as it was to an extent in the former Yugoslavia).

Removing the entries purely because the values are not accurate or because we cannot find an an accurate source for the value does not mean that there is no such thing as a European force. If we remove it for that reason alone we would have to remove almost all the entries in that table.

Finally, I agree that _all_ the figures are probably inaccurate, but sadly I am unable to read every published budgets from all EU members to report a more accurate total. In any case, to claim that any country gives an accurate, (to the penny), budget report is very hard to believe. The US for example, to fund the various wars around the world probably has to spend a lot more than what was budgeted.

As I have said before this whole list should be taken with a grain of salt as we rely on countries publishing up to date budgets and editors updating the values with reference. FFMG (talk) 09:24, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

The entire list has to be taken with a grain of salt, it's true. This is why the figures based on figures in the table added together don't mean anything. Whereas the other figures are reported figures over a given time period - we can say that, according to sources, China is spending about $70.3bn on its military in 2009, for example - but we can't make any such thing about the EU figure. It doesn't say anything at all. This is not a case of things not being right to the nearest penny - it's a case of things not being accurate enough to be in any way useful at all.

On Portugal-Mauritania, yes we can assume the French and Spanish would get involved if the North Atlantic Treaty applied (as would be their legal obligation). But we couldn't make a similar assumption regarding Austria, Sweden, Finland, Malta and Ireland, the five states in the EU that are officially neutral. That's crystal balling and is not appropriate.

On WP:BURDEN, the point is that the figure isn't sourced at all. For all we know from the article, it was completely made up. Even the idea that it is the sum total of the figures for individual member states in the list is an assumption based on the word "total".

I'm not asking for it to the nearest penny, I'm asking for any reliable source that gives a value for EU/NATO military spending in a way that's actually meaningful. That said, even that would imply that the EU/NATO had a combined military force, which they do not (note again the five neutral EU members, and the limited geographic application of the North Atlantic Treaty).

On the CFSP - I acknowledge that it exists and I don't mind it going on the list as the EU figure. Similarly the NATO budget. That's what the EU and NATO actually spend on military - and the EU figure's likely to be quite a bit less than three times its operating budget. Pfainuk talk 22:11, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

Leave EU and NATO alone!!!!11! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.108.203.102 (talk) 06:53, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Why? Pfainuk talk 21:46, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

Right, it's been over a week since my last message and ten days since your last message. Can I interpret your silence to imply consent? Pfainuk talk 21:46, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

No, sorry I don't think you can, we both voiced our opinion, but I am not convinced that the entries should be removed, (of course :)). This is why I suggested that others should be involved in the discussion.

This discussion has been raised many time before, (here and in many other similar 'List of...' articles), and the decision always seems to be to leave those two.

This is a much smaller article that might not have the traffic required to call a vote, this is why I am going by other articles where this discussion has happened already, (and the decision was made to leave the two offending groups). FFMG (talk) 15:37, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

On Talk:List of countries by population it was agreed to leave them out, as at Talk:List of countries and outlying territories by total area. At Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Countries/Lists of countries, a wide-ranging discussion that was canvassed to talk pages of all country lists including this one it was agreed that lists that are not based on single sources should use ISO 3166-1, which does not include either the EU or NATO. I do not see that you have any basis to suggest that the EU and NATO are generally accepted on these lists.

I note that my key points here are not necessarily relevant on other lists, and I note that you've failed to answer them. You've failed to answer the point that the entries are unsourced and that, assuming they are calculated as is implied by the article, they are meaningless. You have failed to answer the fact, according to policy, that the onus is on you to find a source to demonstrate that these figures are accurate, and have failed to produce such a source.

I don't mind calling an RFC here, provided that the wording is neutral. Pfainuk talk 17:48, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

I think the tone of this discussion needs to change a little, I don't have to address or answer any points you raised and not addressing them does not mean that you point of view was 'proven' in any way.

I understand very well what you are saying, as I said, others are welcome to add to the discussion so that a consensus can be reached one way or another, whatever is deemed best for the article.

We both clearly disagree on the need of NATO and the EU been listed here so I am not going to be drawn in a lengthy discussion when you clearly have made up your mind already and are not prepared to entertain any of my points.

I do think I have addressed the question of listing or not listing NATO and/or the EU here. References, (especially for those two), are available with a little bit of looking around, but I don't think unsourced data was the issue you raised originally, otherwise you would need to remove a lot of entries in this table, (and in many 'List of...' as well).

Should the consensus be to keep the 2 entries then a more up to date source for NATO and EU will easily be found, if we choose to remove all unsourced entries then we will do that as well.

But I still think that we need others to get involved here, (or maybe from more 'watched' articles), so a proper consensus can be reached, (although one could argue that the same discussion has already taken place). FFMG (talk) 14:02, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

The second paragraph of my first message was on sourcing. I appreciate that I can be long-winded, but my position has been consistent. I am arguing for removal on the grounds that the entries are unsourced and that, if we are correctly inferring that the figures given are the sums of those given for member states, they are of zero statistical value or merit.

You're not wrong to suggest that I would probably oppose them even if they were sourced because any EU or NATO figure implies that it is listing the defence spending of the organisation, whereas the figures given are vastly larger than these organisations' total budgets. It would be clearer, if the data is referring to EU member states and NATO member states, to outright say "European Union member states" and "NATO member states" - but even with this, we could not reasonably use such statistically worthless figures. Even better would be to actually list what the organisations themselves actually do spend on defence - figures that are very much lower than those given.

I note that the lead gives the CIA as the basic source for figures in this list. It says outright that entities not included by the CIA are not included (a criterion that would exclude both the EU and NATO, as, while the EU is noted in the CIA Factbook, no figure is given for military expenditure - I generally oppose the use of the CIA as a basis for inclusion for other reasons, but that's neither here nor there).

On a more general note, I would suggest that sticking to a single source would be a good way of raising the standard of this list. A single source is more likely to use consistent methodology, which will assist in giving figures that are open to comparison. Even without a single source, per WP:LSC we require a clear set of inclusion criteria - criteria by which we can judge whether an entity should be included on the list or not. As things stand, there is no particular reason why we could not include the costs of US National Guard units as the military expenditures of US states - I'm sure they could be sourced. Pfainuk talk 18:13, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Turkey

Sorry, but the turkish military expenditure is 44 910 000 000, not 14 billion, it was 32,936 billiard there was some day before. Thank of change the classement please and thank for have stop the vandalism. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.87.48.9 (talk) 19:31, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

Stop the vandalism please. Turkish military expenditure is 44,910 billion AND NOT 14 ! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.87.48.9 (talk) 23:24, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

Do you have a reference for that? The reference given [9] only mentions $14 billion, ("Altogether, the known amount of military spending reaches about $14 billion annually."). The article is well over a year old, but unless we have something else this is what we will need to use. FFMG (talk) 06:09, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

Russia

I readjusted the Russian defence spending since the rouble has gained in value to 1.253 trillion RUB = $43 billion from $36 billion as previously reported. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.23.99.117 (talk) 15:58, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

Updates

User:Nirvana888 has stated that general individual updates to this article are not permitted. When last I looked no such update restrictions existed on Wikipedia. As this article does not draw its figures from a single set source, therefore figures are constantly changing and fluctuating and hence general updates are made to the article by editors over time. Rather than say the article List of countries by GDP (nominal), which gets all its figures from single set sources such as the IMF, which means figures are not constantly changing or fluctuating but are simply updated when its source is updated. All articles on Wikipedia receive small edits over time. It would be like saying no edit can be made to an article unless you edit the whole article. If you wish other areas of the article are also edited that's your option for you to edit them but don't say people can't edit any area of the article unless they also edit other areas you wish are edited as well.

You have, of course, a very good point, there is nothing in Wikipedia that says that you must update an entire table or nothing at all.

But having said that, why not update the first 5, (or even 10), figures at least?

• China 480.686 billion Yuan
• UK 38 Billion Pound
• Japan ??? (the ref seems invalid)

This will ensure that the data remains fairly up to date. FFMG (talk) 11:24, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

When did I ever say you have to update the whole list? I would appreciate if you did not try to put words in my mouth. I was referring to the simple fact that you deliberately only updating France's ex rate without considering the current ex rates of other "officially" very close military spenders. This is not only disingenuous but borderline POV pushing. Nirvana888 (talk) 16:04, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

When did I ever say you said that one has to update the whole list? I would also appreciate if you did not try to put words in my mouth either. FFMG (talk) 17:21, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

I was not referring to you FFMG. I happen to agree with you. It was a reply to an accusation against me from our IP friend. Nirvana888 (talk) 23:51, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

When I updated the French figure it was not for POV purposes. I checked the Chinese exchange rate actually before I even changed the French figure and the Chinese figure was still at $70.3 billion but the French figure had jumped upwards by a few billion due to a fast rising Euro. It would be plain wrong to leave figures purposefully out of date. Yes I would like to update all figures but that would take ages and I expect other editors will update individual figures over time as and when they are in need updating when those figures become out of date, just as I did and just as most editors before me have done so on this article.

Fair enough, my friend. I assume you acted in good faith then. I still would appreciate if the other top 5 countries at least were updated for their currency rates. The list is anyway somewhat misleading as the years are not the same. Nirvana888 (talk) 23:51, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

People dont seam to update the top 5 largest military spenders, the UK and Japan especialy, ive tryed to change it but it isnt working.

any way here is the official UK Military Budget done by HMs Goverment and much more reliable than the MoDs figures. Ref..... http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/d/bud09_completereport_2520.pdf

Look on page 18 the UK defence budget is £38billion, at 2/11/2009 x change rates thats $62,268,000,000

Bro5990 (talk) 09:37, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

Hum, I am not sure about that, the document you are referring to only has a pie chart, (on page number 12 not 18 BTW), and the reference itself is "Source: HM Treasury 2009-10 near-cash projections", it sound like a fairly vague value, (what is near cash?).

Whereas the MOD link offers a more specific value for 2010-2011 [10], 36,890 million. So I think that value should be used rather. FFMG (talk) 11:47, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

Your right to be as you are, any way "near cash" (from the top of my head) is any asset/s that is easliy converted into cash (assets genuraly hold their value better than cash too)near cash etc is a common way of buisness at such a large scale. the "Source" from HM Treasury is a more reliable source because.....

1) its more upto date than MoD figures.(MoD figures date back from 07/08 projections, HM Treasurys date from 08/09). 2) the MoD works for HM Treasury, any any budget is set out by HM Treasury. 3) the MoDs out dated figures dont include add ons to the budget made scince 2007. (many things have changed scince 2007, its not fair to take figures from 2007 which havent been updated)

Lastly why are we updating to 2010 military budgets? this is still 2009 and the UKs defence budget out lined/forecasted to be in 2010 was £40bn, yet in mid 2010 the UK will be lucky to see £35bn after the defence review and this economic downturn, hell we will be lucky to see the (out dated)2007 forecast figure of £36+ bn provided by the MoD.

Pie charts are Ok

Bro5990 (talk) 13:32, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

Ill provide another source as well, Like I said those MoD figures are out dated, and come from its publicity site where it shares current news etc, prahaps I should also of cited this scource...from DASA.MOD..... http://www.dasa.mod.uk/modintranet/UKDS/UKDS2009/c1/table101.html ....... DASA (Defence Analytical Services and Advice) its a Branch of the Goverment VERY closly tied up with the MoD, it is where defence spending and UK man power is continuely updated and reflects all Changes.....infact it is also used in the House of Commons in the UK....for 2009 it gives a £38.5bn defence budget for the UK, VERY accurate and UPDATED figures in most cases only a few days or weeks old.

Bro5990 (talk) 13:56, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

United Kingdom Military budget

Ref..... http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/d/bud09_completereport_2520.pdf

Look on page 18 the UK defence budget is £38billion, at 2/11/2009 x change rates thats $62,268,000,000 —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bro5990 (talk • contribs) 09:38, 2 November 2009(UTC)

Looks to be right, it is in the budget afterall -- SuperDan89 (talk) 12:33, 02 November 2009 (UTC)

What does 'Looks right' mean?, as I said earlier how can 38 Billion near-cash projections for 2009-2010 be considered better than the 36,890 million given by the MOD [11] for the 2010-2011 period? FFMG (talk) 13:21, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

'Looks to be right' means this was what has been stated in the official budget, which was published in April 2009 by HM Treasury, the MoD is a projection and not an estimate as it reads, ' The Government plans departmental spending through the process of the spending reviews ', therefore I believe HM Treasury article has more weight, afterall the MoD gets its money from the Treasury. Don't worry I asked User: Jza84 to check if all is in order. -- SuperDan89 (talk) 13:31, 02 November 2009 (UTC)

It doesn't really matter either way, it is only a billion or two. Personally I cannot see how a vague '38 billion' is better than an MOD figure, but it doesn't really matter either way.

What do you mean by "Don't worry I asked User: Jza84 to check if all is in order."? Who is User: Jza84? And why should I not worry because you left a message on his/her talk page? What has it got to do with the accuracy of a reference? seeFFMG (talk) 14:46, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

I would be inclined to use the "near-cash projection" for FY09/10 because: (1) Most figures listed on the page are for FY09/10, so it makes for a better basis of comparison; and (2) The "cash projection", which is a good mid-term estimate of how much money will actually be spent this FY (based on expenses to date and projections), is actually more accurate than the budget, which is simply an indication of how much money the government has set aside for the beginning of the FY10/11 (which is entirely projection). Geoff NoNick (talk) 15:02, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

FFMG, yes in terms of British pounds (£) its only a few billion differance, but with x change rates thats 4-6 billion USD differance, so infact id dose make a BIG differance, the more accuracy the better Bro5990 (talk) 15:11, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

I saw that User: Jza84 was an Admin and have seen him put over a fair and balanced discussion on the United Kingdom article on a number of occasions and so have asked him if he wouldn't mind checking if the information on the article is valid, for myself and for you FFMG, just so all is correct and on track, that is all. Although I see I am being accused of vandalism by a non-member which is rather annoying over on Jza84 user page, do you know anything of this? seems a coincidence a similar comment was made by a non-member on your user page also FFMG. -- SuperDan89 (talk) 16:03, 02 November 2009 (UTC)

No, I don't know anything about it. I didn't know that you felt there was a need for an admin to be involved, but I since you mention it, must say that I am rather surprised at the sudden number of editors that seem to have such an interest in the UK budget and where it comes from, 3 editors, just for today. I don't think this article has ever had that many at once :), and all over this one reference.

Anyway, as I said, personally I think that the MOD value is more accurate and up to date, (and better than a vague pie chart), but as I am not familiar with the UK finance I am probably mistaken. At the end of the day the difference is minimal and all point to roughly the same figure. FFMG (talk) 18:51, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

France and UK military budgets

There seams to be a hell of alot of rivalry between the UK and French military budgets. the French budget is higher SIMPLE,so stop putting the UK above france!!! How ever I can-not belive people are still using the out dated MoD budget that came out in 2007/08!!!!!!!!!!!

2 reliable sources for UK budget.......... http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/d/bud09_completereport_2520.pdf ........ http://www.dasa.mod.uk/modintranet/UKDS/UKDS2009/c1/table101.html

both come directly from GOVERMENT the latter only weeks updated compared to the out dated MoD figures from 2007. ALOT has changed scince 2007!!! Bro5990 (talk) 09:20, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

As I said before, it is a simple matter of choosing what is the best reference, as you said, they are both from the UK government so it is a bit hard to cherry pick the best reference.

The new references you are quoting are newer but, (to me at least), it looks less accurate than the MOD one.

But, as I said a few times already, if people feel that they are better references, then we might as well use them, either way it does not make much difference this whole article is not exactly acurate. FFMG (talk) 09:38, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

New genuraly mean updated, the MoD one from 2007.......accurate at the time yes, but today? defence budgets cannot stay at predicted levels for nearly 3 years, think about it.

You dont have to hide behing a fake user name to Accuse me of a sock puppet.

I would like to get this sorted out. Basicly Im British, your French, rivalry between the only serious military powers in Europe (including Russia) is natural.

how ever, when i put the UK defence budget up to $68 billion a few days ago i got the Infomation from a very un reliable source and with out noticing it was the 2008 military budget NOT 2009 (here the source).... http://www.defensedaily.com/publications/dd/2164.html ....

Stupid of me I know.

How ever after a bit of reserch (which i should of done before hand I know)I found 2 Very reliable sources and each point to the £38/£38.5 Billion mark. (2 reliable sources for UK budget).... http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/d/bud09_completereport_2520.pdf .... http://www.dasa.mod.uk/modintranet/UKDS/UKDS2009/c1/table101.html

Now honestly do you think it is right to use the MoD prejections from 2007/2008 which havent been up-dated scince 2007? and I must also tell you its only their publicity site, its never up-dated EVER. And every one knows budgets change, its been nearly 3 years scince that MoD projection was put on the web, in the last year alone the UK Goverment has announced rises in the budget to purchase new helicoptors for afghanistan.

And if your dead set on not reading pie charts then look at the 2nd source i showed you .... http://www.dasa.mod.uk/modintranet/UKDS/UKDS2009/c1/table101.html .... (DASA.MoD) os a statistical brance of the MoD where they Up date figures on Man power, Budgets, equiptment All the time.

the reason for so many Brits taking intrest in the defence budget would also be down to potential forecasted military budget cuts in mid 2010, Unlike France the UK is suffering Bad in the down turn and cant keep such a large budget. Im sure if this was reversed the it was the French forecasting HUGE cuts then there would be alot of French takeing an intrest too.

In no way am I a multi account, and thats all I can say.

also the changest i made before on British and french armed forces web sites was because I belived the UK budget was $68bn and the UK was indeed 3rd higest spender and above France, but like I said, It was an Unreliable source and I miss understood it. sorry, but in no way was it being a vandal trying to disrupt etc etc

Now However, I do have strong sources and reliable too.

Bro5990 (talk) 09:54, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

I am tired of repeating my self, I told you and others that I don't care what reference is used as long as everybody is happy. I voiced my opinion, something I hope I am allowed to do. We are now going around in circles where you are repeating the same thing over and over again and so am I. FFMG (talk) 11:24, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

Iraq Military Budget

How is Iraq spending more on defence than Italy?

Iraqs entire economy is only $91bn according to the IMF. so how is Iraq spending over 30% of its GDP on defence?

it has no source. obviously wrong, it should be changed.Bro5990 (talk) 18:41, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

I agree that this is probably wrong, but why did you move Iraq to 31st? why not 40th, why not 100th?

You did not look for any reference, you simply moved the country down the list? Can you explain how you came to this number/position? FFMG (talk) 03:13, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

After the briefest of search, I found a reference [12] that would put the Iraq military estimate at USD1.3 Billion, but that does not really explain how you came to 31st place. FFMG (talk) 04:56, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

i found a source. back from saddams Iraq, budget was around the $4-5bn mark, I just moved it down to the 4 and 5 billion budgets, just to give an idea of where it might be. but forgot to chage the number from $32bn to 45bn. good work on your source, i couldt realy find any thing that recent. makes scense that the Iraq budget is around 1.3 billion now after the Iraq war,Bro5990 (talk) 09:48, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

You found a source? Do you have it? Will you be updating the article accordingly?

Or did you just move it where you felt it ought to be? FFMG (talk) 12:59, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

no point in using my source from yeas back when saddam was in power, i would of thought you had adjusted it according to the newer one you had found at 1.3 billion?Bro5990 (talk) 14:11, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

Accuracy and crystal ball tags

I've placed accuracy and crystal ball tags above the list of military expenditures that is compiled country by country by individual editors. This list is inaccurate because different countries have different ways to report government expenditures (different accounting rules), so making comparisons based on sources from each individual country can only lead to inaccuracies and controversies as witnessed in the previous days. Besides, the list also violates WP:Crystal because it lists figures from future budget plans that haven't been implemented yet (the money hasn't been actually spent, it's just some forecasts).

In light of all these problems, the list should be replaced with the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute list that is also mentioned in the article, because the SIPA figures all come from the same source, using the same methodology (instead of comparing budget items that are not comparable), and refers to observed 2008 spendings instead of tentative future spendings. 90.35.108.158 (talk) 14:58, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

I think the list is fine the way it is, not peoples fault the French like to have control over the list which I have seen on a few occasions. I think there needs to be an independent review, neither French nor British. This is a more fair and accurate way of compiling a list. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.173.4.219 (talk) 15:12, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

Shlould veteran affiars even be included in the french budget? and im german, and the budget for germany is too high and the source given is very unreliable, the top 10 budgets need to be accurate.

its my understanding the UK budget has for along time been the largest in europe any way, it just seams the french dont like it (reading FFMGs talks) he wont accept British goverment figures updated in 2009 which is wrong, and is dead set on using numbers from 2007 which have never been updated............seams unfair to me........ —Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.46.240.91 (talk) 15:23, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

Hello fellow European ! I am a Spanish student (proud that is!) living in the UK and it is also obvious to me that what you say is the honest truth, I have been reading back and it seems people like FFMG and others who don't want to sign in seem to hate the fact that the British expenditure is in fact higher (doesn't take a genius really since the British been in two wars since 2001 helping the Americans) anyway glad others see sense, I would update the Spanish figure but I am worried I'd get in trouble. This whole thing is a joke.Adiós! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.173.4.219 (talk) 15:48, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

the French military budget should not include veteran affairs, and its good to see Russia rising the ranks194.46.164.227 (talk) 10:31, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

2 chart solution

Isnt it better to split the world, NATO and EU military expentiture under a new chart (organizations) and countries for (Country) etc? may help stop disputes and simplifiy the layout.

also should the EU budget be included as it isnt a military union like NATO is.

and yes as a few people above have mentioned what is the french veteran affairs? Bro5990 (talk) 10:40, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

What disputes? There is currently an ongoing RFC discussion, (higher up in the page), you might want to add your opinion. FFMG (talk) 13:03, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

the dispute people have with the EUs Budget, I dont thing organizations like NATO or the EU should be included with countries, there should be a sperate chart that includes world, asia, europe, africa, South america, North america, Nato, EU, Oceana etc then a seperate chart for individual countries.

als0 the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute numbers are for 2008, not 2009, so why are they put before the other list? and agreed, it should be a total 2009 list etc etc —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bro5990 (talk • contribs) 14:21, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

There is no dispute, the discussion is if we want to include NATO and/or the EU.

If the consensus is to remove them, then there is no point in having 2 charts, if it is to keep them, then you might want to voice your opinion about having 2 separate charts.

The problem I have is that this is called "List of countries by..." so it does not make sense to have a table of organisations, in my opinion, they are only really present as a comparison to other countries.

I don't understand that you mean by "and agreed, it should be a total 2009 list etc etc", I am not sure what you are talking about. FFMG (talk) 16:38, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

SIPRI Figures 2008

SIPRI military expenditure figures are military expenditure by region, country and income group, in local currency and constant dollars, and as a share of GDP for the period 1999–2008, therefore as of November 2009 are out of date, new figures relating to 2009 need to be added. However I'm willing to compromise leaving it there until an updated source can be acquired. -- SuperDan89 (talk) 22:25, 07 November 2009 (UTC)

Actually no. The 2008 figures are the most recent figures published by SIPRI. 2009 figures will be published in the 2010 Yearbook next year so they do not have to be updated. Nirvana888 (talk) 23:18, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

EU data needed

The aggregated figure for the EU was a longterm standard at this article. The EU has become to a certain extent a coherent military actor on the global stage. The entry here is needed for comparison reasons. all the best Lear 21 (talk) 00:28, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

No it hasn't... EU isn't, nor will it be a military actor on the global stage because it has no armed forces. EU is a supranational organization with no de-facto armed forces or military power. Military is maintained by each individual state and so it is foolish to allow an EU budget because there isn't one. Besides, EU may exert political power, but it is not united in military conflicts nor does it have the power to enforce anything militarily. Yes individual states may combine forces to fight should they require it, but it is not an "EU" force but rather individual states. You are assuming the EU is a country when it is not. And besides, EU is superseded by NATO when it comes to military action. Also, the Lisbon Treaty has contributed to a discussion regarding a European defence, however, Synchronized Armed Forces Europe is a proposal which only means that a new volunteer armed forces representing the EU will be created which is similar to the UN peacekeepers. IT DOES NOT COMBINE THE ARMED FORCES OF EACH COUNTRY, but is in fact a separate force. Furthermore, it will work within NATO frameworks meaning that first and foremost, NATO comes first and let's say if France is attacked, no other country in the EU has to send their armed forces. NATO member states can, but they don't have to. The Synchronized Armed Forces Europe can intervene but that is if the force has been created by then.

The EU as single military actor on the globe: European Union’s geopolitical footprint. The data and the entry is needed and justified. It has been ranked before and should be reintegrated. Lear 21 (talk) 01:48, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

No it isn't... One site proves nothing. Simple fact is, the EU is not a single military actor, but is a supranational entity comprised of 27 member states. Case in point, only a few countries are in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq right now. I would accept EU military expenditure only as a basis or reference or comparison, but if EU is allowed, then so should be NATO, SCO, OIC etc... Fact of the matter is, the EU by itself has no military pwer. It has no standing military and has no power projection. Only it's member states do and each of those is listed already.

RFC on the above

There is dispute as to whether the figures given for the EU, NATO, and other entities should be included in this article. Pfainuk talk 16:56, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

I personally don't see any issue with the inclusion of the EU or NATO. However, they may in fact have to be removed based on several points.

• Does the European Union and/or NATO have an official and annual defense/military budget where money is disbursed to their armed forces? For example, does a country like France receive a budget and expenses from the European Union? Does the country of Canada receive a budget and expenditure account from NATO? If these organizations have no official, annual military budgets and expenses, then they do not warrant inclusion into this article.

• Are organizations such as the EU and NATO deemed as world military powers? Or do the respective members and countries which comprise of the EU and NATO have the overriding authority to act outside of these two organizations? Do the members and countries of NATO or the EU have combat and peacekeeping roles which act independently of those two organizations, or do their armed forces act in the name and on behalf of the EU and NATO?

• Are there verifiable and accurate sources which deem the inclusion of the EU and NATO onto this article? If not, then unsourced and uncited information as is the case right now with the EU/NATO, they must then be removed.

• If NATO as a military organization is listed in this article, then why isn't the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, another military organization often seen as a counterbalance to NATO, not listed?

• Are the current figures for the EU and NATO listed in the article calculated by simply adding up the defense expenditures of all countries and members of both the EU and NATO? For example, if a + b = c, does b + c = a? Adding up the military expenditures for the members of both NATO and EU does not neccessarily give an official expenditure which is endorsed by those two organizations. --Yoganate79 (talk) 19:53, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

Question one: no. The EU and NATO do not have armed forces of their own, and do not fund the armed forces of their member states in any way. All funding for the armed forces of a member state comes from the government of that member state, and NATO and the EU have no power to alter the judgements of the national governments concerned. The only money that either organisation - as opposed to their members - spends on military matters is in administration (in the EU's case, the European Security and Defence Policy).

If sourced, I would not oppose using those figures for the EU and NATO - but note that they would be far lower than the figures given here. The EU figure we give is three times the entire budget of the European Union, and I would be surprised if the NATO figure is less than a hundred times NATO's budget.

Question two: Member states of the EU and NATO have overriding authority to act outside those organisations. Combat and peacekeeping missions can be and are authorised by member states independently of both organisations. Indeed, the EU cannot oblige any member state to use its military forces in any circumstances - including an attack on an EU member state - without the agreement of all 27 governments.

NATO can oblige its members to use military force only in specific circumstances if a member is attacked - this has only occurred once since NATO was founded (following 9/11) - and is a legal obligation on a government, not a country's armed forces. A Greek general acting on NATO authority could not force Canadian troops to do anything without the permission of the Canadian government.

Armed forces act in the name of NATO or the EU in the same way as they act in the name of the UN. They may equally adopt combat or peacekeeping roles outside NATO or the EU. The fact that the two organisations share most of their membership demonstrates this fact fairly clearly.

Question three: there is no source given in the article for the figures here, and no source has been forthcoming.

Question four: good question. One could also make cases for, say, the African Union and the United Nations, both of which provide peacekeeping troops internationally in the same way that the EU does.

Question five: that appears to be how they are calculated (it is implied by the word "total" and the figures would seem to be roughly the right order of magnitude), though the article doesn't say so explicitly. I do not believe that either organisation would officially endorse any sum figure - they aren't the ones spending the money, and any sum figure is subject to serious questions as to its statistical validity. Pfainuk talk 09:39, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

Section break for clear separation

Summary of my position

• The figures are unsourced and no source has been forthcoming for them. It is implied that they are the sums of the equivalent entries for the member states. I believe that all entries "challenged, or likely to be challenged" (WP:BURDEN) should be sourced.
• If they are just the sums of these figures, then the figures are statistically meaningless, as they take figures from three different years (2007, 2008 and 2009) and include different kinds of spending, depending on the country concerned (for example, the NATO figure includes the Gendarmerie but not the FBI). We go into detail about how the figures are not directly comparable and then promptly directly compare them.
• Including figures for the EU and NATO in particular implies that this is the amount of money spend by the EU and NATO on defence. The figure given for the EU is three times the EU's operating budget, and the figure given for NATO is very much larger than NATO's budget.
• The EU has five legally neutral members (Austria, Finland, Ireland, Malta and Sweden). In the scenario given above (a Mauritanian attack on Portugal that somehow threatens Lisbon), we can't reasonably assume that these five would get involved per WP:CRYSTAL.
• I do not object to the inclusion of figures that give the actual military expenditures of the EU and NATO - the organisations, not the members. I also do not object to the inclusion of reliably sourced sum totals, placed outside the table in a context where the limitations of these figures can be adequately explained. Pfainuk talk 17:21, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

So what it boils down to is the fact on whether or not both the European Union and NATO have official military expenditures. There needs to be consensus on whether or not they both do. If it is decided that they do, then research needs to be done where verifiable and reliable sources from EU and NATO government web sites can give accurate military expenditures.

Adding the military expenditures of all 27 member countries of the European Union is not sufficient enough to warrant the inclusion of the EU into this article. Likewise, adding all military expenditures of NATO member countries is not sufficient enough to warrant NATO's inclsuion into this article.

Which brings me to my next point. If it is decided to include the EU and NATO in this article, then why is it necessary to include the military expenditures of countries such as the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, Canada, France, etc? Adding the military expenditures of each individual country would be redundant since their figures would already be included in the total military expenditure for either the EU and NATO.

Don't get me wrong. I am not opposed to having the EU and NATO included. But doing so complicates the matter because of all of the discussion expressed above. NATO and the EU must have official military expenditures from an EU defense, inter-governmental agency and NATO Command both located in Brussels. That is the whole entire point of this article-- official government spending and procurement on a nation's military and defense.

NATO I believe has more right to be on the list than the EU though since NATO is a true military organization whereas the EU in its infancy is merely an economic bloc/market with limited military and foreign polioy influence. If the EU is kept on this list, then the African Union, ASEAN, and NAFTA should also probably be listed as well since they too are economic blocs. So where exactly do we draw the line on our inclusion and exclusion onto the list? --Yoganate79 (talk) 02:46, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

As a matter of fact, I think that this entire article needs a complete make over. Many of the entries on this list look to be severely outdated spanning 10 years prior to 2009. --Yoganate79 (talk) 03:04, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

Another issue too is the inclusion of the "World" into this list. By my mathematical calculations, the countries of the world listed on this article do not equal the amount of $1.470 trillion USD as referenced for the "World" entry. Therefore, how can the "World" be listed on this article when in fact, the countries and their respective figures for military expenditures on this list do not equate to the referenced world military expenditure amount on here? --Yoganate79 (talk) 03:14, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

I agree on all points (including the point about on the "World" entry and the need to have a bit of a go at the list more generally). I am willing to accept inclusion of the EU and/or NATO, provided that the figures noted are official spending by the EU or NATO (as opposed to spending by members of those organisations) and that there is no objection to similar figures being included for other organisations whose military role is similar. Whether an official figure is found or not, the current figures should be removed IMO.

I would suggest that whether the cost of administering the European Security and Defence Policy counts as official EU military spending is a matter of semantics. If it does, then the EU has official military expenditure. If not, it does not. In NATO's case, one could not unreasonably argue that NATO's entire budget is official military spending - but again it's a semantic argument. The best place for them may be in a separate table below the main list.

More generally, my preference would be to find a suitable single source for this list and use it to determine what entities should be included. Failing that, we should adopt a clear, neutral and unambiguous inclusion criterion (such as ISO 3166-1) and include all the numbers we can find based on that criterion. The issue of what should be included in lists of countries is not a new one to Wikipedia, and a broad consensus was reached around these points ten months ago here in a discussion that was spammed to all relevant lists including this one. Obviously, we can't reasonably suggest that an old consensus that was never applied here should be taken as gospel, but it does seem fair to suggest it as a framework for discussion. Pfainuk talk 18:29, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

I have done some research on the European Defence web site. Interestingly, I have found reliable information which gives a military expenditure for the European Union. However, there are two problems with this information.

• The financial data is in the currency of Euros rather than Dollars. Thus, we cannot have figures in Euros sourced into this article since all figures are shown in USD figures.

• The military expenditure shown are figures for 2007, which is somewhat outdated.

The European Defence Agency reports that for fiscal year 2007, the European Union and its members had a total military expenditure of €204 billion whereas in 2007, the United States had a total military expenditure of €454 Billion. The figures for the U.S. showed that the Americans spent more than 2.2 times more on defence than did the Europeans in 2007.

Here is the web site for reference. http://www.eda.europa.eu/defencefacts/

As for NATO, I have personally visited NATO's web site and found an official military expenditure for the fiscal year 2008. I have already updated the article accordingly.

Here is the source direct from NATO. http://www.nato.int/nato_static/assets/pdf/pdf_2009_02/2009_03_D34F22C9AE854B7FAA0BB409A21C90D3_p09-009.pdf

So the remaining question is.... what to do about the European Union, to keep it or get rid of it? To my understanding the European Defence Agency does not have an official military expenditure. The figures which they have provided on their web site are the military expenditures of each 27 member countries and what their government and defence ministers provide for their armed forces. No "EU Army" receives a military expenditure (yet!), but that may change in the future. However, if a source can still yet be found in Dollar rather than Euro figures, I think that it should be included. But the current entry for the EU is not acceptable. --Yoganate79 (talk) 02:13, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

The figure you give for the EU is based on European Defence Agency figures, which explicitly "represent spending by the 26 EDA participating member states" - the EU 27 minus Denmark. As such I do not believe we can accept it as the amount that EU member states spend on defence. In any case, it is not an official military expenditure of the EU - couldn't be, as it's rather larger than the total budget of the EU.

In principle, converting euros to dollars should be fairly trivial - pick a rough mean exchange rate for the year chosen: the figure is rounded so much that chances are it would not create greater inaccuracy. Obviously we couldn't do that with the existing figure as there is no set time period over which the figure is taken. Pfainuk talk 18:23, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

Second section break for clear separation

Summary of my position
The way I understand it there are a few separate questions here.

1. Should the budget of NATO be included?
   • Should the total of member nations be included?
   • or, Should some referenced budget be included, (from the media or the organisation itself)?
2. Should the budget of the EU be included?
   • Should the total of member nations be included?
   • or, Should some referenced budget be included, (from the media or the organisation itself)?
3. Should the budget of the World be included?
4. Should the budget of any country with no references be included?

1. Should the budget of Europe and/or NATO be included?
   (see below for the world)
   I am not sure why those were added in the first place, maybe because Europe has a constitution and some readers might be under the impression that there is such a thing as a country called Europe, that Europe/NATO have their own standing armies.
   I suspect that those two were added because so many other lists include NATO and Europe, it could also be because this has already been discussed on other talk pages[13][14] with some conclusions [15]
   But having them here does give the reader something to compare other values to, to put other values in perspective. This is why NATO, the World and EU are not 'ranked', they are only present as a reference, the ultimate goal is to create a useful article that can itself be used as reference.
   Having the EU and NATO listed does not actually harm the article, as long as proper data can be sourced then there is no real harm in having those two listed.
   • Should the total of member nations be included or some referenced budget?
     In the case of the NATO and Europe it depends where the money comes from in the case of actual operations.
     For example when troops are deployed in European peace keeping operations, are the soldiers deployed paid from a common European budget or are they paid from the member nation supplying the troops?
     Do the vehicles belong, and are they maintained, by some kind of 'European military'? or does it fall on the nation providing equipments and logistic support to cover the costs?
     If the money for all operations come from a unique 'European' budget then it would make sense that we use that value as a 'budget'.
     Is the current military budget of Europe used for administrative purposes or to actually support operations on the ground? If the money for those operations come from the member nation(s) then surely we need to include the total of all the participating members budget as ultimately this is where the funds will come from.
     The same would apply to NATO.

   
   So I think we should include the budget of NATO and Europe and that the total of all the members be included as ultimately the funds will come from those budgets.

2. Should the budget of the World be included?
   It depends what the benefit of having such a value is, if it is purely used for comparison then yes, we could have such a value, but then we could also have the budget of NATO, EU, ASIA, Africa for the same reason, simply to give the reader an idea of where a country is, in proportion to a group of countries.
   But given that all the values in the table are of different years having such comparison values is almost meaningless.
   
   So I think we should not include the budget of world unless we can find a reliable source as well as adding a footnote describing where the value come from, (what countries where included, excluded and so on).
3. Should the budget of any country with no references be included?
   If we have no way of referencing any of the data given then how can we even include any of the values, there has been so many reverts and so much ongoing vandalism that it is near impossible to separate what is good faith edit and what is nothing short of a wild guess by some editor. One of the main policies of Wikipedia is to Cite sources, if the amounts cannot be verified then surely they should not be included at all.
   

A much better approach would be to have a per year list, something like List of countries by military expenditures 2009 or something to that effect, that way the readers could go back to the years and find a specific budget that they might be interested in, (with the appropriate reference for that year).
If the budget for that country us unknown then it would simply not be included at all. FFMG (talk) 12:56, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

The first part of your point one is based on a false premise. The European Constitution was never ratified (given that your user page says you come from France, I am surprised that you do not know this - it was your own countrymen that rejected it). You go on to suggest that readers may come here assuming (wrongly) that NATO and EU have standing armies - surely it would then be our job refute this, not to confirm it as we appear to at the moment.

You cite a GDP list where a conclusion to keep the EU was made. I can cite other talk pages where the opposite conclusion was reached. See, for example, Talk:List of countries by population and Talk:List of countries and outlying territories by total area. See also the large discussion spammed to all relevant lists including this one at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Countries/Lists of countries where a neutral set of inclusion criteria was agreed that excludes the EU and NATO unless they are included in the source for a single-source list. This is not a single-source list.

You argue that they can be used as comparison. I don't doubt it. We could equally make up numbers for the Roman Empire - that would make for a very interesting comparison. We could also add all 50 US states - which, after all, each have their own military forces, unlike the EU and NATO. For purposes of comparison, why not include a figure for all of Europe, including non-EU member states? Then we can add Asia, Africa, and the Americas. If we're just doing it for comparison, why don't we work out how much each German Land pays towards Germany's figure - we could add those. Fact is, there has to be a line, and (given that this is not a single-source list) an external standard such as ISO 3166-1 is a good place to draw it. In any case, you acknowledge that a world entry included for purposes of comparison is meaningless as all the figures come from different dates. Exactly the same thing applies to the EU and NATO figures.

As it is, I've said I don't mind including reliably sourced figures for these outside the list. But the status quo does harm the list. It harms it because the EU figure - which you seem to insist on including - is complete and utter bullshit. It is not just of zero statistical merit - it is of negative statistical merit as it might actually mislead someone into the mistaken belief that it has any reasonable basis at all. It harms the list because it implies that the EU and NATO have armed forces of their own, which they do not. It harms the list because it implies that the EU and NATO spend billions on military expenditure, when in fact the figures we give are many times the total budgets of those organisations.

You say that [i]f the money for those operations come from the member nation(s) then surely we need to include the total of all the participating members budget as ultimately this is where the funds will come from. No. Unless the EU or NATO are actually the ones spending the money, we shouldn't be telling people that they're the ones spending the money. We are at the moment.

Are you, incidentally, arguing for an AU figure, a UN figure and other figures from organisations that conduct peacekeeping? Would this be on an ad-hoc basis, with only countries providing troops to a specific mission being included, or would you have countries funding peacekeeping forces on their own territory? Neither option makes much sense, but that question is the only logical conclusion of your argument.

You seem to be making contrary arguments about the EU figure and the World figure. The world figure should not be included IMO, but I disagree with your conclusion that a figure included purely for comparison is of benefit (for the reasons given above). Your arguments that the figures are meaningless because of the fact that the table lists different dates is sound for the EU and NATO as well as for the world. But you seem to argue that the World figure requires a reliable source but the EU figure does not - not true: the EU figure requires sourcing just as much as a world figure.

Your point three again appears to contradict your stance with the EU. If we can't reliably source a figure, we shouldn't include it - but you seem except the EU from this principle. We don't have a reliable source for the EU figure. Thus, by your own logic, that figure must be removed. Why are you re-adding it? Pfainuk talk 19:20, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

I honestly and truly believe that the European Union should not have an inclusion onto the list. I am not a Eurosceptic. I think that it should be excluded for the simple fact that the EU does not have an official military expenditure. The defence of all 27 EU countries are their own individual responsibilities and not of the EU itself.

People can make estimates, add up the defence expenditures of all 27 EU countries, but it cannot overlook and supplant the fact that the European Union does not have an official military expenditure.

There are no reliable and verifiable sources to cite for the entry of the EU because no source exists or can be found. Therefore, since no source can be given for the EU estimate which is not official, its entry cannot be included. IF the EU is kept, then NAFTA, AU, ASEAN should be added since those organisations are economic/trade blocs as well. --Yoganate79 (talk) 21:41, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

The EU is not a Military organization, it has no defence budget, there is no such thing as a european military and there is no true source that gives any accurate figure on european defence, and who would want to add it any way? most of europes military is bull shit. if we add the EU we might as well add the British commonwealth, or the UN etc or even the UKUS comunity which is a close knit orgaziation between UK and her anglo commonwealth and the USA where technologhy and military intell is shared between the closest nations on earth, should we include this?

stick to countries, we dont need comparisons, lest just sort it outBro5990 (talk) 22:48, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

Yes, and as I have repeatedly said to many on here, there are no government listed sources which gives an official EU military expenditure. Now I know that the Europhiles want it to be included since they always have an inferiority complex against the United States and feel the need to compare the EU versus the US. But pure facts dictate that it cannot be included. There are no sources online. I have searched high and low.

And the $312 EU military expenditure is pure bogus. It was reached by simply adding up the defence expenditures of the 27 Eu countries and it came from no EU government web site. These are the hard facts folks. We can either turn a blind eye to it or continue to allow this article to be discredited and unreliable. --Yoganate79 (talk) 22:57, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

It is sad to see the behaviour of editors here, I thought the ultimate goal was to achieve a better article, instead insults are thrown around, (here and in the summaries[16], random pro/anti Europe digs that are somehow supposed to be helpful).
I don't see the point of calling for an RFC if clearly the idea was not to wait for any outcome.
Is it just Europe that you are after? Or do you not agree that all countries with no references should be removed, (and the meaningless CIA leading reference should also be removed as almost no values come from it, and if they do then how are we to know)?
Should remove all outdated values, (I see some editors insist on cherry picking certain year figures but not the following year as it seems to hurt their national proud and the all important ranking on this page).
Maybe scrapping this entire article would not be a bad idea either as the lead section reads like a bad book as to why some values are good but others are bad, and why this country should be taken with a pinch of salt but this one is much better because of the way its budget is done and so on.... FFMG (talk) 04:27, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

I object to your implication that I never intended to allow this RFC to run its course. On the contrary, in the three weeks since I started the RFC, the only edit to the article that I have made on this subject was to add {{Dubious}} to the EU figure. I added it after Yoganate79 cited a figure for the sum total of all EU member states except Denmark of €204bn in 2007 - equivalent to about $270bn at 2007 rates.

Now, I find it rather unlikely that Denmark's military expenditure expanded tenfold between 2003 (our figure) and 2007. I find it rather unlikely that Denmark spends more on its military that do countries such as Italy, South Korea and India. And I find it unlikely that the member states of the EU have increased their military spending by more than 10% since the beginning of the credit crunch. On that basis - even aside everything else - I think it's fair to suggest that $312bn for a sum total of EU member states' military expenditure in 2009 (or 2008, or whatever time period that figure's supposed to be over) is dubious at best.

It is not an insult to any person to call a part of the article "bullshit", and calling the figure we give for the EU "bullshit" is nothing more than calling a spade a spade. When a figure on an article is as questionable as this one, I see no problem with calling it bullshit.

As to the future of this list, we should replace all the figures that aren't referenced with figures that are referenced. Any that we can't reference we should remove. We should adopt a single source for all figures on that list. As a rule, I think the CIA is not the best source to use because of the whole Kosovo thing, but if it's the best source available then there's no reason why we can't use it. We should adopt inclusion on that source as the sole basis for inclusion on this list, and we should cite the list we are using prominently.

I think the CIA gives figures in terms of percentage - that's fine. If we list the percentage and GDP (and the CIA does give the GDP), it's not OR to multiply the one by the other to get a figure in dollars.

If the latest reliable figure for a country we can get from our single source is 2002 or 2003, then we should list that figure along with the year. So long as the year is cited, I see no problem with that. Pfainuk talk 18:06, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Where did it says that _you_ never allowed the RFC to run its course?

Why should we use the CIA figures? What do they know? how do we know this is a reliable figure and not some number sucked out of thin air, if the US cannot tell where WMD are they probably don't have a clue about the budget of a country.

But even then, we would need to rename the article accordingly. FFMG (talk) 03:15, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

That would be the line "I don't see the point of calling for an RFC if clearly the idea was not to wait for any outcome." I was the one who called the RFC, and I have clearly been prepared to wait for an outcome. The statement that I "clearly" did not intend to wait for an outcome is patently false.

We actually already use the CIA figures in the third list down, and we do imply that the CIA may be used for the list as a whole at the top of the list, so this is hardly be an innovation for this list. Do you think that sourced figures from the CIA are less likely to be accurate than unsourced figures from who knows where? Bear in mind that Wikipedia requires verifiability, not truth. As I say, I'd prefer a non-CIA source, but if the CIA is the best one available then we should use it.

I see no need to rename the article if we replace unsourced data with CIA data. Pfainuk talk 09:05, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

It's not about you, an RFC was called, (yes, by you), but other editors thought they knew better than to follow procedures and steam rolled what they felt should be done. So "clearly", an RFC was called but "clearly" some don't see the need to wait for the outcome, (incidentally does not look like any third party is having a look at that RFC anyway).

I already tried to tell editors that there was an ongoing RFC [17][18], but I refuse to get over an edit war over such a small/broken article. If others don't see a problem with the changes been implemented before the RFC takes its course then I am not going to be the only one banging on about it.

In any case, this whole article is turning into a farce, editors are changing values without any reference whatsoever. Refusing to accept referenced values because they feel that a country should be ranked higher/lower, I have lost track with the last couple of edits as to what the referenced values are.

The SIPRI values [19] looked like a good enough compromise to clear the mess but some editors will probably refuse to accept those values because they still feel that their country should be ranked somewhere else. As it is some editors are throwing what they feel are vital technicalities around, (it's 2009, not 2008, but we cannot use 2010 values yet because... and so on).

You, of course, are more than welcome to change the list and add the CIA as a reference, but editors will still come here and add/remove/edit whatever they feel is the wrong value.

When that does not work they will add/remove/edit the intro to explain how that army should be positioned x or y because it does not use its budget the same way as that other army who is positioned w or z, and they feel that this is just wrong.

Whatever decision is made here will be blissfully ignored by a handful of editors who somehow believe that this wikipedia ranking is of vital importance for their national pride. FFMG (talk) 09:56, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

I haven't checked through the archives to see whether Yoganate and Bro5990 have a history on this issue - but the RFC hasn't really got the response I hoped for numbers-wise.

On the list as a whole, it does seem to turn into a bit of a national virility contest. Which is disappointing, but I suppose is the nature of Wikipedia. I'm actually wondering whether it might not be a better idea just to ditch the list in question entirely - we have three others, and the SIRPI one (which actually gives dollar values) is clearly sourced and so easily correctable when people come and change it. Even with my CIA suggestion, it'll be difficult to make sure the figures are correctly calculated and there is an issue with taking percentage figures from one year and a GDP figure from another.

I won't actually get rid of it without consensus here because it's a big change - but I certainly wouldn't oppose it outright. Pfainuk talk 21:06, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

I don't think Yoganate79 or Bro5990, (or a handful of IPs) even came around until this RFC, but I also haven't looked that far back, it doesn't really matter anyway.

I think the real reason is not the RFC, but the release of the French military budget that has caused both sides to come out and 're-order' the list to suit their various national pride.

Getting rid of the list is a good idea, but using SIRPI will not help the readers that might have an interest in the budget of Bangladesh, (for example). This wouldn't be much of an encyclopaedia if we didn't offer more than a copy of the list.

Using the CIA list would raise objections as we have no idea where/how they compiled their list.

So in the end the same problem will arise, some readers will refuse to accept what ever list is used, (look at the fascinating ongoing revert war going about 2008 vs 2009 [20], it has even spilled over to other articles).

The rules for this article are too vague, not enough editors to 'police' the various changes been made, so slowly it will turn into the mess it is now. FFMG (talk) 03:44, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

Bangladesh seems like a good case in point, actually. At the moment the figure we give is unsourced, so we don't know where that number came from and what it's doing here. It is not a useful figure.

If the rules are too vague, we need to make them clearer. The better country lists on Wikipedia are either exclusively based on a single external source or default to such a source using a clear and unambiguous inclusion criterion to determine which entities belong on the list. That is a great help in getting rid of this nationalist stuff because if there's doubt about a figure, we can go back to the default. If it's a single-source list it's even clearer because we can insist on using that source. I'm not convinced that the list in dollar terms is viable in the future without such a source.

Does such a source exist in this case, other than SIPRI? Given that the CIA no longer update their figures, I don't think the 2006 CIA World Factbook or (say) this list which is based on it are sufficient. I don't have an objection in principle to using old data if it's the data used by our sources - provided we give the year, to flag up to our readers the fact that the data is old. But I think we should aspire have to the latest data, at least eventually - some countries may list data from 1998 or 1997, but we should have the potential to pick up 2009 and 2010 data when it appears as our default source is updated.

On the CIA, if we're in doubt as to whether to consider them reliable we can ask at the Reliable Sources Noticeboard for a judgement. But the issue is moot unless we can actually provide CIA figures. The dollar-terms figures are no longer updated. I know I suggested it, but I have difficulty with the notion of accepting a percentage of GDP from one year alongside a GDP from another and then listing the figure we get by division. It might be accurate, and it probably will be in the right ballpark, but it won't actually statistically valid - it relies on the assumption that the two figures are the same in both years - an assumption we can't make per WP:NOR.

Going back to the reader who wants to know how much Bangladesh spends on its military. If this reader looks at this page, s/he'll go away happy with a figure from 2007 of $837m, fair enough. But because that figure's unsourced, we don't know if Bangladesh's military expenditure in 2007 was $837m. We don't know if that figure came from a reliable source in Bangladesh's government or the CIA, or if it was completely made up by someone who wanted Bangladesh to seem more or less powerful than it is, or indeed by someone who figured we needed a figure for Bangladesh and that it didn't matter what it was.

As a rule, I would suggest that having an unreliable or unmaintainable list is a net detriment to Wikipedia, not a net benefit. Our readers should be able to expect the data we give to be reliable. If it's not, and if there is no prospect of its becoming reliable, we should get rid of it. Pfainuk talk 10:41, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

Here are my thoughts...

The list as changed is better, but not the greatest. Obviously, the EU and NATO debate has been settled since somebody deleted their inclusion into the list. However, the majority of the countries listed have no sources to back up their figures. My suggestion is that all countries which are not cited should either be deleted, or they should be researched and cited in order to keep their inclusion into the list.

For example, the military expenditure for the Dominican Republican dates from the year 1998! 11 years ago! There is no source as well. Get rid of it! Iraq I hardly doubt has a military expenditure of $32 billion. That should go. Actually, half of the list should go unless there are government-sourced citations. It is that simple.

And FMMG, I would love to have seen the European Union included. But please use some sense about this. There is no official military expenditure for the European union. I know this because I have done the research. Defence rests with each of the 27 countries which make up the EU. Why on earth would you want to include something onto this list which does not even exist to begin with? It doesn't make sense. --Yoganate79 (talk) 01:13, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

What do you mean come to some sense? Have you looked at my position and why I proposed that the EU/NATO values be included? Where did I say there is such a thing as a 'Military of Europe'?

And, as I also said, the debate has not really be settled, one new editor felt the urge to remove NATO/EU twice, and twice I mentioned this RFC and asked for their input.

But as I said, I am not going to bang on about it as this RFC is pretty much a non starter. And no one else seems to mind that the procedure was ignored. FFMG (talk) 03:13, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

1 week gap

Further to discussions above, I have removed all entries on the list that are not adequately cited. I have also added a comment at the top requesting a cite for any new entry. At the bottom of this page, I will make a set of proposals to clear this list up, and as I said I thought we ought to do above, to clarify the vague rules we have already. Pfainuk talk 12:49, 14 November 2009 (UTC)