Latin America: military spending

Outlook

Latin America faces a rash of major security concerns including drug trafficking, continued rebel and paramilitary operations in a few countries (often linked to drugs), widespread small arms possession and high murder rates -- there are an estimated 80 million illegal firearms circulating in the region, while eleven of the 15 countries with the world's highest homicide rates are in Latin America and the Caribbean.

However, Latin American military expenditure has been consistently low as a percentage of GDP over the past decade and will likely fall further as fiscal pressures mount.

Impacts

• Shrinking defence budgets may well prompt increasing tensions with the armed forces in parts of Latin America.
• Lack of external threats makes military spending hard to justify, despite the difficulty of patrolling remote, porous and lengthy borders.
• Following the experience of the 1970s and 1980s, reluctance to involve the military in domestic security operations remains widespread.