Political instability and conflict generally provide fertile territory for the world’s weapons manufacturers and arms dealers, and the current problems in the Middle East are doing just that.

Last year, defence spending across the region grew by 2 per cent, according to the International Institute of Strategic Studies (IISS), a London-based think-tank. That followed growth of more than 12 per cent the previous year. The apparent deceleration over the past year was at least in part because of the massive depreciation of the Iranian rial during this period due to international sanctions – the fall in the rial’s value meant the dollar value of Iranian defence spending dropped.

Ongoing problems

Overall, nominal defence spending is estimated to have risen by close to 40 per cent since 2010, according to IISS. Given the ongoing problems around the Gulf and Levant, particularly in Syria, Libya, Iraq and Yemen, it is more than likely the total will rise further this year.

Such figures come with a significant caveat, however. Defence budgets are often rather opaque parts of public spending plans. Qatar and the UAE, for example, do not even release a headline figure for their defence spending, while other countries release an overall figure but offer no breakdown on exactly where the money is being spent.

In addition, data for official government spending obviously do not capture the arms and other aid being supplied to non-state actors such as the jihadist group Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (Isis) and all the other multifarious groups fighting for supremacy in Syria and Iraq.

Despite such shortcomings, some aspects are clear, not least the fact that just a few countries dominate the region in terms of spending on their armed forces.

The biggest spender by far is Saudi Arabia, with an outlay of about $59.6bn in 2013. Its defence budget accounts for more than a third of the entire region’s defence expenditure. These days, the kingdom has the fourth-largest defence budget of any country in the world, trailing behind only the US, China and Russia.

Saudi Arabia has the fourth-largest defence budget of any country in the world, trailing behind only the US, China and Russia

Saudi Arabia has mostly escaped the effects of the Arab unrest, but the authorities are still nervous of the potential for disruption in its oil-rich Eastern Province, where a restive Shia minority has staged regular demonstrations over the past few years. The kingdom is also looking nervously at the potential for conflicts in Yemen and Iraq to spill over into its territory, and is keeping a wary eye on Iran, which could soon throw off the shackles of international sanctions if a deal can be reached with the US over its nuclear programme.

Despite the challenges in dealing with those sanctions, and notwithstanding its currency’s devaluation, Iran remains the next biggest defence spender in the region after Saudi Arabia, with a total outlay of $17.8bn last year. It is followed by Iraq with $16.9bn and Algeria, which had by far the largest defence budget among the North African countries, at just under $10bn in 2013. Indeed, Algiers’ spending was greater than the combined military spending of Libya, Mauritania, Morocco and Tunisia.

Some of the other Gulf governments that fear the potential for domestic opposition have also been boosting their spending, albeit from a lower base. Oman increased its defence budget by almost 38 per cent last year to $9.3bn and Bahrain was just behind it, with a 37 per cent increase to $1.4bn.

Per capita spending

When measured in terms of per capita spending, Manama and Muscat are among the leaders in the region. Oman’s defence budget last year equated to a spend of $2,931 per person, more than six times the regional average of $450. Next was Saudi Arabia, with a per capita spend of $2,211, Kuwait with $1,642 and Bahrain with $1,088. Figures are not available for Qatar or the UAE, so it is hard to know how they might compare, but they are likely to be in a range similar to their GCC peers.

Other countries spend far less per capita. The defence budgets of Tunisia and Yemen are both equivalent to an outlay of $71 per person, while Egypt’s budget works out at just $62 per capita.

A similar trend is evident if defence spending is evaluated as a proportion of GDP. Again, a couple of GCC countries lead the way on this measure, with Oman’s 2013 defence budget equivalent to a massive 11.7 per cent of its GDP that year, followed by Saudi Arabia with 8 per cent. Iraq comes third, with spending worth 7.2 per cent of GDP, although that marks a substantial drop from the previous year’s figure of 11.3 per cent.

The level of confidence in the US’ commitment to the region is weaker now than it has been for years

In human terms, all this spending has led to regional armed forces of some 2.4 million, just over half of whom are in the GCC, Iran, Iraq and Yemen. Most of these people serve in their country’s military, with 1.6 million across the region’s armed forces, followed by 93,000 in navies and close to 175,000 in various air forces.

Alongside these units, there are others that fall outside the strict definitions of traditional land, sea and air services. They include the 125,000 in the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corp, the 6,400 in the Royal Household in Oman, and Jordan’s 14,000 special operations forces.

Paramilitary forces

In addition, there are substantial numbers of other paramilitary forces around the region, including police, national guard, coast guards, border guards and others. Iraq has the largest number serving in such forces, with 531,000 personnel, while Egypt has 397,000, Algeria has 187,200 and Saudi Arabia has 115,500.

A minority of countries also maintain large numbers of reservists, which sometimes outnumber their regular armed forces. Egypt has 479,000, Iran has 350,000, Morocco and Algeria both have 150,000, Jordan has 65,000 and Kuwait has 23,700.

Once all the spending is weighed up, all the equipment has been inspected and all the various men under arms are accounted for, there is a further question to be asked: just how effective are these armed forces? The evidence of recent times is, at best, rather mixed.

The fighting among the various groups in Syria has left the country in something of a deadlock, with no side seemingly able to win outright, not least the regime’s national army. In the rest of the region, once you move beyond the bounds of repressive policing and crowd control, the jury is still out. In many of the states that have been thrown into turmoil in recent years, the armed forces have often proved either unwilling or unable to score decisive victories against their opponents, including in Libya, Yemen and Iraq.

The big spenders of the Gulf have on occasion become involved in conflicts in other countries. In Libya, in 2011, for example, Qatar and the UAE collaborated with the US and other allies to patrol the skies and enforce a no-fly zone. This year, several Arab countries, including Jordan, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Bahrain, have been involved in bombing missions against Isis targets in Syria. However, such interventions often appear to be little more than window-dressing, with Arab countries adding a veneer of legitimacy to what are US-dominated operations.

Changing attitude

In addition, for all the massive spending that has been carried out to modernise the armed forces of the six GCC states in recent years, there is little doubt they all still rely heavily on the US – and to a lesser extent other allies such as the UK and France – for their protection.

However, the level of confidence in the US’ commitment to the region is weaker now than it has been for years. This has not been helped by the dithering of Washington during the current Syrian crisis, during which President Barack Obama reneged on a promise to take military action against President Bashar al-Assad for using chemical weapons.

Such factors mean the Gulf countries will almost certainly continue to spend heavily to beef up their armed forces in the years ahead.