Beating Plowshares into Swords --- The Algerian Arms Deal
Algeria has been troubled lately by protests of the poor economic conditions in the country, the lack of adequate housing and similar deficiencies. The government has approached these problems in a straightforward manner, and has agreed, in a very large arms deal with Russia, to buy six billion dollars worth of planes, missiles and tanks. Russian President Putin is scheduled to travel to Algeria in late February or March to sign the deal, which indicates how important this deal is to Russia: it is their largest defense export deal since the end of the Soviet era.
The Algerian army received last year at least 18 Russian-made fighter-bombers of the type Sukhoi 30MK, and 22 SU-24 tactical bombers under a separate deal costing $120 million.
The new sale includes:
...36 multifunctional MiG-29SMT fighter jets,
...28 Su-30 Sukhoi fighter jets,
...8 divisions of S-300MPU2 Favorit surface-to-air missile systems, and
... a large number of T-90 battle tanks (shown above at right).
Algerian President Abdel Aziz Bouteflika announced, when first elected in 1999, a new military policy aimed at modernizing the army and shifting it from a traditional and conventional institution to a professional one.
Algeria was Russia's traditional arms client in Soviet times, but after the breakup, Algeria switched to Ukraine and Belarus for their arms, buying Su-27s and MiG-29s.
The Algerian air force will receive the planes gradually until 2008. Under this agreement, they will have, in addition to their present Air Force, 104 new planes by 2008.
In addition, Algeria has plans to buy up to 50 Yak-130 combat trainer planes and about 30 Tunguska-M1 surface-to-air gun/missile systems (shown above at left), and has signed a number of deals for the upgrading and repair of military equipment of Russian make that are currently being operated by the Algerian army.
Why, Oh Why? ---
There are several things I can't fathom about all of this. Oh, I understand that Algeria is controlled by the military with a civilian facade to keep up appearances, but other than as boy's toys for the Generals, why buy arms and why buy this particular mix of weapons?
First about this mix of weapons: Think about it for a moment - what military challenges are facing Algeria today? I don't see any war-like nations threatening to invade them. To my way of thinking, the greatest problem they face is continued insurgency by such groups as GSPC, and you don't fight insurgency with bombers, jet fighters, and surface to air missiles! These are useless in counterinsurgency operations. But this is the exact mix you would buy if you were planning to engage a conventional army in land battles. And the only nearby country they seem to be angry with is Morocco, and certainly Morocco is not threatening Algeria.
If the weapons were bought just to placate the Generals, they are still creating a dangerous condition. Having mighty arms, Generals have been known to become restless and start wanting to try out their toys, and that foreshadows bloodshed! Just what we don't need in the Maghreb.
Algeria does not need more weapons, but they do need housing and jobs - what I refer to as 'butter' - and that six billion could have been better spent alleviating the poor economic conditions in the country, and upgrading their infrastructure.
posted by hale at 1/30/2006 05:00:00 PM
4 Comments:
Hale,
"Algeria does not need more weapons, but they do need housing and jobs - what I refer to as 'butter' - and that six billion could have been better spent alleviating the poor economic conditions in the country, and upgrading their infrastructure."
The same thing, of course, could be said of Morocco's huge arms build-up and especially the huge cost of all its troops and weapons being used to maintain an illegal occupation in the Western Sahara. On the guns and butter debate, Morocco comes out smelling as bad if not worse than Algeria.
Chasli
Thanks, ChasLi, for your post.
You may have seen some news item that I missed, but I don't remember seeing any news of large military expenditures by Morocco in the past several years.
The special arms deal I commented on the the main post was values at 4 billion dollars, which is equal to $180 for each Algerian adult*! And that is NOT the military budget, but only the arms purchases, which are above and beyond their normal military budget!
You said: "On the guns and butter debate, Morocco comes out smelling as bad if not worse than Algeria."
If you have any data and references to back up the truth of that statement, I'd really appreciate it if you would post them here!
Hope all is well with you and your family.
hale
----------
Population estimates of adults in Algeria taken from CIA World Factbook.
Hale,
Since above you use the CIA World Factbook, I'll use that too:
CIA Factbook-Morocco (http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/mo.html#Military)
CIA Factbook-Algeria
(http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/ag.html#Military
These are the figures I come up with:
Morocco
Military Expenditures (dollar figures) $2.3056 billion(2003)
Military Expenditures (% of GDP)
5% (2004)
budget (2005 est):
expenditures $16.77 billion
revenues $12.94 billion
military expenditures as % of budget expenditures = 14 %
Algeria
military expenditures (dollar figures)
$2.48 billion (2004)
military expenditures (% of gdp)
3.2% (2004)
budget (est 2005)
expenditures $30.75 billion
revenues $42.05 billion
military expenditures as % of budget expenditures = 8%
While I am not a statistician, these numbers tell me that, at least until 2004-2005, Morocco's military burden has been a lot greater than Algeria's. In terms of military expenditure as % of GDP, Morocco spends 5% to Algeria's 3.2%; and in terms of military expenditure as % of budget expenditure, Morocco spends 14% to Algeria's 8%. Especiallly these last numbers seem to indicate that the "guns" part of Morocco's budget is percentage-wise much higher than Algeria's.
While I don't have the figures at my fingertips, I suspect that Morocco is also getting much more military aid (from the US and France)than is Algeria.
And on Western Sahara spending by Morocco, while good numbers are hard to come by, I did a quick and dirty web survey and the number thrown around in the 1980's was $1 million/day, in the 1990's $2-3 million/day, and for the 00's some $3-4/day. Whatever it is, the military burden of the occupation -- at probably somewhere around $1 billion/year --is enormous. And I'm not sure where police spending as opposed to military spending fits into all of this.
All I am saying is that, while I agree with you that the Algerian purchases seem pretty huge, Morocco has traditionally spent alot higher percentage of its national wealth and budget on its military than Algeria. And the main reason for that is the Western Sahara.
While this is a discussion for another day, the number that really jumped out at me when I looked at these figures is the Moroccan budget deficit -- it appears that Morocco is spending some 1/3 more than it's revenues. For all those who say that life for the Sahrawi would be far better under Moroccan rule, how do you reconcile that with the fact that economically Morocco is a basket-case country that relies on French, US, and Saudi handouts to survive.
All the best,
Chasli
I agree that there are more important things to worry about than these "toys," BUT the army is important and it needs to be modernized. Algeria has a ton of old school Soviet era weaponry or Chinese imitation sorts and these have got to go. Its going to be difficult to build a professional army with those arms and if the military is old and decrepit, well its just not going to make Algeira look good to its youth or to those on the outside. Personally, I think Algeria should seek advanced Western arms, but because of Morocco's relationship with these countries, and Algeria's longer ties with Russia and Eastern Europe, this is very difficult. Housing should come first but the modernization of the military (and by this I do not just mean getting new guns and tanks and such, I mean creating a professional, non-conscript army, and one that behaves in a civilized way, serving the people instead of micro or macro managing them) should come second. Also, Bouteflika has not been as kind to his military buddies as he likely should, he's fired a lot fo them from theupper level posts in govt in order to consolodate his power. If he pisses them off too much, they'll make it difficult for him and this is possible in several ways. Basically he's paying off the military (Algeria's #1 public service initiative)
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