US defence budget 3,665pc more than Iran’s military spending

LAHORE: The current 2020 American defence budget of US$738 billion is 3665.306 per cent (approximately 3,665 per cent) more than Iran’s $19.6 billion annual military spending allocation, research and calculations conducted by the Jang Group and Geo Television Network show.

According to various American media houses like the “Financial Times,” the US Senate had passed a $738 billion defence spending bill by a vote of 86-8 on December 17, 2019, following months of negotiations between Democrats and Republicans over the measures to be included. Earlier, the bill was passed by the Democrat-controlled House of Representatives.

The figures given in the introductory paragraph of this story regarding the defence budget of Iran, which happens to be America’s worst global adversary currently, were quoted and cited in November 2018 by the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), a 61-year-old British research institute, which provides objective information on military, geopolitical and geo-economic developments that could lead to conflict.

In its November 13, 2018 report, the International Institute for Strategic Studies had stated: “Decoding Iranian military expenditure has three complications ready to confound the unwary.

Having said that, the IISS has conducted a careful analysis of the latest available information on the country’s defence outlays, which suggests some striking (and in some ways contradictory) trends and some significant clues as to the shifting balances within Iranian military structures. Iran’s total military expenditure is estimated at Iranian Riyal 921 trillion (US$19.6 billion). As Iran forecasts an entire budget in 2018–19 of over Iranian Riyal 12 quadrillion (US$260 billion), this would place Iranian defence spending at 7.5 per cent of Iran’s total budget”.

According to the US Congressional Budget Office, the Department of Defence has anticipated that total funding in 2022 would be $698 billion slightly less than the $699 billion requested for 2021. Planned requests for funding would remain nearly constant until 2024. The US military budget is the portion of the discretionary United States Federal Budget allocated to the Department of Defence. During the fiscal year 2019, $693 billion in funding were enacted for the Department of Defence and for “Overseas Contingency Operations” in the war on terrorism.

The military budget pays the salaries, training, and healthcare of uniformed and civilian personnel, maintains arms, equipment and facilities, funds operations, and develops and buys new items. The budget funds various branches of the United States Armed Forces, which was founded 244 years ago on June 14, 1775. The various branches are the Army, Marine Corps, Coast Guards, Navy, Air Force and the Space Force. The US Air Force is the world’s largest air force, the US Navy is the world’s largest navy by tonnage; and the US Navy and the US Marine Corps combined are the world’s second largest air arm. In terms of size, the US Coast Guard is the world’s 12th largest naval force. The United States, as of FY2019, has about 14,061 aircraft in its military inventory. The total active duty strength of US armed forces, as of February 28, 2019, had stood at 1,359,685 service members, with an additional 799,845 people in the seven reserve components. The Civilian Department of Defence employees were numbered at 744,005 in December 2018. By the way, the US Department of Defence is the largest employer in the world, according to the May 7, 2019 estimates of the “World Atlas”, a globally-acknowledged website that covers topics that reach beyond geography to include sociology, demography, environment, economics, politics, and most recently, travel.