you know what they say about John Bolton:
If we take 32 billion for the year 2020 from this graph It represents 5% of iranian GDP for that year ( GDP OF 628 BILLION FOR 2020). So it is a bit higher than the average...US spend 3.7% of GDP and Saudi spend more than 8% of GDP on military.
But i can believe it- Iran runs and maintains a large military empire. And that exchange rate really might even lower, because of domestic production and labor and no/low foreign currency use. MIlitary preparadness is obv a govt priority, Iran has many, powerful(some) enemies...but the recent reports about Iran creating more USD Millionaires recently that most other countries in the world and being #14 of richest millionaires list in the world, while udner sanctions, that means Iran has a BIGGER economy than people probably accept. For 1 Iran is selling ALOT ofoil and gas...everybody needs it - fuk all this sanctions talk, Iranian petro products are moving out through all of Iran's borders, Afghanistan relies on Iran for a big chunk of its petroleum, China sales are high now, just more secretively done, so Iran is probaly maing $xxx Billions from oil and gas yearly now.
There is no way Iran is spending more on military than America, even in terms of GDP or any other metric!
If the Israeli graph is correct (big if since I thought iran military budgets was around 20 billion not 32 )..then 5% of GDP is a good number for a country like iran being threatened every day...also remember one dollar of iranian money buys the same military hardware that US pays 10 for it.
I do hope that there is more being spent by Iran, it's just very difficult to think it is more than the US spending in any comparison. On the other hand, I guess the US economy is so massive that the "official" ~$700 billion per anum spending might actually account for only 3-4% of gdp afterall...
