Turkey; Are you okay with massive defence budget?

[PakistaniandProud]

Just a small question, about your massive 15 Billion dollar budget on military. I know that it's 2.7% of economy vs our 2.8% of economy (5 Billion), but I just want to hear the opinions of Turks.

Do you think that massive military spending damages other factors of life in Turkey?

List of countries by military expenditures - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[PERSIAN GOD KING]

Compared to how much saudis spend (About 11%of GDP) Turkey is okay.
15 billion is normal for a NATO member. remember a member of NATO has an obligation to keep their military up to date.
of course with the financial crisis this is harder now.

 

[Saithan]

In this time and age, you can't throw money into projects that are too costly. However no one said it's cheap to do R&D. And that's what Turkey is spending some of their money on in the defense budget.

about 70-80% of the spendings are directed back to Turkey, and only the remaining amount is flowing out of the country. I hope we'll get up on 90-95% in the future, but every country needs some kind of foreign assistance with their projects, so the cash flow will differentiate depending on how much help you need.

 

[cabatli_53]

Just a small question, about your massive 15 Billion dollar budget on military. I know that it's 2.7% of economy vs our 2.8% of economy (5 Billion), but I just want to hear the opinions of Turks.

Do you think that massive military spending damages other factors of life in Turkey?

List of countries by military expenditures - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

15 billion $ ? When this figure is calculated ? There isn't only one source to supply Turkey's defence so It is really difficult to calculate it so Many links give different figures When It is mentioned about Turkey's military spendings.

2012 Turkey's defence spending: Around 35-40 billion TL (20-23 billion $).


That's 2008 figure

With a total defence spending of USD16.044 billion in 2008 Turkey has the seventh largest defence budget in NATO and is ranked 15th globally.

Defence budget (Turkey) - Sentinel Security Assessment - Eastern Mediterranean

 

[UKBengali]

Around 3% of GDP is nothing to stress about.

Turkey needs to spend a large amount on R&D so that it can eventually(2030?) becomes self-sufficient in defence arms and then can be a much more independent country.

 

[Sharki]

SIPRI and Turkish minister of Finance (Simsek) for 2011: 17,5 billion $ 2,4%/2,5% of GDP..

 

[LegionnairE]

I call this; "money well spent" or should i say... invested? Anything we buy from outside comes with some certain offsets that let us take part in production and most of the money spent on military stays in Turkey. Most of the time we don't just "buy" things we join the projects like JSF therefore we contribute in design&development it doesn't just keep the money inside it also gives us incerasing rights on the final product.

In a geography like this, neighboring with middle east and causcaus in the east and 'not any friendlier' Greece in the west not to mention the PKK terrorism. A vast army and a capable airforce is needed. And in a country that is surrounded by seas we have to maintain a large and modern navy so there is no way we can evade this expanses. I'd say we are doing a relatively good job

 

[Ottoman-Turk]

15 billion ? thats even low **** the reason we have good equipment and low defence budget lets say compared to UK is because the soldiers salaries in full professional armies is very high , we pay little salary as most is conscription , i think we should do this 1. Keep conscription but have a professional army of about 100,000 and all conscriptions can stay in less terror areas and just protect or even do other community service , 2. We need to produce alot ourselves so we employ people in the country and our companies get richer 3. MOST IMPORTANT - WE NEED SUCH AN AIR DEFENCE THAT IF ANY COUNTRY TRIES TO ATTACK US THEY WILL LOSE SO MUCH AIRCRAFT THAT THEY WONT BE ABLE TO SO MASSIVE DETTERENCE IM NOT SURE IF WE HAVE THAT CAPABILITY THOUGH , ALSO NOT JUST AIRCRAFT BUT ALSO SHOOT DOWN MISSILES

Also we should increase R&D to 2.5-3.0 % and increase defence budget to 20.billion