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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 January 2022
A high official of the Iranian government was recently visiting the United States when he offered to meet students and scholars of Iranian affairs in order to discuss questions of mutual interest related to Iran. It was hoped that such a meeting in an academic environment would bring about a greater understanding of the current government policies and thus bridge the generation and information gap existing at present.
Among the questions he was asked was the following. Why should Iran spend a larger percentage of its national budget on military expenditure (in relation to portions allocated to health, education, etc.) than most countries for which such data is available?
Among the twenty-seven such countries only Indonesia, Brazil, Spain, Portugal and Turkey showed a higher percentage of military expenditure for the years, 1952-1963.
1 See United Nations Statistical Yearbook, 1963 & 1964, for absolute amounts. The percentages mentioned above have been calculated by M. Parvin, in “Quantitative Analysis of Socio-economic Unrest and Its Effect on Economic Growth,” Maktab (Summer, 1966), pp. 41-52. The average percentage of the Iranian national budget spent on the armed forces has vacillated around the 40% level during recent years.
2 See M. Parvin, op. cit., pp. 48-51.
3 see Janowitz, M., The Military in the Political Development of New Nations (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1968).Google Scholar
