YFred wrote:Suprise, suprise!
You should also mention that whilst the average EU country spends between 5 and 10% of GDP on arms, Turkey spends on average between 50 and 60% of their GDP on American Arms.
That's not a one way street, its a dual carriage way both directions
YFred,
Don't confuse the GDP of Turkey, which was around $800 Billion US Dollars for 2008 to the percentage the Turkish Military Budget is spent on American Arms, which may well be around 50%-60% as you stated, but this would make it around 5 Billion US Dollars from the approx. 10-12 Billion US Dollars that the Turkish military had in it's budget, or about 1.5% of Turkey's total GDP.
50-60% GDP of Turkey would be around 400-480 Billion US Dollars, which what the US defence budget is roughly on a GDP of the USA being around 13 Trillion US Dollars, which is 16 times larger than of Turkey's. The American defence budget is around 4% GDP of the USA.
Given the drop in the Turkish Lira by almost 35-40% recently against the US Dollar, the GDP of Turkey will be around 500-600 Billion US Dollars for the year 2009 if the exchange rate remains as today, and if the Turkish military maintains the same amount of money they receive from the Turkish Government, then their military budget would rise to about 2.4% of the GDP from today's 1.5%, still at 12 Billion US Dollars.!
These are just some loose figures and not absolute, but closer to the truth than not.!
