I read that China and North Korea do not fund their militaries, they have to find their own funding through military run industriesis this true? Do they get all their funding in this way? Could the US military fund itself in this way?
I can’t answer the question, but it does suggest some interesting entrepeneurial ventures.
“When it absolutely, positively must be there tomorrow, let the Air Mobility Command take it there!” And so forth.
This dosent answer your question, but I thought I’d throw it out there.
According to the CIA World Factbook 2002, here are the following statistics.
China
2002 Military expenditures - percent of GDP: 1.6% (2002); (note - this is the officially announced figure, but actual defense spending is more likely between 3.5% to 5.0% of GDP for 2002)
North Korea
Military expenditures - percent of GDP: 31.3% (FY01)
USA
Military expenditures - percent of GDP: 3.2% (FY99 est.)
China’s military was heavily involved in business in the 80’s and through the mid-90’s. I don’t remember when exactly but around 1995, an agreement was reached between the government and military that in return for funding a modernized military, the military would back out of business.
The military still owns some business but by and large it appears that they get funded from the central government and do not raise their own revenue via business ventures.
:eek: :eek: :eek: !!!
[Minor nitpick] Around 1995? Wasn’t it several years later? I remember that in 1998, when I lived in Beijing, the PLA had just opened a large shopping center in the Chaoyang district. [/Minor nitpick]
Some more background: The PLA’s heavy involvement in business in the 1980s and 1990s was based in the fact that the Chinese government had always meant the PLA to be as self-sufficent as possible. The experiences during the civil war and the cultural revolution had taught the Chinese leaders the value of a strong military that could keep itself going regardless of what happened around it. The PLA therefore “owned” and operated a series of factories, transporation “companies,” hospitals, universities etc well before the 1980s.
When the economy was liberalized in the 1980s, the PLA was thus in a good position to capitalize on its resources, enter the consumer goods market, and (incidentally) enrich its officers.
The government’s decision in the late 1990s to force the PLA to back out of business seems to have been due to a growing concern that high-ranking PLA officers were becoming more concerned about operating a profitable business empire than about maintaining a functioning military.
Although the PLA now is supposed to have sold off or dismantled most of its business ventures, I somehow doubt that the control and ownership of these businesses moved very far away from the hands of leading PLA officers.
Out of interest, could the US military be run through the profits of one or more current industries/companies in US today? Could Bill Gates have his own super power army? If Washington state cedes from the US do we watch out?
Well, would Americans want their armed forces running private companies, with the profits being sunk into armaments for those armed forces? Just the entire concept seems weird to me.
There were a lot of companies with private armies during the European Imperial era. The British East India Company (founded December 31, 1600 CE, and still in existance) was one such enterprise:
More from this site:
So, the fact that the PLA was involved in many commercial enterprises has many historical precedents.