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Venezuela Defense Spending
Although there is some evidence that military spending
tightened in response to the fiscal crisis of the 1980s,
the
process of drafting and approving the defense budget has
remained
largely closed to public scrutiny. The FAN submitted its
budget
requests directly to the president through its own
comptroller
general. Much of the budget was approved or amended by the
executive with only limited consultation with the
Congress. The
heads of the various branches of service reportedly
exercised
broad control over their budget requests. They were
restricted as
to the overall level of those requests, however, by
several
factors. One was the traditionally high percentage of the
military budget devoted to salaries and benefits; in times
of
fiscal austerity, military equipment and readiness
suffered
disproportionate cutbacks. Another budgetary limitation
was the
high cost of the entitlements and other benefits accorded
civilians; these outlays and the maintenance of a large
government bureaucracy also tended to limit the funding
available
to the military. As a result, the military portion of the
overall
government budget rarely exceeded 10 percent.
From 1950 to 1986, Venezuelan military spending as a
percentage of gross domestic product
(
GDP--see Glossary) averaged
between 1.5 percent and 2 percent. Increases in this
figure in
the late 1980s appeared to be attributable to the
government's
efforts to maintain a stable military budget amid a
contracting
overall economy. This effort continued a pattern of
several
decades' standing, whereby during austerity periods the
military
portion of the budget was cut by a lower percentage than
was the
remainder of the budget. By the same token, during periods
of
expanding revenue, military expenditures generally rose by
a
lower percentage than did other outlays. This pattern
indicated a
desire on the part of both AD and Christian Democratic
Party
(Comité de Organización Política Electoral
Independiente--COPEI)
administrations to insulate the military, at least to some
extent, from budget cuts; the comparative restrictions on
military expansion during boom times might also have
indicated a
preference by the civilian executive for limiting the role
of the
military in the overall government. Even in an established
democracy such as Venezuela's, presidents felt compelled
to
continue a political balancing act with regard to the
military.
Venezuela's lack of a significant domestic arms
industry and
its consequent importation of almost all of its weaponry
represented another constraint on defense spending. The
FAN
attempted to address this deficiency in 1975 by
establishing the
Venezuelan Military Industries Company (Compañía Anónima
Venezolana de Industrias Militares--Cavim). Despite
initial
expectations of channeling government revenues into the
development of a significant domestic arms industry, by
the 1990s
Cavim had made little progress. Domestic arms production
consisted of small arms ammunition, explosives, some spare
parts,
and coastal patrol craft for the navy. Cavim's development
fell
victim to the oil revenue crisis of the 1980s and the
purchase of
big-ticket advanced weaponry such as the F-16 fighter.
Further
expansion of the domestic arms industry appeared unlikely
during
the 1990s.
Data as of December 1990
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