Latin America: The Arms Siphon

The countries of Latin America spend only about 13% of their budgets on arms and defense, compared with 25% for European NATO nations and 55% for the U.S. Even that is high, since it siphons away millions of dollars needed for urgent social programs. Besides, the money does not really go for defense as such; there has only been one major war and few major threats in the area in the past 50 years. It goes for big, fancy hardware that the armed forces feel they need to buck up their morale, enhance...

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