The Military Of The National Economy As Dubbed By The...

This would be connected to the notion of Milbus which came to mean the undue penetration of the military in the national economy as dubbed by the Pakistani military analyst Ayesha Siddiqa who explained, building on the theory by Alavi, that in societies that see the military as â€Å"moral† force in society, players would look to ally with them in the maintenance of business ties with the state, and because of their prestige there would little incentive from the government for oversight allowing the unchecked development of patronage networks (2007: 14-5). In the case of Syria, it was not surprising that one would see an expansion of milbus there given the level of prominence that the military had in the nation. During the 1970’s and 80’s Assad†¦show more content†¦It was during this time that more sophisticated weaponry were entering in to the Syrian defense arsenal such as towed artillery for example, saw an increase from about 24,000 units in 1982 to about 32,000 in 1986 (Ehteshami 1996: 55 table 2). It would be enough in theory to at least best Israel in the Golan Theater due to the sheer size of forces on the Golan front and partially retake the territory, but it would be hard for the country to hold on once Israel fully mobilizes (Drysdale and Hinnebusch 1991: 140). However, all that cost the regime money that it would not have and to top it off it did not have an industrial base suitable for a sustained war economy even though it has an industrial base for oil and cement, its priorities are more intoned with providing for a base of consumption and that of supplying Ba’athi public works projects (Perthes 2000: 162). So to compensate, Syria had to import its arms. During the 1980’s Syria spent huge amounts of money on arms imports, which at its height in 1985, imports were worth about $2,194 million roughly 15.6% of the GDP (Cordesman 2004: 209; Ehteshami 1996: 55). To guarantee those imports it would sign deals with friendly countries such as that of the