Chavez the big defense spender

Washington Post:

-- Venezuela is buying helicopters, boats and military transport planes in defense deals worth about $2.7 billion, modernizing its military as tensions grow between leftist President Hugo Chavez and the United States.

Flush with oil profits but blocked from buying U.S. arms, Chavez is increasingly looking to countries like Russia and Spain as suppliers.

A cargo ship carrying 30,000 Russian-made Kalashnikov assault rifles is headed to Venezuela with the first shipment of an order totaling 100,000 guns to arrive by year's end. The military is looking to buy more submarines, and Chavez is planning an even bigger deal for Russian fighter jets.

"The United States is failing in its attempt to blockade us, to disarm us," Chavez said after announcing the first shipment of Kalashnikovs.

Washington has pointed to the mounting defense deals with concern and urged Russia and Spain not to do business with Venezuela. Both countries have shrugged off the warnings.

Venezuela's defense budget is up 31 percent this year, to $2 billion, and that doesn't include roughly $2.2 billion it plans to spend for 10 transport planes and eight patrol boats on what will be Spain's largest-ever defense deal.

Chavez says the spending is necessary to keep the military up to date and to obtain "minimal arms for the defense of our seas, land and airspace."

Defense economist Mark Stoker says the deals so far don't appear to be a significant buildup; Venezuela is not spending as much as Brazil and Colombia.

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Brazil is a much bigger country and Columbia is at war with some rebels which explains why they spend more. What Chavez is doing is acquiring assets that will become targets of the US should he prevoke a conflict. His stated plan is a raiding strategy like that used by the insurgents in Iraq and the one proposed by Iran. This amounts to self decapitation while at the same time spending money on assets that will be destroyed at the beginning of a war. His purchase of Russian planes and choppers means he is having to settle for old technology and inferior equipment.