ArmInfo.In the Global Index of Militarization published by the International Center for Conversion in Bonn (BICC) - 2017, Armenia, after yielding to Singapore and Israel, took 3rd place.
In 2016, Armenia ranked first among the European countries in the BICC Global Militarization Index.
The index is compiled on the basis of defense spending as a percentage of GDP, the number of people employed in this sphere, the number of heavy weapons in relation to the population of the country.
The ten most militarized countries included Russia (4), South Korea (5), Kuwait (6), Jordan (7), Cyprus (8), Greece (9) and Brunei (10). Iran occupied 22nd, Turkey - 25th, Georgia - 55th place.
BICC analysts attribute such a high level of militarization of the Armenian society to the "protracted Karabakh conflict," emphasizing that Azerbaijan, in its turn, took 11th position in the index.
Recalling that in 2016 Azerbaijan occupied the fifth place in the index, the authors of the report explain the loss of Azerbaijan's 6 positions by the reduction of prices for energy resources in the country, whose budget is largely dependent on their exports.