Costa Rica - Military Spending

In 1980, in a total government budget of 10.4 billion colons, With 265 million colons, or 2.6 percent, devoted to the security forces, according to statistics made available by the International Monetarv Fund. By contrast, Costa Rica devoted 92.5 billion colons of the total budget to education. Spending on the security fiorces in the 1970s generally had remained at about 3 percent of the total government budget, while about 10 times as much was devoted to public education.

A World Bank analysis using data from the European NGO SIPRI stated that in 2013, Latin American countries with military forces spent between 0.5% and 3.4% of their Gross Domestic Product on military forces. Colombia, in the midst of its armed conflict, remained the country in the region dedicated to the military the largest share of their national wealth, 3.4% in 2013. Central American countries, however, may be a better benchmark for what happens with Costa Rica. Guatemala spent only 0.5% of GDP on the military line. As for the other three countries with military forces in Central America, Nicaragua devoted 0.8% of GDP, El Salvador and Honduras 1.1% and 1.2%. If this proportion of GDP as a measure of benefit is adopted, as Costa Rica does not have military forces, the savings would reach around US $ 450 million annually.

In Latin America the barriers between police and military forces are not as clear as in other countries. And police forces in Costa Rica have some quasi-military, some of the largest armies in the region are mainly oriented elements not to repel an external threat but internal security tasks. In Costa Rica the amount of spending on security, including police is about US $ 900 million, approaching 2% of GDP, according to Argentina-based NGO, Security and Defense Network of Latin America (RESDAL - Red de Seguridad y Defensa de América Latina). Another study, by the London International Institute for Strategic Studies [IISS ] placed the defense spending of Costa Rica at US $ 600 million.

Costa Rica has long depended on outsiders to provide what arms and other equipment its security forces have needed. After more than a decade when it had acquired few new weapons beyond some arms received at the time that Costa Rica had been involved in funneling weapons to the Sandinistas in 1978-79, the government sought foreign sources to strengthen the security forces in the early 1980s. Because of the inability of the struggling economy to pay for an arms buildup, the government sought, and for the most part received, military assistance on concessional terms from its foreign partners.

The United States has been the source of most of the weapons and equipment in the Costa Rican inventory. Much of this materiel - small arms and light weapons - had been delivered in the years before a 1974 ruling went into effect in the United States prohibiting assistance to foreign police forces. Significant United States military aid was given during World War II under the lend-lease program. Between 1952 and 1968 the United States transferred US$930,000 worth of arms and equipment to Costa Rica under the Military Assistance Program (MAP); the terms did not require reimbursement in dollars. During the 1960s nonlethal equipment and training were also provided by the Office of Public Safety in the United States Agency for International Development, which specialized in training foreign police forces. The United States military was also heavily involved in training Costa Rican security personnel. Between 1952 and 1968 a total of 711 Costa Ricans were sent to the United States for training under the International Military Education and Training (IMET) program. The United States Army School of the Americas at Fort Gulick, Panama, trained Costa Ricans between 1946 and 1968.

Military assistance from the United States during this period was administered by a United States Army mission accredited to Costa Rica. In 1968 the United States ceased providing military training and equipment to Costa Rica's police forces. A United States congressional ruling in 1978, however, defined the Civil Guard as having primarily military responsibilities and permitted selective programs to be instituted to improve the security forces. That year the United States Department of Defense was able to guarantee a US$5 million loan to Costa Rica for the purchase of five light patrol boats.

North American assistance began to increase in the United States fiscal year 1981, when 37 students were trained under the IMET program, 20 of them at Fort Gulick. In FY 1982 the United States provided US$2 million in military assistance under MAP and trained 55 Costa Rican guardsmen. The US$3 million in MAP aid given in FY 1983 included US$750,000 for field equipment, such as tents and boots; US$850,000 for improving the country's police communications system; and US$280,000 for repairing one of the damaged Civil Guard helicopters. Other funds were devoted to supplying outboard patrol boats, 52 four-wheel-drive trucks and .30-caliber ammunition. Some 70 guards were also slated to be trained at Fort Gulick in 1983. In August of that year, a nine-man United States training team arrived in the country to teach a group of Civil Guardsmen who had been selected to be instructors. Other United States training teams were scheduled to go to Costa Rica to train other Civil Guard personnel in equipment maintenance and repair.

Other countries also provided Costa Rica with security assistance. Panama and Venezuela have been the most prominent, having supported Costa Rica in the late 1970s when Somoza was threatening reprisals fot its assistance to the Sandinista rebels. in 1982 and 1983 Venezuela provided the Costa Rican Civil Guardsmen with M-14 rifles and uniforms. Panamanian security aid was more extensive, and the Panamanian National Guard trained over 400 Civil Guardsmen from the Condor and Cobra battalions. On a visit to Costa Rica in 1983, Panamanian National Guard leader General Ruben Dario Paredes offered his country's "unconditional help" to "defend [Costa Rica] from any attack from a neighboring country." More controversially, he stated "with all due respect for the Costa Ricans, the Panamanians consider that the current situation has extended Panama's borders up to the Costa Rican-Nicaraguan borderline." The general later declared that his statement had not been meant to imply that Panamanian troops would be sent into Costa Rican territory.

Costa Rica also received security assistance from countries outside the hemisphere in the early 1980s. Israel sent a shipment of Gail rifles as well as a group of experts who instructed Costa Ricans in combating terrorism. The country also received 40 to 50 police patrol cars from the Republic of Korea, and the Taiwanese government sent riot gear and uniforms.