Lao Voices

After 33 years of Pathet Lao ruling, what is the present size of Lao’s army?  For a good indication of a country’s military force it is best to compare its size to direct “competitors”. The Bangkok post made an interesting comparison of Laos’ military power compared to two of its Mekong neighbors, Cambodia and Thailand. In order to make an accurate comparison, national military budget and number of active troopers were used as parameters. I created a graph from those figures that might be insightful.

Troops should be multiplied by 100,000 and budgets by $ 10 million. These are all figures for the year 2008.

Thailand is obviously the biggest military force in the region, to no one’s suprise. With a huge annual budget of 4,24 billion US dollars and 200,000 troopers, they are undoubtedly the dominant military force in the region. Cambodia follows with little over 3 percent of Thailand’s budget at 134 million US dollars. Cambodia’s troops are still sizable at 100,000 active military personnel.

Laos only spends only three tenth of a percent (0.003287%) of Thailand’s military budget at roughly about 14 million US dollars and 39,000 troops. Including all costs, Laos spends roughly $358 dollar per trooper, Cambodia quadruples this amount to $ 1,336 per year per trooper and Thailand spends a good $ 21,000 on a trooper annually. These amounts per trooper are merely indications, nevertheless, good insights for sizing up Laos’ present military strength.

The military machine of Laos is not in a good shape. Time to focus on building the economy.