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The propaganda thesis about Azerbaijan’s and Armenia’s defense spending suggesting the military expenditure of Azerbaijan surpasses Armenia's entire state budget is relied on simple data manipulation. Some international structures, the likes of the Stockholm International

Peace Research Institute (SIRPI), played inadvertently their part in that, unveiling total inconsistence in the provided figures.

The close inspection of the official documents of the Azerbaijani state budget for 2011-2017 reveals that Azerbaijan’s official defense budget figures included funds allocated to not only the Azerbaijani army but also law-enforcement bodies, prosecutor's office, and the judiciary as part of its military expenditure. 

In reality, the Azerbaijani law on state budget provides the military expenses never exceed the two-billion-dollar threshold.

Table I shows that the SIRPI figures until 2016 used by number of international research and analytic centers as well as news agencies exceed twice the numbers provided by the figures set out in the country’s official defense budget. As stated, SIRPI included in its data also the budget-adopted sums on law-enforcement and judiciary. 

For example, on 2013 SIRPI put the Azerbaijani military spending at 2,642 billion AZN while the official budget allocation to defense is projected at 1,528 billion AZN and 1,114 billion AZN for law-enforcement bodies and judiciary. The total sum of the both spending duplicates the figure provided by SIRPI. The same methodology is observed in 2015 figures.  The deviations from the tendency for the other years could be explained by currency rate fluctuations yet they make no changes to the whole picture.

Notable, SIRPI changed its data methodology starting from 2016, comprising its military expenditure from the figures of the official budget spending  - 1,378 billion USD for the indicated year. It shows that the military expenditure of Azerbaijan decreased by 36% to compare with the data of the 2015.

The inspection of the figures for the past seven years indeed show the Azerbaijani military budget exceeded the Armenian military budget, yet it never surpassed Armenia’s whole budget, as it had been erroneously claimed by Baku officials.  

The widest gap between the defense budgets of the two countries was recorded in 2012, with the Armenian one an estimated 4,6 times lower. Later the gap narrowed. The Armenian state military budget will grow by 18% to reach 518 USD billion according to the 2018 budget which is only three times less than Azerbaijani military spending. Azerbaijani defense budget puts military spending at 1,582 billion USD for 2018, constituting 3,6% increase to compare with this year’s data.

It should be noted that the Azerbaijani budget had been subject to numerous revisions during the past three years in the light of the continuous devaluation of its national currency. The tendency is usually observed in December of every year and continues till February of the next year. If the scenario persists, the Azerbaijani military spending expressed in USD will significantly drop.