russia

Between 2001 and 2011 the [US] Department of Defense’s base budget, which excludes war and nuclear weapons funding, grew from $390 billion to $540 billion, an increase of 38 percent.

Relation between privatisation and adult male mortality rates in post-communist countries, 1992–94

The transition from communism to capitalism in Europe and central Asia during the early to mid-1990s has had devastating consequences for health: UNICEF attributes more than 3 million premature deaths to transition; the UN Development Programme estimates over 10 million missing men because of system change; and more than 15 years after these transitions began, only a little over half of the ex-communist countries have regained their pre-transition life-expectancy levels...

Our study has shown that mass privatisation programmes were associated with a short-term increase in mortality rates in working-aged men. Furthermore, increased unemployment rates during this time were strongly associated with mortality in countries of the former Soviet Union.

Our results accord with other data... Overall, countries that pursued mass privatisation in the early to mid-1990s had sharp drops in life expectancy; in those that did not, life expectancy dipped modestly, but then steadily improved. Unemployment rates followed a similar trend: increases were pronounced in countries that privatised rapidly but much more modest in countries that privatised more slowly. Four of the five worst countries, in terms of life expectancy, had implemented mass privatisation, whereas only one of the five best performers had done so.