Marines),
Air Force (Fuerza Aerea Boliviana) (2004)

Military service age and obligation:
18 years of age for voluntary military service; when annual number
of volunteers falls short of goal, compulsory recruitment is
effected, including conscription of boys as young as 14; one
estimate holds that 40% of the armed forces are under the age of 18,
with 50% of those under the age of 16; conscript tour of duty - 12
months (2002)

Manpower available for military service:
males age 18-49: 1,923,234 (2005 est.)

Manpower fit for military service:
males age 18-49: 1,311,414 (2005 est.)

Manpower reaching military service age annually:
males: 101,101 (2005 est.)

Military expenditures - dollar figure:
$132.2 million (2004)

Military expenditures - percent of GDP:
1.6% (2004)

Transnational Issues Bolivia

Disputes - international:
Chile rebuffs Bolivia's reactivated claim to restore the Atacama
corridor, ceded to Chile in 1884, offering instead unrestricted but
not sovereign maritime access through Chile for Bolivian natural gas
and other commodities

Illicit drugs:
world's third-largest cultivator of coca (after Colombia and Peru)
with an estimated 28,450 hectares under cultivation in June 2003, a
23% increase from June 2002; intermediate coca products and cocaine
exported mostly to or through Brazil, Argentina, and Chile to
European and US drug markets; eradication and alternative crop
programs under the MESA administration have been unable to keep pace
with farmers' attempts to increase cultivation; money-laundering
activity related to narcotics trade, especially along the borders
with Brazil and Paraguay

This page was last updated on 20 October, 2005

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@Bosnia and Herzegovina

Introduction Bosnia and Herzegovina

Background:
Bosnia and Herzegovina's declaration of sovereignty in October
1991, was followed by a declaration of independence from the former
Yugoslavia on 3 March 1992 after a referendum boycotted by ethnic
Serbs. The Bosnian Serbs - supported by neighboring Serbia and
Montenegro - responded with armed resistance aimed at partitioning
the republic along ethnic lines and joining Serb-held areas to form
a "Greater Serbia." In March 1994, Bosniaks and Croats reduced the
number of warring factions from three to two by signing an agreement