The geopolitical implications of the problem of external indebtedness in Iraq(2003-2016)

Abstract

This study aims to fathom the development of the Iraqi external indebtedness in all of its various forms in terms of the unpaid outstanding balance through the period from 2003 to 2016 and studying the strategies adopted by the successive Iraqi government in managing the Iraqi indebtedness and studying the effects of the indebtedness on the Iraqi national security because indebtedness is one of the important problems that faces the developing countries in general and the less developed in particular due to its negative dimensions on the process of the economic development in these countries and its threats on the financial system. This is applied on the Iraqi situation as one of the developing countries. This study will urge through the hypothesis of the negative relation between the size of the Iraqi external indebtedness and on the level of the security and military stabilization and the level of the economic and social stabilization. This study is important because it sheds light on the external indebtedness of Iraq in the shade of the scarcity of the studies on this topic and the extent of the effect of the indebtedness on the Iraqi national security. This study adopts the descriptive empirical method in studying and analyzing the data, information, and the reports available concerning the Iraqi external indebtedness using everything that we can get such as books, courses, magazines, reports, and previous studies in addition to the websites. The study summarized that the start of the Iraqi external indebtedness was in 2003 when the successive Iraqi governments in depending on the external loans for funding the projects for enhancing defense and security capabilities which led to collapse of the pillars of the Iraqi national security in all of its dimensions and threatening the security and stabilization of the Iraqi government. So, the researcher recommends the economic and political decision maker looking for new alternatives instead of borrowing through the investment, productive, and developmental projects and lessening the resort to the external fund resources and competing all forms of the corruption through stressing the controlling and applying the deterring laws and regulations to protect the public funds.