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Author ORCID Identifier

https://orcid.org/0009-0001-9677-0493

Abstract

This study examines how maritime and trading states allocate public resources between defence, health, and economic growth around three strategic chokepoints the Strait of Malacca, the Strait of Hormuz, and the Suez Canal. The analysis extends the classic “guns versus butter” framing by treating defence and health spending as co-evolving components of an interconnected fiscal-growth system. Using World Development Indicators data (1999-2024), trend slopes are estimated for military spending (% of GDP), healthcare spending (% of GDP), and GDP growth (annual %). Two derived indicators are computed, a defence-to-health slope ratio (military slope/health slope) and a fiscal-balance proxy (health slope - military slope). Augmented Dickey-Fuller tests are used to assess stationarity (unit-root behaviour), and Granger causality tests to examine whether GDP growth temporally precedes changes in spending shares. Hormuz chokepoint states show non-negative health slopes (e.g., UAE +0.1199) alongside negative GDP growth slopes in some cases (e.g., Qatar -0.4754). Suez chokepoint states exhibit negative defence slopes (e.g., Egypt -0.0899) with comparatively small or negative health slopes (e.g., Egypt -0.0211). The United States is included as an external benchmark because it is the largest trading nation by monetary trade volume and is directly or indirectly coupled to chokepoint flows; it shows health +0.1758 and military -0.0116 (ratio -0.0657). These quantified configurations support chokepoint-specific fiscal regimes and provide a compact visual map of security, health, growth dynamics in a small integrated complex systems.

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