A prudent use of money? (re: military spending)

I recently read an article that showed the details of the money that the U.S. spends on "defense" in contrast to the rest of the world.
This link shows all of the details.Do we fear losing something if we spent the money here in the U.S. instead? Surely rebuilding our infastructure is also a means of defense.Or are "we" afraid that we will lose our position in the world if we let our military hardware get outdated?Coffee House, perhaps? {Added the "(re: military spending)" part to the topic title. - Adminnemooseus}This message has been edited by Adminnemooseus, 03-16-2006 02:49 PM

Thread moved here from the Proposed New Topics forum.

Though I think absolute figures can be misleading, they certainly do show some interesting things. Does the US need to spend so much for it's own defense? I'd like to see a case made for it.The place you linked from is in my opinion misleading. And I'll be using this as my source. What it leaves unstated is that Cuba spends 3.9% of its GDP on military, Iran 4.6%, Libya 3.8%, North Korea 25%, Sudan 4.9% and Syria 10.3%...another notable 'offender' is the DRC (21.9%).This is compared with the US's 3.3%. This source, seems to show a general decrease in military spending over the years, since the 50s, (though I suspect 2004 and 2005 will be higher showing a temporary increase).

When all is said and done, force is the final arbitrar of disputes between people and nations. So defence/attack has a sound basis for having money spent on it.Although applied many times over the years, the principle of MAD (or mutally assured destruction) as employed at its zenith during the cold war, finally ran out of steam as an acceptable philosophy for keeping the peace. The problem was the destruction bit. Apart from "I told you so" there was little else of merit left once nuclear weapons and the means to employ them in large numbers came into being.The current philosophy is to maintain defence/attack systems at one clear generation ahead of your enemy. Star wars was a case in point. Both parties could fire missiles, so to ensure survival against them (as opposed to MAD) a method of preventing missiles getting through was a good basic idea. Trouble is, hitting fast moving icbms is somewhat problematic in practice. One can expect that not every aspect of ones missile prevention system is going to work on the day and even if you can wipe out your attacker, a 95% success rate (that being knocking missiles out) will still lead to huge loss of life and effective destruction of life as we know it: (economic disaster will result in very damaging aftershocks). Destroying your enemy whilst suffering huge (though not anywhere near as much) loss yourself might work well when spears are being employed. But not nukesThus one must move on. As I understand it the best place to hit a missile is before it takes off. America needs a) to know where the missiles are b)to know when they are going to be deployed (the door of a missile silo opening for example c))a way to destroy the missile before it launchs. Satellites (very expensive satellites) ensure good levels of a) and b). c)isn't, relatively speaking, all that difficult. You've seen Google Earth. It wouldn't take much to 'cover' the likely trouble spotsYou can take it that the space shuttle programme is over. The design is old and impossible to make acceptably safe. Its function too is very limited. What I imagine is being worked on is some simpler lower orbit space voyager which has a military application. This would make sense for NASA - the budget for the shuttle, although large, would pale compared to what the military can provide if that bulging wallet is tapped into.That would be the philosophy. Letting your opponant know that even if he is a madman he still cannot harm you is the level needed these days. Ensuring you can't be trashed costs far more money that simply having a few ICBM's at your disposal.And its not bad for the economy either.

one important fact to remeber US defence spending is based around force projection , that is the ability to work far from home , the USA has nearly all the worlds aircraft carriers , and naval jets , it maintains amphibious assult brigades at sea , it has masses of very long range bombers , its numberlong range recon aircraft out number so countries total airforce , it has full equipet air cav and air mobile army units of divisional size , it has a large number of overseas bases , ...no other country comes close to this level of comittment , and on top of this the USA tries to mantain the technological edge .... there is even a space arm to the US militaryno as to the question of value for money you get in to a vast political area ...isolationism is cheaper but is it pracatable ?
why not jusy by nukes and relie on deterrent power and sc arp convensional forces..?How the USA wish to be able to act in the global situatuion , how it wishes to be viewed and how it wants other countires to act towards each other cause most of the military spending ,when you look at the cos tof defence you need to agree what you are in fact tring to defend ..?? .. the landmass of the USA , the people of the USA , the economic interests of the USA , the poliitical interests of the USA ..??..the problem is within the US population you will get many different answers to what needs defending , and how to defend it . .. same can be said for every country ..

Come on. We are talking about less than 5% of the budget.Let's look at the other 95% and see if there are areas where we might be able to get more value for our tax dollars.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

I dunno...I hear so much! these guys claim that we spend far more than 5% on the military. It also seems as if interest on the debt eats up a good 15% at the minimum!What specific areas of the budgetbesides military spending do you seem to think are out of whack? Educate me. (hint: I'll bet education is out of whack!)This message has been edited by Phat, 03-17-2006 07:30 AM

I am not on everything about it, but I do feel the need to defend ourselves from people with the IQ of a monkey possibly having nukes.Using a nuke to end a war is one thing, but using one to start one is another. When will it all end, why can't we all just get along?

Thats what the other side thinks, probably! But seriously folks...how long can this nation keep spending money irresponsibly? Unless we all want to work for the Army?

I knew someone would say that, that is why I put a disclaimer about using nukes.We should start a company and work for the Army. I heard that the government is willing to pay $800.00 for a toilet seat.

Thats what never made sense to me. Why do they sell surplus military vehicles for pennies on the dollar?

i think it's just that we're so very bad at responsible spending.

Don't get me started on the surplus.Thats the only government agency that makes money. The US News did an article on it once.Let's just say that the guy who the government assigned to see where all the surplus is going, is now a minister, he quit the government.Some guy in Texas has 17 cobra attack helicopters that he uses for logging, and hunting wolves.A ship full of surplus computers on its way to China with top secret floppies still in the drives.War is business, and if the enemy doesn't have weapons, then we got no-one to fight.

Google Search for "B2 bomber crash"The top item for the aboveNorthrop Grumman B-2 Spirit - Wikipedia1.2 billion dollars for one airplane!!! 2007 Total U.S. Budget = 2.77 trillion dollars = 2770 billion dollars. 2007 Total U.S. Military Budget = 626.1 billion dollars.That's 22% of the total budget. I call it a bloated government insurance program. A bloated defense industry welfare/pork program.Now, what would the universal/one payer health insurance program cost?MooseAdded by second edit: There is also the The Military Industrial Complex topic.Edited by Minnemooseus, : Added another link.Edited by Minnemooseus, : See above.

This is something I would really like to see. A solid estimate, including costs of conversion from our present system.Then we could compare that to other expenditures (military and nonmilitary). There are many things I'd give up for that. But I'd like to see the figures.

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h
"Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing." - Robert E. Howard