What is your take on USA's military spending?

[Thorn777]

Remember people, its to serve and protect us all.

[MacCarthy]

As an US citizen, yes we do spend way too much on defense.

http://www.globalfirepower.com/defen...ing-budget.asp

U.S. doesn't need to be the world police for every conflict on the other side of planet. I'd much rather see the defense budget slashed and more effective monitoring of how it's spent (no $800 toilet seats). The overall savings should be spent on reducing the deficit, education and infrastructure. Ike basically laid a path that we could either build bombs or books.

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.
Dwight D. Eisenhower

[Thorn777]

People are not people, their generating assets.

[hellheaven1987]

Remember people, its to serve and protect us all.

If only you pay the protection fee.

[Condottiere 40K]

TBF, eight hundred dollar generic toilet seats are usually the cover to hide the black budgeted items.

[Future Filmmaker]

Like what?

Social Security.

[Imperial]

It's called protecting interests. It would be less likely for some country to blow up your trade routes when you have a huge Navy at their doorstep. Since the US and other Western countries also share overlapping interests, the US also has to cough up the money to protect their interests as well.

The only problem I have with the defense spending is how much is spent on useless projects that will never be practical in real life just to fill jobs.

[Vanoi]

Social Security.

Thats a whole other issue really. If SS wasn't broken i wouldn't mind spending money on it.

[Thorn777]

First break it, then cut it. Very emotional....

[Dick Cheney.]

U.S. doesn't need to be the world police for every conflict on the other side of planet.

If we don't do it, then who will?

Secretary Gates said it best before he left office that NATO risks becoming irrelevant because these allies of ours don't want to pick up the slack. As he points out in this speech, only five members of the 28-member alliance spend the agreed minimum 2% of GDP on defense.

The blunt reality is that there will be dwindling appetite and patience in the U.S. Congress – and in the American body politic writ large – to expend increasingly precious funds on behalf of nations that are apparently unwilling to devote the necessary resources or make the necessary changes to be serious and capable partners in their own defense. Nations apparently willing and eager for American taxpayers to assume the growing security burden left by reductions in European defense budgets.

-Robert Gates, Secretary of Defense

http://www.defense.gov/speeches/spee...?speechid=1581

[misfitsfiend138]

Honestly, jsut slight trimmings here and there. Just get rid of wasteful spending on useless crap. I'd rather the budget stay the same (or go higher) and resources being spent in a more efficient way than get reduced.

For the love of God I want to see mecha before I die!!! Gundams, robotech, mech assault, arm slaves, you name it! I want to see them!

[LSJ]

I think it is silly how much they spend. The US could cut their defense budget in half and still maintain an army that numbers in the millions and remains the leader in military technology by a large margin, simply due to their massive government revenues.

[Treize]

4.7% of GDP is quite alot but not that extreme in my opinion.
My own country spends 1.25% which is very low but I guess the USA can spend quite a bit less and still maintain a credible military force.

In my opinion they should cut on deployment, quite invading countries every ten years and stick to the whole NATO thing (demanding other countries to stick to the 2% GDP norm). Save money without cutting the actual force, just my two cents.

[Thorn777]

4.7% of GDP is quite alot but not that extreme in my opinion.
My own country spends 1.25% which is very low but I guess the USA can spend quite a bit less and still maintain a credible military force.

In my opinion they should cut on deployment, quite invading countries every ten years and stick to the whole NATO thing (demanding other countries to stick to the 2% GDP norm). Save money without cutting the actual force, just my two cents.

4,7% is repeated all the time as if it is small numbers, but try looking at the % of the budget, a budget shrinking at around 15% of GDP.

Perspectives....spending 1/3 each year to invade Iraq, occupy A-stan, and play police man is complete and utter nonsense. The trade capacity ratio to defense spending is a joke. USA only does this to have the $ hegemony and that cant end well either.

[Mangalore]

...

I think most of the "it should be lowered" thinking just comes from more than a few people who are either uneasy or envious of the disproportionate military power the US has compared to the rest of the world which it spent a good part of the Cold War building up.....and then (remarkably) dismantled over the course of the 90s. Yet there are still people who complain that "It isn't enough! You should only be as powerful as we are!"

I fail to see the point you are trying to make. Of course, other countries will say that! It is perfectly reasonable since it means they have to increase their budgets themselves (well, we Europeans would need to increase our budgets if the US reduces theirs but the rest of the world...).

[fkizz]

Basically as time passes the USA ability to pay for all the weaponry seems to drop, nowadays having reached the point of having to borrow money to sustain it and the ever increasing USA debt.

Is this enough to answer OP question?

[Caelius]

Actually, it is.

Actually it's not. 5% of GDP is considered high?

Like what?

Federal entitlement programs for one.

Or if they are like me, they think much of the money spent on the military could be better spent elsewhere, or not spent at all. You know making cuts to help reduce that enormous debt the US has?

As I said, there are other budget allocations that could easily be cut before defense.

TBF, eight hundred dollar generic toilet seats are usually the cover to hide the black budgeted items.

No they're not.

Those are usually found under reference names like "Lollipop" or "Mickey Mouse", and have price tags in the hundreds of millions or low billions.

Thats a whole other issue really.

How? It (along with defense spending) is still part of the annual Federal budget that's authorized by Congress.

4,7% is repeated all the time as if it is small numbers, but try looking at the % of the budget, a budget shrinking at around 15% of GDP.

Why? All that does is slew the statistic in favor of making the defense budget appear unproportionate when compared to other countries. You see any other governments around the world with a 3 trillion dollar operating budget? Percent of GDP is the better metric, since it represents spending out of the entire economy.

If the US were spending 20% of GDP on defense like N. Korea or the USSR before it collapsed then yes there'd be a problem. But it's not, and more people need to be made aware of that fact before jumping to conclusions that US defense spending is "too high".

I fail to see the point you are trying to make.

My point is that most people saying the US defense budget is too high need to be better informed (ie. actually knowing what the US spends it's money on for defense) rather then jumping to conclusions based on a single number.

It's precisely why I posted the link to the budget itself. Though I don't exactly have high hopes that anyone is actually reading it.

Of course, other countries will say that! It is perfectly reasonable since it means they have to increase their budgets themselves (well, we Europeans would need to increase our budgets if the US reduces theirs but the rest of the world...).

I'm sorry, when did global defense spending become a fairness contest and a measure of equality among states? European defense spending itself is actually far too low, guess who compensates that with spending of their own? Then gets criticized by Europeans for having their spending too high?

Basically as time passes the USA ability to pay for all the weaponry seems to drop, nowadays having reached the point of having to borrow money to sustain it and the ever increasing USA debt.

Is this enough to answer OP question?

The US' economic troubles has nothing to do with it's defense spending. You're trying to connect a non sequitur.

[Kitsunegari]

The US has so many commitments, yet even countries under its "umbrella" like Germany, UK, and Japan have huge defense budgets that are proportionally similar. I personally don't believe that the Constitution allows for a standing army, but of course that ship sailed a long time ago lol.

[Condottiere 40K]

[GrnEyedDvl]

4.7% of GDP is quite alot but not that extreme in my opinion.

Considering it was near 50% during WW2 and was 20% during the Reagan years, it HAS dropped.

In fact as a percentage of GDP its the ONLY budget item that has dropped. What irritates me about threads like this is that they do not live in the real world. People who think that cutting military funding will fix the budget issues are just deluded.