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It only deserves respect if you believe the military deserves respect. The US spends more on it's military than every other militarily significant country combi

It only deserves respect if you believe the military deserves respect. The US spends more on it's military than every other militarily significant country combined -- what are we defending against? Besides a drop in stock price for Lockheed Martin.

nostrademons 9y ago
And yet, as a percentage of GDP, we're not that out of line. Maybe 50% more than the average developed country, but about 30% less than Russia, and 40% less than the U.S. spent in 1988 when Reagan was president. http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/MS.MIL.XPND.GD.ZS?year_high_desc=true http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/MS.MIL.XPND.GD.ZS?year_h... Think of the military as the backdoor way to get basic science & technology research funded in the U.S. The American public isn't willing to directly fund basic research, but if you frame it as "We're defending you from evil threats out there", you can pay for things like computers, the Internet, GPS, rocketry, satellites, carbon fiber composites, robotics, the colonization of Mars, etc.
- djjeoejehdjbd 9y ago
  Your data likely only counts the line item budget alloted to the Pentagon under defense spending and doesn't include the hundreds of billions of additional special appropriation given out for our recent middle East adventurism. The military industrial complex is largely fraudulent, only blind patriotism could believe otherwise.
dctoedt 9y ago
> It only deserves respect if you believe the military deserves respect. Yes. > The US spends more on it's military than every other militarily significant country combined -- what are we defending against? If women ran the world, I might agree with you; they seem to be more cooperative than men, and they don't seem to be as driven as men to prove their superiority and establish their power. (I know, it's a pair of sweeping generalizations.) And certainly there's room for debate about specific defense expenditures, or whether overall we should cut them back or scale them up. But there are wolves in the world; if you've read even a little history, you'll know that perceived weakness invites predation. A strong military can be a really handy thing to have around — as, sadly, the world keeps having to relearn, often at terrible cost. Like it or not, the U.S. is the ultimate guarantor of the global order on which so much of modern life depends. (And it's "The US spends more on its military ....")
- adventured 9y ago
  If women ran the world eh. "For scholars such as Steven Pinker, a psychologist, and Francis Fukuyama, a political scientist, these are grounds for thinking that a world run by women would be more peaceful." "But European history suggests otherwise, according to a working paper by political scientists Oeindrila Dube, of the University of Chicago, and S. P. Harish, of McGill University. They studied how often European rulers went to war between 1480 and 1913. Over 193 reigns, they found that states ruled by queens were 27% more likely to wage war than those ruled by kings." http://www.economist.com/news/europe/21722877-european-history-answer-queens-especially-married-ones-who-gets-more-wars-kings http://www.economist.com/news/europe/21722877-european-histo...
  - swsieber 9y ago
    Did they actually rule or were they figure heads? I was under the impression women were respected as much back then.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
- women-in-charge 9y ago
  i guess you've never watched the real housewives of anything
  - dctoedt 9y ago
    Correct!

nostrademons 9y ago

And yet, as a percentage of GDP, we're not that out of line. Maybe 50% more than the average developed country, but about 30% less than Russia, and 40% less than the U.S. spent in 1988 when Reagan was president. http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/MS.MIL.XPND.GD.ZS?year_high_desc=true http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/MS.MIL.XPND.GD.ZS?year_h... Think of the military as the backdoor way to get basic science & technology research funded in the U.S. The American public isn't willing to directly fund basic research, but if you frame it as "We're defending you from evil threats out there", you can pay for things like computers, the Internet, GPS, rocketry, satellites, carbon fiber composites, robotics, the colonization of Mars, etc.

djjeoejehdjbd 9y ago
Your data likely only counts the line item budget alloted to the Pentagon under defense spending and doesn't include the hundreds of billions of additional special appropriation given out for our recent middle East adventurism. The military industrial complex is largely fraudulent, only blind patriotism could believe otherwise.

dctoedt 9y ago

> It only deserves respect if you believe the military deserves respect. Yes. > The US spends more on it's military than every other militarily significant country combined -- what are we defending against? If women ran the world, I might agree with you; they seem to be more cooperative than men, and they don't seem to be as driven as men to prove their superiority and establish their power. (I know, it's a pair of sweeping generalizations.) And certainly there's room for debate about specific defense expenditures, or whether overall we should cut them back or scale them up. But there are wolves in the world; if you've read even a little history, you'll know that perceived weakness invites predation. A strong military can be a really handy thing to have around — as, sadly, the world keeps having to relearn, often at terrible cost. Like it or not, the U.S. is the ultimate guarantor of the global order on which so much of modern life depends. (And it's "The US spends more on its military ....")

adventured 9y ago
If women ran the world eh. "For scholars such as Steven Pinker, a psychologist, and Francis Fukuyama, a political scientist, these are grounds for thinking that a world run by women would be more peaceful." "But European history suggests otherwise, according to a working paper by political scientists Oeindrila Dube, of the University of Chicago, and S. P. Harish, of McGill University. They studied how often European rulers went to war between 1480 and 1913. Over 193 reigns, they found that states ruled by queens were 27% more likely to wage war than those ruled by kings." http://www.economist.com/news/europe/21722877-european-history-answer-queens-especially-married-ones-who-gets-more-wars-kings http://www.economist.com/news/europe/21722877-european-histo...
- swsieber 9y ago
  Did they actually rule or were they figure heads? I was under the impression women were respected as much back then.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
women-in-charge 9y ago
i guess you've never watched the real housewives of anything
- dctoedt 9y ago
  Correct!