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>Great powers are the nations that best harness their economic potential to build up military strength. When they become overextended, the splurge of spending t

>Great powers are the nations that best harness their economic potential to build up military strength. When they become overextended, the splurge of spending to sustain a strategic edge leaves more productive parts of the economy starved of capital, leading to inevitable decline. This describes the US better than China. The US spends 7.8% of it's GDP on the military, while China spends only 1.9%. If any country is over-exerting itself and "starving the economy of capital", that's America.

rgbrenner 8y ago
I was with you on the first sentence.. but where did you get 7.8%? We only spend 3.5%. [Edit: World bank puts it at 3.1: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/MS.MIL.XPND.GD.ZS?locations=US https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/MS.MIL.XPND.GD.ZS?locat...] And according to the military, most of this higher than average spending is due to the military being voluntary, and needing to compete on wages in one of the highest earning countries in the world. Whether you agree with the military's assessment or not, it's true that a significant portion of US military spending is spent on wages/compensation. A lot (not all though) of the difference between the US and russia/china is due to the later having much cheaper labor. Also the last sentence certainly isn't true... there are many countries that spend far more a percent of GDP on their military: Russia, Saudi Arabia, and the typical example of military excess: north korea.
- ilikehurdles 8y ago
  Yep, you have to employ a lot of people to maintain military occupations in an ever-growing list of countries. Clearly we should cut benefits.
  - rgbrenner 8y ago
    We could cut the size of the military... but simply making the observation that we have a large number of people doesn't explain anything. China's military is 2x the size of the US by number of people. It certainly doesn't follow that the richer and more valuable a country becomes (and therefore more expensive personnel), the smaller their military should be.
    - orf 8y ago
      > China's military is 2x the size of the US by number of people. And yet china has ~4.5x the number of people as the US.
- spacehome 8y ago
  It's really hard to get a precise number of how much money we spend on military. The budget for the military is snuck into other line items and obscures the true cost. For instance the VA is not included, even though we only need the VA due to having veterans. And the costs for nuclear weapons and nuclear power plants are included in the Department of Energy's budget.
  - lwf 8y ago
    The VA is a weird case — if we had comprehensive medical coverage for all Americans, the because-of-military costs would only be those incurred due to care for wounded veterans. I believe that's a minority of the VA's expenditures, but sometimes it is hard to separate. For example, my grandfather receives a hearing aid from the VA — is that because of too much time spent around jet planes, or just due to age?
    - Fjolsvith 8y ago
      He probably receives a hearing aid from the VA because he was in the military, irregardless of how he lost his hearing.
      - rileyphone 8y ago
        The point they are raising is whether that's a negative externality of the military - had he not been in the military, would that hearing aide not have been needed.
        Fjolsvith 8y ago
        If he had not been in the military, the VA wouldn't have given him one.
    - nickserv 8y ago
      It's not uncommon in countries with comprehensive health care for veterans to receive additional benefits (even for non combat/service related injuries). But you're right that much of the VA could be replaced with a national system.
- taobility 8y ago
  according this link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_cost_of_the_Iraq_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_cost_of_the_Iraq_War, the direct spending of DoD on Iraq war is about $757.8 billion, do you think most of that spending on the labor?
  - rgbrenner 8y ago
    I think to look at any particular war and ask that question leads to an inaccurate answer... since there are years of prep work, training, research, etc that the military conducts, then in a short period of time they expend equipment, munitions, etc during a war. But consider, the cost of labor effects everything the military does... Everyone in the entire chain commands a higher wage than they would in China/Russia, whether they hold a gun or not... researchers, assembly line workers, doctors, etc... pushing up the costs of everything the military buys.
    - taobility 8y ago
      I agree part of your point. But you forgot another huge difference that, US has involved lots of wars in the past three decades, but China didn't, which spend trillion dollars, either on labor or not, but that money just wasted without any outcoming. You can check out what Jack Ma commented about this in World Economic Forum 2017: https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/01/jack-ma-america-has-wasted-its-wealth/ https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/01/jack-ma-america-has-w...
      - jwhitlark 8y ago
        Wasted perhaps in immediate strategic outcomes. But don't discount blooding troops, burning in systems and building institutional knowledge, which are strategic assets. One can certainly argue if it was worth it, though.

rgbrenner 8y ago

I was with you on the first sentence.. but where did you get 7.8%? We only spend 3.5%. [Edit: World bank puts it at 3.1: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/MS.MIL.XPND.GD.ZS?locations=US https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/MS.MIL.XPND.GD.ZS?locat...] And according to the military, most of this higher than average spending is due to the military being voluntary, and needing to compete on wages in one of the highest earning countries in the world. Whether you agree with the military's assessment or not, it's true that a significant portion of US military spending is spent on wages/compensation. A lot (not all though) of the difference between the US and russia/china is due to the later having much cheaper labor. Also the last sentence certainly isn't true... there are many countries that spend far more a percent of GDP on their military: Russia, Saudi Arabia, and the typical example of military excess: north korea.

ilikehurdles 8y ago
Yep, you have to employ a lot of people to maintain military occupations in an ever-growing list of countries. Clearly we should cut benefits.
- rgbrenner 8y ago
  We could cut the size of the military... but simply making the observation that we have a large number of people doesn't explain anything. China's military is 2x the size of the US by number of people. It certainly doesn't follow that the richer and more valuable a country becomes (and therefore more expensive personnel), the smaller their military should be.
  - orf 8y ago
    > China's military is 2x the size of the US by number of people. And yet china has ~4.5x the number of people as the US.
spacehome 8y ago
It's really hard to get a precise number of how much money we spend on military. The budget for the military is snuck into other line items and obscures the true cost. For instance the VA is not included, even though we only need the VA due to having veterans. And the costs for nuclear weapons and nuclear power plants are included in the Department of Energy's budget.
- lwf 8y ago
  The VA is a weird case — if we had comprehensive medical coverage for all Americans, the because-of-military costs would only be those incurred due to care for wounded veterans. I believe that's a minority of the VA's expenditures, but sometimes it is hard to separate. For example, my grandfather receives a hearing aid from the VA — is that because of too much time spent around jet planes, or just due to age?
  - Fjolsvith 8y ago
    He probably receives a hearing aid from the VA because he was in the military, irregardless of how he lost his hearing.
    - rileyphone 8y ago
      The point they are raising is whether that's a negative externality of the military - had he not been in the military, would that hearing aide not have been needed.
      - Fjolsvith 8y ago
        If he had not been in the military, the VA wouldn't have given him one.
  - nickserv 8y ago
    It's not uncommon in countries with comprehensive health care for veterans to receive additional benefits (even for non combat/service related injuries). But you're right that much of the VA could be replaced with a national system.
taobility 8y ago
according this link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_cost_of_the_Iraq_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_cost_of_the_Iraq_War, the direct spending of DoD on Iraq war is about $757.8 billion, do you think most of that spending on the labor?
- rgbrenner 8y ago
  I think to look at any particular war and ask that question leads to an inaccurate answer... since there are years of prep work, training, research, etc that the military conducts, then in a short period of time they expend equipment, munitions, etc during a war. But consider, the cost of labor effects everything the military does... Everyone in the entire chain commands a higher wage than they would in China/Russia, whether they hold a gun or not... researchers, assembly line workers, doctors, etc... pushing up the costs of everything the military buys.
  - taobility 8y ago
    I agree part of your point. But you forgot another huge difference that, US has involved lots of wars in the past three decades, but China didn't, which spend trillion dollars, either on labor or not, but that money just wasted without any outcoming. You can check out what Jack Ma commented about this in World Economic Forum 2017: https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/01/jack-ma-america-has-wasted-its-wealth/ https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/01/jack-ma-america-has-w...
    - jwhitlark 8y ago
      Wasted perhaps in immediate strategic outcomes. But don't discount blooding troops, burning in systems and building institutional knowledge, which are strategic assets. One can certainly argue if it was worth it, though.