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It’s hard to quantify because military supremacy and having the best weapons in the world is a huge part of why the dollar is THE global currency. And we can pr

It’s hard to quantify because military supremacy and having the best weapons in the world is a huge part of why the dollar is THE global currency. And we can print dollars, hell we just printed 5 trillion in a couple weeks. This gives us insane leverage when it comes to foreign debts because most debts are in dollars. The dollars for military budget and the dollars raised by a school fundraiser are not even the same currency.

brighton36 6y ago
This. Military spending may just be 'free money' in some world outlook scenarios.
noch 6y ago
> [...] military supremacy and having the best weapons in the world is a huge part of why the dollar is THE global currency. However, in "How the United States Could Lose a Great-Power War" (RAND, 2019)[0], we read: > [...] For now, U.S. forces appear poorly postured to meet these challenges. That's because both Russia and China have developed formidable networks of missiles, radars, electronic warfare systems, and the like to degrade and potentially even block U.S. forces' ability to operate in the Western Pacific and Eastern Europe to defend allies and partners in those regions. China in particular is developing increasingly impressive capabilities to project military farther afield, including through systems such as aircraft carriers, long-range aviation, and nuclear-powered submarines. Together, these forces have tilted the military balance over places such as Taiwan and the Baltic states from unquestioned U.S. dominance to something much more competitive. And[1] > The US keeps losing, hard, in simulated wars with Russia and China. [...] [0]: https://www.rand.org/blog/2019/10/how-the-united-states-could-lose-a-great-power-war.html https://www.rand.org/blog/2019/10/how-the-united-states-coul... [1]: https://breakingdefense.com/2019/03/us-gets-its-ass-handed-to-it-in-wargames-heres-a-24-billion-fix/ https://breakingdefense.com/2019/03/us-gets-its-ass-handed-t...
- zipwitch 6y ago
  This is a farce. The United States is done fighting Great Power wars. No one talks about it publicly at all because doing so would shatter America's self-image as the Lone Superpower. The military the United States has now is quite capable of wrecking any nation that is not another Great Power. I say wrecking and not defeating, because as should be obvious from the last three decades, the United States has zero interest in winning wars. It really doesn't even bother trying - too expensive, and too hard. Instead the United States has made it very clear that if you displease it too much, and aren't another Great Power, it will trash your nation, and then either walk away or hang around stomping on you every so often. The unspoken assumption is that there never will be a "real" war with China or Russia or any other 'near peer'. Whether that ultimately turns out to have been a foolish approach remains to be seen. But, it does leave a lot of money floating around to be siphoned off by various parts of the military-security industry, because Americans think they're paying for a Cold War military, when what they're actually getting is a military good for knocking down weaker opponents and then kicking them, but that barely even tries to pretend it can do anything else. (Except via propaganda, which is really cheap compared to manpower and materiel.)
  - SEJeff 6y ago
    As we used to say when I was in Iraq (with the US Army), "Don't mess with America, or we'll bring freedom to you too!" Look how well it worked out in Libya, Iran, Iraq, etc.
    - stormdennis 6y ago
      I think it was the British and the French who brought freedom to Libya. Foreign intervention seems to nearly always make things worse. Just the other day there was an appalling attack on a maternity hospital in Afghanistan. People are saying that the West needs to do something...
      - zaphirplane 6y ago
        The amount of deaths and horror that freedom has brought to Libya is soul crushing. I would wager that a good percentage of Libyans would Trade that freedom for the dictatorship with all that it entails, obviously not those that suffered injustice of a dictatorship but the majority ... work home life ...
- aww_dang 6y ago
  Here's an admittedly cynical take: Analysts who suggest that the US is weak better serve the defense industry. Even your source suggests the solution is more money...
bergstromm466 6y ago
Wow nice way of dressing up the US Empire! Have you got any ideas for a mascot?
tim333 6y ago
The global currency thing is much more down to having the largest economy. The weapons don't matter much for that. I mean Russia has some cool weapons and how many people use rubles globally? The weapons may be worth it for keeping the world kind of peaceful though.
- baja_blast 6y ago
  Nah global currency is easy of use, trust and rule of law.
- fit2rule 6y ago
  America MUST fight more wars in order to keep the US dollar primacy in world markets. If it doesn't, and if people switch to another currency (see for example the attempt by Iraq and Libya to create the African Dinar to replace US $), the USA will rapidly become a third-world country. It is currently over-valued as a nation primarily because of the threat of force it uses to keep its currency in peoples hands.
zaphirplane 6y ago
I am not sure military supremacy goes hand in hand with economic advantage, eg german and japan are great examples till very recently. That aside, fundamentally those weapons come in play against whom ? Obviously not most of nato Europe Whom are ideological allies or dependents. can’t be against Russian or China because they have nuclear weapons or even North Korea, India Pakistan. So that leaves South America and the Middle East parts of asia. I guess (and it’s off the top of my head) the value of achieving conventional military supremacy maybe an over kill (no pun) against moderate military powers and not so advantageous against nuclear powers. But at the end I’m not a renowned military strategist, i just observe that German and japan’s influence on the world stage is not backed by a massive conventional military supremacy
nickik 6y ago
> huge part of why the dollar is THE global currency. That is highly questionable. The doller was half way to be the dominant currency before WW2. > The dollars for military budget and the dollars raised by a school fundraiser are not even the same currency. They are actually. > And we can print dollars, hell we just printed 5 trillion in a couple weeks. That's true in a narrow sense. When monetary demand changes you increase supply, with that money however you can not simply finance arbitrary expenditure. If monetary demand decreases, the central bank will pull that money back out.
- ericmcer 6y ago
  Why do you think Saudi Arabia even listens to us when we tell them not to drown us in oil?
  - nickik 6y ago
    Saudi Arabia and OPEC have their own reasons to limit oil production. Pretty good ones actually. And the Saudis were fine with doing so when it was against US interest in the 1970s.

brighton36 6y ago

This. Military spending may just be 'free money' in some world outlook scenarios.

noch 6y ago

> [...] military supremacy and having the best weapons in the world is a huge part of why the dollar is THE global currency. However, in "How the United States Could Lose a Great-Power War" (RAND, 2019)[0], we read: > [...] For now, U.S. forces appear poorly postured to meet these challenges. That's because both Russia and China have developed formidable networks of missiles, radars, electronic warfare systems, and the like to degrade and potentially even block U.S. forces' ability to operate in the Western Pacific and Eastern Europe to defend allies and partners in those regions. China in particular is developing increasingly impressive capabilities to project military farther afield, including through systems such as aircraft carriers, long-range aviation, and nuclear-powered submarines. Together, these forces have tilted the military balance over places such as Taiwan and the Baltic states from unquestioned U.S. dominance to something much more competitive. And[1] > The US keeps losing, hard, in simulated wars with Russia and China. [...] [0]: https://www.rand.org/blog/2019/10/how-the-united-states-could-lose-a-great-power-war.html https://www.rand.org/blog/2019/10/how-the-united-states-coul... [1]: https://breakingdefense.com/2019/03/us-gets-its-ass-handed-to-it-in-wargames-heres-a-24-billion-fix/ https://breakingdefense.com/2019/03/us-gets-its-ass-handed-t...

zipwitch 6y ago
This is a farce. The United States is done fighting Great Power wars. No one talks about it publicly at all because doing so would shatter America's self-image as the Lone Superpower. The military the United States has now is quite capable of wrecking any nation that is not another Great Power. I say wrecking and not defeating, because as should be obvious from the last three decades, the United States has zero interest in winning wars. It really doesn't even bother trying - too expensive, and too hard. Instead the United States has made it very clear that if you displease it too much, and aren't another Great Power, it will trash your nation, and then either walk away or hang around stomping on you every so often. The unspoken assumption is that there never will be a "real" war with China or Russia or any other 'near peer'. Whether that ultimately turns out to have been a foolish approach remains to be seen. But, it does leave a lot of money floating around to be siphoned off by various parts of the military-security industry, because Americans think they're paying for a Cold War military, when what they're actually getting is a military good for knocking down weaker opponents and then kicking them, but that barely even tries to pretend it can do anything else. (Except via propaganda, which is really cheap compared to manpower and materiel.)
- SEJeff 6y ago
  As we used to say when I was in Iraq (with the US Army), "Don't mess with America, or we'll bring freedom to you too!" Look how well it worked out in Libya, Iran, Iraq, etc.
  - stormdennis 6y ago
    I think it was the British and the French who brought freedom to Libya. Foreign intervention seems to nearly always make things worse. Just the other day there was an appalling attack on a maternity hospital in Afghanistan. People are saying that the West needs to do something...
    - zaphirplane 6y ago
      The amount of deaths and horror that freedom has brought to Libya is soul crushing. I would wager that a good percentage of Libyans would Trade that freedom for the dictatorship with all that it entails, obviously not those that suffered injustice of a dictatorship but the majority ... work home life ...
aww_dang 6y ago
Here's an admittedly cynical take: Analysts who suggest that the US is weak better serve the defense industry. Even your source suggests the solution is more money...

bergstromm466 6y ago

Wow nice way of dressing up the US Empire! Have you got any ideas for a mascot?

tim333 6y ago

The global currency thing is much more down to having the largest economy. The weapons don't matter much for that. I mean Russia has some cool weapons and how many people use rubles globally? The weapons may be worth it for keeping the world kind of peaceful though.

baja_blast 6y ago
Nah global currency is easy of use, trust and rule of law.
fit2rule 6y ago
America MUST fight more wars in order to keep the US dollar primacy in world markets. If it doesn't, and if people switch to another currency (see for example the attempt by Iraq and Libya to create the African Dinar to replace US $), the USA will rapidly become a third-world country. It is currently over-valued as a nation primarily because of the threat of force it uses to keep its currency in peoples hands.

zaphirplane 6y ago

I am not sure military supremacy goes hand in hand with economic advantage, eg german and japan are great examples till very recently. That aside, fundamentally those weapons come in play against whom ? Obviously not most of nato Europe Whom are ideological allies or dependents. can’t be against Russian or China because they have nuclear weapons or even North Korea, India Pakistan. So that leaves South America and the Middle East parts of asia. I guess (and it’s off the top of my head) the value of achieving conventional military supremacy maybe an over kill (no pun) against moderate military powers and not so advantageous against nuclear powers. But at the end I’m not a renowned military strategist, i just observe that German and japan’s influence on the world stage is not backed by a massive conventional military supremacy

nickik 6y ago

> huge part of why the dollar is THE global currency. That is highly questionable. The doller was half way to be the dominant currency before WW2. > The dollars for military budget and the dollars raised by a school fundraiser are not even the same currency. They are actually. > And we can print dollars, hell we just printed 5 trillion in a couple weeks. That's true in a narrow sense. When monetary demand changes you increase supply, with that money however you can not simply finance arbitrary expenditure. If monetary demand decreases, the central bank will pull that money back out.

ericmcer 6y ago
Why do you think Saudi Arabia even listens to us when we tell them not to drown us in oil?
- nickik 6y ago
  Saudi Arabia and OPEC have their own reasons to limit oil production. Pretty good ones actually. And the Saudis were fine with doing so when it was against US interest in the 1970s.