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National Defense is a luxury good until it isn't. Moreover, it is not something that can be purchased on short notice.

by RhysU 6y ago

darksaints 6y ago
Protecting our nation from harm is easy to do. Nearly every nation in the world does it pretty well, and they do it with tiny fractions of our budget. The key is to not run around the world occupying nations and starting new wars every other day. War is and always will be asymmetric. Our military isn't expensive because we need it to be, it is expensive because it is an invasion and occupying force.
jeffbee 6y ago
The ONE TIME that US national defense actually worked it was very much purchased on short notice.
- culturestate 6y ago
  Unfortunately, "there are two oceans between us and any potential aggressors" is no longer a viable defensive posture. If you're gonna be drawn into a war today it's unlikely to come with years of lead time.
  - xtracto 6y ago
    Anericans live so scared!
    - catalogia 6y ago
      With all that defense spending, I can't imagine why any American would need to fear any foreign military threat.
    - culturestate 6y ago
      I think there's a difference between living scared and living...I guess pragmatically. I'm not worried that e.g. Russia is going to drop a missile into midtown Manhattan, but I do acknowledge that there are real threats in the world and - for the moment at least - we can't all just get along. If the United States changed its military posture tomorrow to be strictly isolationist and brought every soldier home, someone else would step into the void. That may not necessarily be a bad thing, but it would be a different thing and at this point few people are seriously interested in finding out what kind of thing it would be.
  - kjksf 6y ago
    Here's what would happen if any nation would be stupid enough to send a single missile into US soil: a button is pressed and a nuke 1000x stronger than Hiroshima is sent. The end of "war". U.S. has been involved in quite a number of wars in the last century. Always as an aggressor, never as a defendant. Let's not entertain the fantasy that a military budget of $732 billion, the size of 10 next biggest budgets combined, exists to defend US soil from invasion.
    - culturestate 6y ago
      > Let's not entertain the fantasy that a military budget of $732 billion...exists to defend US soil from invasion. Obviously not in its entirety, but it's also worth recognizing that the world is a different place in 2020 than it was in 1940 and that no country - the United States or otherwise - can afford to purchase a national defense at the last minute. Once you realize you need one, it's already too late.
    - Godel_unicode 6y ago
      Apparently December 7th 1941 no longer lives in infamy.
  - vkou 6y ago
    Logistics in 2020 aren't much easier than they were in 1920, or in 1820. And the lead time for ICBMs to kill ~ a billion people has been ~40 minutes for the past 40 years.
    - Godel_unicode 6y ago
      The 82nd airborne division can be in planes on it's way to drop anywhere in the world 18 hours after a phone call from the White House. The Russian equivalent is called the CRRF, and has a similar force mix for obvious reasons.
      - vkou 6y ago
        The 82nd airborne division will be out of fuel, ammunition, and food within a week after dropping anywhere in the world, without an international logistics network of shipping to support them, and all the baggage that comes with keeping that network operating. Look at the massive logistics effort that was necessary to invade and occupy Iraq, a country one-tenth the size of the US, where half the opposition deserted before a shot was fired, half of the rest deserted after the first shots were fired, and where half of its neighbours have US or NATO military bases in them. No other country in the world is capable of doing this across an ocean.
        Godel_unicode 6y ago
        > No other country in the world is capable of doing this across an ocean. 1 - Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. 2 - Even if that were true, American allies are frequently not across oceans from Russia/China/Iran/North Korea. Are you suggesting that the United States should back out of NATO? Tell Japan and South Korea we don't like our treaty obligations and to fend for themselves?
        deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
Jaepa 6y ago
The US has the largest military budget in the world. If you combine the military spending of positions 2 - 11, the US still spends 6.4 billion dollars more. And of the those 10 other countries 8 are friendly and 6 are allies.
- rayiner 6y ago
  This calculation has two errors. First, it assumes that China and Russia’s spending is what they publicly disclose, which is highly unlikely. Second, it fails to account for differences in cost. China can build subway for $250 million per km. The US is four to eight times that. The Chinese built their 5th generation fighter for a program cost of $4.5 billion. Ours is better, but it cost ten times that. That reflects vastly higher labor costs, etc. China’s defense budget on paper is $175 billion in nominal dollars. If they get twice as much per nominal dollar (which is just the difference in ordinary purchasing power), they’re at half our defense budget. If they get four times more for their money (the difference in capital projects like building rail) they’re at parity. And of course, you don’t want parity with your enemy. You want an overwhelming advantage.
sdenton4 6y ago
'Elbridge Gerry arguing against a large standing army, compared it, mischievously, to a standing penis: "An excellent assurance of domestic tranquility, but a dangerous temptation to foreign adventure."' - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standing_army#United_States https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standing_army#United_States Gerry was pretty well spot on, it seems... The argument against an oversized standing army goes back to the founders in the US.
vkou 6y ago
America's national defense is two oceans and two thousand ICBMs. The rest of its military budget is largely spent on its imperial ambitions.
smileysteve 6y ago
Ironically, much of our "national defense" can't be deployed near our borders at short notice because they're 2 days away (by air)(weeks by sea)
JeremyNT 6y ago
> National Defense is a luxury good until it isn't. Moreover, it is not something that can be purchased on short notice. This is a semantic game. Sure "national defense" is important, but the US military is not primarily a tool of national defense, it's a tool of global empire building and management. Most of what the US could ever plausibly need for actual defense is sitting in nuclear missile silos and submarines.

National Defense is a luxury good until it isn't. Moreover, it is not something that can be purchased on short notice.

by RhysU 6y ago

National Defense is a luxury good until it isn't. Moreover, it is not something that can be purchased on short notice.

Protecting our nation from harm is easy to do. Nearly every nation in the world does it pretty well, and they do it with tiny fractions of our budget. The key is to not run around the world occupying nations and starting new wars every other day. War is and always will be asymmetric. Our military isn't expensive because we need it to be, it is expensive because it is an invasion and occupying force.

jeffbee 6y ago

The ONE TIME that US national defense actually worked it was very much purchased on short notice.

culturestate 6y ago
Unfortunately, "there are two oceans between us and any potential aggressors" is no longer a viable defensive posture. If you're gonna be drawn into a war today it's unlikely to come with years of lead time.
- xtracto 6y ago
  Anericans live so scared!
  - catalogia 6y ago
    With all that defense spending, I can't imagine why any American would need to fear any foreign military threat.
  - culturestate 6y ago
    I think there's a difference between living scared and living...I guess pragmatically. I'm not worried that e.g. Russia is going to drop a missile into midtown Manhattan, but I do acknowledge that there are real threats in the world and - for the moment at least - we can't all just get along. If the United States changed its military posture tomorrow to be strictly isolationist and brought every soldier home, someone else would step into the void. That may not necessarily be a bad thing, but it would be a different thing and at this point few people are seriously interested in finding out what kind of thing it would be.
- kjksf 6y ago
  Here's what would happen if any nation would be stupid enough to send a single missile into US soil: a button is pressed and a nuke 1000x stronger than Hiroshima is sent. The end of "war". U.S. has been involved in quite a number of wars in the last century. Always as an aggressor, never as a defendant. Let's not entertain the fantasy that a military budget of $732 billion, the size of 10 next biggest budgets combined, exists to defend US soil from invasion.
  - culturestate 6y ago
    > Let's not entertain the fantasy that a military budget of $732 billion...exists to defend US soil from invasion. Obviously not in its entirety, but it's also worth recognizing that the world is a different place in 2020 than it was in 1940 and that no country - the United States or otherwise - can afford to purchase a national defense at the last minute. Once you realize you need one, it's already too late.
  - Godel_unicode 6y ago
    Apparently December 7th 1941 no longer lives in infamy.
- vkou 6y ago
  Logistics in 2020 aren't much easier than they were in 1920, or in 1820. And the lead time for ICBMs to kill ~ a billion people has been ~40 minutes for the past 40 years.
  - Godel_unicode 6y ago
    The 82nd airborne division can be in planes on it's way to drop anywhere in the world 18 hours after a phone call from the White House. The Russian equivalent is called the CRRF, and has a similar force mix for obvious reasons.
    - vkou 6y ago
      The 82nd airborne division will be out of fuel, ammunition, and food within a week after dropping anywhere in the world, without an international logistics network of shipping to support them, and all the baggage that comes with keeping that network operating. Look at the massive logistics effort that was necessary to invade and occupy Iraq, a country one-tenth the size of the US, where half the opposition deserted before a shot was fired, half of the rest deserted after the first shots were fired, and where half of its neighbours have US or NATO military bases in them. No other country in the world is capable of doing this across an ocean.
      - Godel_unicode 6y ago
        > No other country in the world is capable of doing this across an ocean. 1 - Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. 2 - Even if that were true, American allies are frequently not across oceans from Russia/China/Iran/North Korea. Are you suggesting that the United States should back out of NATO? Tell Japan and South Korea we don't like our treaty obligations and to fend for themselves?
        deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]

Jaepa 6y ago

The US has the largest military budget in the world. If you combine the military spending of positions 2 - 11, the US still spends 6.4 billion dollars more. And of the those 10 other countries 8 are friendly and 6 are allies.

rayiner 6y ago
This calculation has two errors. First, it assumes that China and Russia’s spending is what they publicly disclose, which is highly unlikely. Second, it fails to account for differences in cost. China can build subway for $250 million per km. The US is four to eight times that. The Chinese built their 5th generation fighter for a program cost of $4.5 billion. Ours is better, but it cost ten times that. That reflects vastly higher labor costs, etc. China’s defense budget on paper is $175 billion in nominal dollars. If they get twice as much per nominal dollar (which is just the difference in ordinary purchasing power), they’re at half our defense budget. If they get four times more for their money (the difference in capital projects like building rail) they’re at parity. And of course, you don’t want parity with your enemy. You want an overwhelming advantage.

sdenton4 6y ago

'Elbridge Gerry arguing against a large standing army, compared it, mischievously, to a standing penis: "An excellent assurance of domestic tranquility, but a dangerous temptation to foreign adventure."' - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standing_army#United_States https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standing_army#United_States Gerry was pretty well spot on, it seems... The argument against an oversized standing army goes back to the founders in the US.

vkou 6y ago

America's national defense is two oceans and two thousand ICBMs. The rest of its military budget is largely spent on its imperial ambitions.

smileysteve 6y ago

Ironically, much of our "national defense" can't be deployed near our borders at short notice because they're 2 days away (by air)(weeks by sea)

JeremyNT 6y ago

> National Defense is a luxury good until it isn't. Moreover, it is not something that can be purchased on short notice. This is a semantic game. Sure "national defense" is important, but the US military is not primarily a tool of national defense, it's a tool of global empire building and management. Most of what the US could ever plausibly need for actual defense is sitting in nuclear missile silos and submarines.