4 ms·

Looks like DARPA's budget is about 3.5 billion a year vs. the overall defense budget of something like 715 billion. I'm betting that a lot more people would fee

Looks like DARPA's budget is about 3.5 billion a year vs. the overall defense budget of something like 715 billion. I'm betting that a lot more people would feel ok about paying taxes if more of it was going towards these types of projects rather than empire building in far away parts of the world.

1cvmask 5y ago
The defense budget is in fact over 1.25 trillion dollars in real terms. We just don’t count it like most other countries. For example nuclear weapons are under the Department of Energy. https://www.pogo.org/analysis/2019/05/making-sense-of-the-1-25-trillion-national-security-state-budget/ https://www.pogo.org/analysis/2019/05/making-sense-of-the-1-... https://tomdispatch.com/hartung-and-smithberger-a-dollar-by-dollar-tour-of-the-national-security-state/ https://tomdispatch.com/hartung-and-smithberger-a-dollar-by-...
- MattGaiser 5y ago
  Yeah, but a vast amount of healthcare is under the DoD in America while it wouldn’t be in other countries.
gnulinux 5y ago
Right, so we need both. Defund the military, make sure rich people still pay their fair amount of taxes, and use that money to invest in science, education, healthcare, education etc.
- b9a2cab5 5y ago
  Defunding the military has real impacts. Those free trade deals that lower the cost of goods for average people don't just magically get signed, generally U.S. military presence is also a part of the deal. More generally if the U.S. loses global hegemony then so does the dollar, and a mass exodus from the dollar as foreign reserve would cause rampant inflation as demand for dollars crashes. The geopolitical situation is more complicated than just "defund the military". You can see both the current and past administration are trying to get other countries to pay more for the U.S. presence, which is a form of slow withdrawal of U.S. power, so I think they recognize that there is a need to redirect funds, but I don't think you can just outright leave in a year.
demadog 5y ago
The U.S. isn't empire building. It's mainly a policy of retaining superpower status for world peace. Containment of China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea is largely the defining policy of the last 70 years. Of course tons of blunders like Vietnam and Afghanistan. Tragedies. But there has not been a World War III nor have there been large scale wars killing a sizable portion of the populace such as most wars pre-WWII. For further evidence that the U.S. isn't interested in empire building is the fact that in wars over the last 70 years, the U.S. hasn't gained land and tried to turn the countries into vassal states like in classical European wars or like USSR did. The U.S. aims to build allies not an empire.
- NaturalPhallacy 5y ago
  > But there has not been a World War III nor have there been large scale wars killing a sizable portion of the populace such as most wars pre-WWII. This is as much if not more of a result of Mutually Assured Destruction due to nuclear weapons. Humanity finally built something so destructive we had to collectively choose not to use it because the only way to win that game is not to play it. Now it's all proxy wars, cyber 'wars', and trade 'wars'. >For further evidence that the U.S. isn't interested in empire building is the fact that in wars over the last 70 years, the U.S. hasn't gained land and tried to turn the countries into vassal states like in classical European wars or like USSR did. The U.S. aims to build allies not an empire. This much I agree with.
  - atatatat 5y ago
    Less HONEST wars. Tell people exactly why they're dying again, see how many SpecOps get fucking cancelled.
- vasco 5y ago
  The U.S. isn't creating vassal states because that wouldn't fly with the current zeitgeist, because it'd allienate the EU and other current friendly countries which buy a lot of crap from US companies. Keeping the USD as the base currency of the world is the most important thing. When the a country owns the de-facto base currency it can print it's way into prosperity, having the most powerful army assures that everyone will respect that the pieces of paper you print are worth something. This way you can get yourself out of trouble any time it arrises by printing your way out of it. Inflation then comes and your debts are now easier to repay. Meanwhile all the schmuck countries holding your debt can't do much about it, since you're the only one that can print USD. Keeping those countries close and doing trade is way better than a few extra official vassal states, when you can instead just get most of the profits without any of the hassle of actually having to manage a remote piece of land. Why have all that trouble when you can sell your current_gen-2 weapon systems to most countries on earth with loads of profit? Plus they can't ever go to war against you because you'll just stop supplying them. I'm very pro-US myself but to think that this "benevolent world management" stance is just out of the kindness of the US government's heart seems a bit naive. It's subtle empire building, but it's still empire building. I for one don't mind, because I think out of the options there are, the US definitely isn't the worse choice.
systemvoltage 5y ago
Defense is business in an abstract sense. DaaS is desirable for many nations instead of building domestic capability which would be far worse due to scale/reinventing-the-wheel. Look up US defense treaties with various nations across the world - this is a mutual agreement in exchange for IP, defense sales, assurance and guarantees, soft power, etc.

1cvmask 5y ago

The defense budget is in fact over 1.25 trillion dollars in real terms. We just don’t count it like most other countries. For example nuclear weapons are under the Department of Energy. https://www.pogo.org/analysis/2019/05/making-sense-of-the-1-25-trillion-national-security-state-budget/ https://www.pogo.org/analysis/2019/05/making-sense-of-the-1-... https://tomdispatch.com/hartung-and-smithberger-a-dollar-by-dollar-tour-of-the-national-security-state/ https://tomdispatch.com/hartung-and-smithberger-a-dollar-by-...

MattGaiser 5y ago
Yeah, but a vast amount of healthcare is under the DoD in America while it wouldn’t be in other countries.

gnulinux 5y ago

Right, so we need both. Defund the military, make sure rich people still pay their fair amount of taxes, and use that money to invest in science, education, healthcare, education etc.

b9a2cab5 5y ago
Defunding the military has real impacts. Those free trade deals that lower the cost of goods for average people don't just magically get signed, generally U.S. military presence is also a part of the deal. More generally if the U.S. loses global hegemony then so does the dollar, and a mass exodus from the dollar as foreign reserve would cause rampant inflation as demand for dollars crashes. The geopolitical situation is more complicated than just "defund the military". You can see both the current and past administration are trying to get other countries to pay more for the U.S. presence, which is a form of slow withdrawal of U.S. power, so I think they recognize that there is a need to redirect funds, but I don't think you can just outright leave in a year.

demadog 5y ago

The U.S. isn't empire building. It's mainly a policy of retaining superpower status for world peace. Containment of China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea is largely the defining policy of the last 70 years. Of course tons of blunders like Vietnam and Afghanistan. Tragedies. But there has not been a World War III nor have there been large scale wars killing a sizable portion of the populace such as most wars pre-WWII. For further evidence that the U.S. isn't interested in empire building is the fact that in wars over the last 70 years, the U.S. hasn't gained land and tried to turn the countries into vassal states like in classical European wars or like USSR did. The U.S. aims to build allies not an empire.

NaturalPhallacy 5y ago
> But there has not been a World War III nor have there been large scale wars killing a sizable portion of the populace such as most wars pre-WWII. This is as much if not more of a result of Mutually Assured Destruction due to nuclear weapons. Humanity finally built something so destructive we had to collectively choose not to use it because the only way to win that game is not to play it. Now it's all proxy wars, cyber 'wars', and trade 'wars'. >For further evidence that the U.S. isn't interested in empire building is the fact that in wars over the last 70 years, the U.S. hasn't gained land and tried to turn the countries into vassal states like in classical European wars or like USSR did. The U.S. aims to build allies not an empire. This much I agree with.
- atatatat 5y ago
  Less HONEST wars. Tell people exactly why they're dying again, see how many SpecOps get fucking cancelled.
vasco 5y ago
The U.S. isn't creating vassal states because that wouldn't fly with the current zeitgeist, because it'd allienate the EU and other current friendly countries which buy a lot of crap from US companies. Keeping the USD as the base currency of the world is the most important thing. When the a country owns the de-facto base currency it can print it's way into prosperity, having the most powerful army assures that everyone will respect that the pieces of paper you print are worth something. This way you can get yourself out of trouble any time it arrises by printing your way out of it. Inflation then comes and your debts are now easier to repay. Meanwhile all the schmuck countries holding your debt can't do much about it, since you're the only one that can print USD. Keeping those countries close and doing trade is way better than a few extra official vassal states, when you can instead just get most of the profits without any of the hassle of actually having to manage a remote piece of land. Why have all that trouble when you can sell your current_gen-2 weapon systems to most countries on earth with loads of profit? Plus they can't ever go to war against you because you'll just stop supplying them. I'm very pro-US myself but to think that this "benevolent world management" stance is just out of the kindness of the US government's heart seems a bit naive. It's subtle empire building, but it's still empire building. I for one don't mind, because I think out of the options there are, the US definitely isn't the worse choice.

systemvoltage 5y ago

Defense is business in an abstract sense. DaaS is desirable for many nations instead of building domestic capability which would be far worse due to scale/reinventing-the-wheel. Look up US defense treaties with various nations across the world - this is a mutual agreement in exchange for IP, defense sales, assurance and guarantees, soft power, etc.