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This largely ignores the crucial role that the U.S. has played as global ensure-r of security, world order and enabler of global free trade. Peter Zeihan speaks

This largely ignores the crucial role that the U.S. has played as global ensure-r of security, world order and enabler of global free trade. Peter Zeihan speaks at length about this.[1] For example Germany has recently said it would sharply increase its spending on defense to more than 2% of its economic output in one of a series of policy shifts.[1] Other European countries will be increasing their defense spending too. Formerly it was just the U.S. footing the lion share of the NATO bill. That will rapidly change. And that will also affect how much of the domestic spending it eats into. This has been largely ignored in past number crunching of living standards of various countries. [1] The places America cares about post Globalization | Peter Zeihan (2021) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_oeG170bv7k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_oeG170bv7k [2] Germany to increase defence spending in response to 'Putin's war' - Scholz https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/germany-hike-defense-spending-scholz-says-further-policy-shift-2022-02-27/ https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/germany-h...

ClumsyPilot 4y ago
'Formerly it was just the U.S. footing the lion share of the NATO bill.' This is quite unfair portrayal of the situation. It is always portrayed as if US is paying biggest share of the tab - like if we were all paying for shared commitments. However in reality it's more everyone going out for a fancy dinner and one guy buying loads of dishes that turn out to taste terrible, or are left uneaten - and then bragging abiut paying the most. You can imagine that the budget would be quote a bit smaller without the war in Iraq, which was tremendously expensive, so was F-22 programm and littoral combat ship programms that came to nothing, etc. Clearly we have spent a lot of money bombing some poor people that should have never been harmed, and creating regime change that turned out to be a mistake. Like does anyone remember that time US installed a Fashist regime in Greece? Dont forget thaylt Nato's budget, without US, is still larger than Russia's or China's - i am not sure how much is enough, but there is still a lot of rich countries spending money.
gumby 4y ago
> Formerly it was just the U.S. footing the lion share of the NATO bill. That’s not quite correct, though it’s true that the US spent more on its military than the next 10 countries combined. And that did turn out great: Europe had the longest stretch of peace in recorded history (about 70 years). Much cheaper for the US than getting into a war. This is another thing that the war in Ukraine has upended, though I suspect the cost of reconstruction will cause that spending to revert to the mean.

ClumsyPilot 4y ago

'Formerly it was just the U.S. footing the lion share of the NATO bill.' This is quite unfair portrayal of the situation. It is always portrayed as if US is paying biggest share of the tab - like if we were all paying for shared commitments. However in reality it's more everyone going out for a fancy dinner and one guy buying loads of dishes that turn out to taste terrible, or are left uneaten - and then bragging abiut paying the most. You can imagine that the budget would be quote a bit smaller without the war in Iraq, which was tremendously expensive, so was F-22 programm and littoral combat ship programms that came to nothing, etc. Clearly we have spent a lot of money bombing some poor people that should have never been harmed, and creating regime change that turned out to be a mistake. Like does anyone remember that time US installed a Fashist regime in Greece? Dont forget thaylt Nato's budget, without US, is still larger than Russia's or China's - i am not sure how much is enough, but there is still a lot of rich countries spending money.

gumby 4y ago

> Formerly it was just the U.S. footing the lion share of the NATO bill. That’s not quite correct, though it’s true that the US spent more on its military than the next 10 countries combined. And that did turn out great: Europe had the longest stretch of peace in recorded history (about 70 years). Much cheaper for the US than getting into a war. This is another thing that the war in Ukraine has upended, though I suspect the cost of reconstruction will cause that spending to revert to the mean.