20 ms·

I really don't know what to think about this. Military spending makes me feel very conflicted inside. I'm the kind of weird pacifistic person who literally sat

I really don't know what to think about this. Military spending makes me feel very conflicted inside. I'm the kind of weird pacifistic person who literally sat down at school and took the beating from the bullies, safe in the knowledge that I had the moral high ground. It didn't make me feel much better when they broke my ribs, but I've never punched someone in my life. I've always loved the look of fighter jets and the fact that humans can hop in and go faster than the speed of sound in them, but I've always hated their application. The engineering is amazing; the technology brilliant and the things that are discovered along the way undoubtedly serendipitous. Unfortunately, I know that for a human population to completely disarm is to invite trouble: and armies can and do far worse things than just beat you. I once went on a trip as a fresh-out-of-college person to a firm that made "kinetic armaments"; I went in with an open mind and left, three days later and with an (unaccepted) job offer, with a very shut one. That was a career pathway that was decidedly not for me. Eisenhower's famous quote sums it up quite well. > “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the clouds of war, it is humanity hanging on a cross of iron.”

cloutchaser 5y ago
Ok this is very nice, but as someone who was also bullied but is from a country that's been invaded at least 5 times by various empires in the last 1000 years, every gun ever made that wasn't used to feed people - was also made so that my ancestors could defend themselves against some king or dictator who wanted to invade other countries. You can either defend yourself, and possibly survive, or you can die. That's generally the choice throughout history, because hardly any country has ever always been the aggressor. Violence is at the root of all human existence. To deny it is to live in a fantasy land. In the end violence is what rules, because if you are weak at some point someone stronger will rule over you. That doesn't mean a violent person will always rule, because 2 peaceful collaborators can usually take down a violent ruler, but it still means that at the root of it whoever can dominate the other in some way will win. And this isn't unique to humans of course, it's how it is in nature and most tribal animals.
- gcheong 5y ago
  He’s not saying no military expenditure should occur but it has to be in balance with other things. In the US, where our military more often than not is used imperialistically rather than purely defensively, while the poor are allowed to starve or work for less than living wages, homeless suffer on the streets from mental illness, people are allowed to drown in medical or school debt, and where we got caught with our pants down in a pandemic when we should have been the most ready nation on earth, suddenly spending ever increasing amounts to defend ourselves from some imagined future threat doesn’t make much sense.
  - cloutchaser 5y ago
    Take it from someone who's non US and so isn't caught up in self guilt - the US is a much more passive military superpower than almost any superpower in history. I really don't think the US is imperialistic TBH. Just because a few countries got bombed for oil doesn't make you imperialistic. Read a bit of history about what empire building countries/kings/tyrants were actually like.
    - FpUser 5y ago
      >"Just because a few countries got bombed for oil doesn't make you imperialistic." If you bomb country for oil it makes you a fucking bandit and war criminal.
      - trevorboaconstr 5y ago
        Oh goodness, here we go. What country did the US bomb for oil? We went into Afghanistan because the Taliban harbored the organization that committed 9/11 and refused to turn them over. We went into Iraq primarily because a group of Neoconservatives were drunk on the unipolar moment and believed the US could spread democracy at the barrel of a gun and remake the Middle East. Haliburton definitely made money in Iraq, but we did not go in for oil. The invasion of Iraq was based on the fact that Bush and Cheney were neoconservatives, which means essentially liberal Trotskyites. They believed that human rights were universal and it was legitimate to uphold them by force. So in their logic, Saddam Hussein was a bad a guy and Iraq was a good candidate for showing that the US can start rolling into places and giving the people their freedom, just like that. The basic assumption was that stable democracies grow on their own once you get rid of the dictator. So show up to a country, get the dictator, rinse and repeat. Now you have nice democracies all throughout the world. In that view, not invading is immoral because it means you’re condemning millions of Iraqis to live under Saddam’s dictatorship. The basic lesson from this is that countries don’t act out of material self-interest as much as armchair cynics assume. Instead they’re frequently operated on an emotional or ideological basis.
gruez 5y ago
>Eisenhower's famous quote sums it up quite well. It's a nice quote, but it's not backed up by the research. >[...] A basic regression reveals no consistent relationship between GDP growth and military spending for the 38 countries in the OECD. >A sprawling body of research has come to a similar, albeit more nuanced, conclusion. In a discussion paper at Monash University in 2014, Sefa Awaworyi Churchill and Siew Ling Yew examined 42 separate studies. Effects are generally quite small, but they found two distinct categories: military expenditure in poorer countries is often detrimental to growth, whereas in wealthier countries it is more likely to be beneficial. One possible reason, they suggest, is weaker governance in developing countries; a big military budget is a juicy target for corrupt officials. Another possibility relates to the gun-versus-butter framework. The potential returns on civilian investments, from health care to education, are so great in poor countries that military spending has a particularly high opportunity cost. In rich countries with good schools and hospitals, the opportunity costs ought to be lower. https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2022/04/16/what-bigger-military-budgets-mean-for-the-economy https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2022/04/16/w...
- runnerup 5y ago
  > military expenditure in poorer countries is often detrimental to growth, whereas in wealthier countries it is more likely to be beneficial. I wonder how much of this is that as a very best case for poorer countries, the military expenses are an attempt to guarantee minimal sovereignty and stability. Poor countries which are well-protected client states of a larger power may not need to spend anything on military. Whereas for wealthy countries, marginal increases in military spending are generally towards force projection. This is often used to decrease costs associated with international trade…so there’s potentially a direct return on additional spending. For example, our leadership in overthrowing[0] the government of Guatemala to ensure continued access to unconscionably one-sided contracts for the United Fruit Company (now “Dole” fruit company). The USA still gets >85% of our pineapple from Costa Rica and Guatemala, which was secured via direct forceful subjugation as well as military spending to quietly support favorable factions. I don’t think all our wars are directly profitable to the winning belligerent, certainly the GWOT has not given USA access to enough resources in the Middle East to offset the cost. But these indirect benefits of forceful interventions absolutely do at least subsidize our military, and may often make the marginal spending above the minimum necessary for sovereignty, profitable. Small countries generally can’t leverage this “marginal profitability” so all their military spending is purely a cost center. Potentially necessary, but costly. Even if the wars in the Middle East greatly increased our GDP through deficit spending, or lost money but enriched the powerful owners of defense companies, those profits came from destroying unbelievable amounts of value in other countries. Completely demolished infrastructure and millions of deaths. I wonder how much richer USA businesses would be if that money had been poured into schools post-9/11 instead of into literal destruction of value overseas. People born then would be graduating now with greatly increased skill and ability. USA businesses would have far greater access to top talent, at significantly lower cost. I wonder how much richer the world would be if we’d poured that money into creation, building, and education instead of into destruction and partial reconstruction. Obviously I also wonder how much value the world might be missing out on from the intellectual capacity of South Korea if USA hadn’t spent money on a military intervention there. The money for the global war on terror was enough to immediately build 50% more schools (reducing class sizes from 30 to 20), pay all K-12 teachers $100,000 (in 2006 dollars), and buy every K-12 student a new high end MacBook every year. Lord knows how much internet, highways, railways, port facilities, and manufacturing facilities we could have built with that money. Perhaps we wouldn’t have a shipping crisis right now.
deltree7 5y ago
If Technological advances lead us to a world of abundance, then $2T doesn't matter. Also, military provides plenty of people to a) have a purpose b) be physically fit Military spending also provides stable economies for a lot of countries. Also conflict seems to happen in regions where there are no military spending. Would US have gone into wars with Vietnam, Korea, Afghanistan or Iraq if they had military spending (or nuclear warheads)? What about Russian invasion of Ukraine, Georgia? Paradoxically may be its best that every country have strong military spending and a decent proportion of the population who are physically fit and working on technological advances even if it's military related. Innovations out of military almost always benefits general society.
- deltaonefour 5y ago
  Not "Always". A lot of spending in the military is wasteful. This typically means a lot of people just are free loading. Then again there's a lot of consumer tech that comes out of military research like the internet.
  - yardstick 5y ago
    > A lot of spending in the military is wasteful. This typically means a lot of people just are free loading. Same could be said of any sufficiently large government run programme. Military, healthcare, social security, etc.
    - deltaonefour 5y ago
      I mean a lot of people do crime. Doesn't justify it.
    - KptMarchewa 5y ago
      Not only government run. Large corporations can be similarly inefficient.
      - deltaonefour 5y ago
        less so because of incentives. Capitalism is a bet saying that the incentives of the the commercial world makes it more efficient then an economy run by the government.
credit_guy 5y ago
As someone born behind the Iron Curtain, here’s my reply to Eisenhouer: all those guns made, ships launched and rockets fired contributed to me, and a few hundred million people like me, being free now, rather than living in a North Korea-type Gulag. Edit: they also contributed to a few other hundred million ( W Europe, Japan, etc) continuing to be free rather than being occupied by the USSR.
- JumpCrisscross 5y ago
  > all those guns made, ships launched and rockets fired contributed to me, and a few hundred million people like me, being free now, rather than living in a North Korea-type Gulag Would add that had Ukraine kept its post-separation guns, millions today wouldn’t be dead or displaced. To say nothing of the millions who will likely face starvation for lack of the grain Russia tramples. There is morality in a life of peace. But peace must be recognised as a luxury bought by the blood of others.
  - boplicity 5y ago
    > But peace must be recognised as a luxury bought by the blood of others. Blood is not the only way to achieve peace! There are non-violent ways to sustain and build peace. War is certainly one tool in that can cause (eventual) peace, but it is not the only one.
    - lossolo 5y ago
      > Blood is not the only way to achieve peace! There are non-violent ways to sustain and build peace. Which ways? Which way all invaded countries in WWII, WWI and other wars before could choose to sustain peace? They wanted peace and they got war because stronger nation invaded them. So which way? International organizations? UN security council? Didn't stop invasion of Ukraine. There is an old saying Si vis pacem, para bellum which means - If you want peace, prepare for war.
      - userulluipeste 5y ago
chrisseaton 5y ago
> took the beating from the bullies, safe in the knowledge that I had the moral high ground Would you still just sit there if they were getting to the point where someone was going to kill you? Are pacifists really of the mind that they're happy to stand and be killed if it comes to that? Do you think that's what the Ukrainians should be doing right now?
- hinoki 5y ago
  Yes, some people are. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dirk_Willems https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dirk_Willems It would certainly shorten the war, but I’m not sure very many Ukrainians would be ok with that.
  - chrisseaton 5y ago
    If people want to be this rational, they might as well just hang themselves now and save the climate impact of the Russian advance.
NicoJuicy 5y ago
Note: You can have a higher moral ground while protecting others from bullies too.
- SketchySeaBeast 5y ago
  In fact your morals can be whatever you make of them.
  - mensetmanusman 5y ago
    “Everything is relative except this fact”
FactualActuals 5y ago
Not all military spending is designed for offense. I currently work in the defense industry and the projects I've been on have either been intelligence gathering, passive defense systems, or currently some work on satellites. Advances in these systems do lead to other technologies that are used in other industries. I understand your concern considering that the cost of a Tomahawk missile is $1.87 million dollars. I personally don't see myself working on technologies used for offensive purposes but I find a sense of fulfillment by trying to keep soldiers and sailors safe.
- cwkoss 5y ago
  Have you considered that your perspective is "keeping soldiers and sailors safe" because it is crucial to your self esteem to believe your work is a net good for society, and if you didn't believe that you'd be unable to continue this work?
  - mensetmanusman 5y ago
    This is true for all work.
    - cwkoss 5y ago
      Most work isn't directly involved in the kill chain. That's a ridiculous dismissal.
      - mensetmanusman 5y ago
        I mean the mindset as “crucial to your self esteem to believe your work is a net good for society” Because ‘net good’ is debatable, your beliefs will clash with others who think it is not a ‘net good’ regardless of the work. E.g. people involved with sugar production have probably caused more integrated harm than those making missiles. This is especially true as obesity passes 50% of the population.
  - imtringued 5y ago
    Causalities are going down. Indiscriminate killing is going out of "fashion" but there is always going to be collateral damage. What surprises me on the other hand are those armchair drone experts that talk about swarms and extremely high levels of capability at absurdly low cost. Like, just run the "numbers" a can B-52 carry 100000 drones for the cost of one F-35. The obvious problem is the lack of a mission that requires sending this many weapons. People just randomly got this idea we are going to carpet bomb everything but this time with drones.
goodpoint 5y ago
> I really don't know what to think about this Simple: it's bad, very bad. Increasing expenditure increases the threat level: it's the whole point. Not to mention that the world is facing a climate catastrophe and the war machine is amongst the biggest sources of pollution.
- yardstick 5y ago
  Wouldn’t the war machine also be one of the most incentivised to find alternative energy sources? Can’t defend your country if you can’t source enough energy (legacy and renewables).
  - briffle 5y ago
    One of the first 'real' modern uses [0] of Opposed Piston Diesel engines in by Fairbanks Morse, for military uses. the Army is funding [1] Cummins new $87M opposed piston diesel engines for vehicles, they will have about a 25% decrease in fuel use. (which is HUGE for an army that has to carry their own fuel) That will definitely be quickly implemented by the major transportation companies, since fuel is such a huge part of their cost for trucking. 0. https://www.fairbanksmorse.com/blog/new-opposed-piston-engine-from-fairbanks-morse https://www.fairbanksmorse.com/blog/new-opposed-piston-engin... 1. https://www.greencarcongress.com/2021/08/20210803-ace.html https://www.greencarcongress.com/2021/08/20210803-ace.html
  - nebula8804 5y ago
    Not if the war machine has enough safe resources. While the Pentagon is "researching" alternative energy sources, I am not sure if they are just paying lip-service or actually serious about it. The US military is the single largest point source of pollution in the world. [1]:https://www.forbes.com/sites/niallmccarthy/2019/06/13/report-the-u-s-military-emits-more-co2-than-many-industrialized-nations-infographic/?sh=14ccbb74372f https://www.forbes.com/sites/niallmccarthy/2019/06/13/report...
  - goodpoint 5y ago
    In this context, "alternative" does not mean sustainable. The war machine has one priority: be ready to win wars. Sustainability is not a priority. Unsurprisingly the US army is the organization that uses the largest amount of oil in the world.
tomp 5y ago
Nothing says "pacifism" quite like having the biggest guns (or, well, muscles in case of high-school bullying) and seldom (ideally never) using them.
- kspacewalk2 5y ago
  In fact, deterrence is the best form of pacifism - the one that won't require surrender to maintain.
staunch 5y ago
I learned a different lesson from school bullies. Which was that, as a nerdy/shy but big/tough kid, I could protect other kids by telling bullies that they'd have to deal with me if they messed with anyone else in our class or anyone else I knew. I probably had to back up the threat maybe twice in minor ways. The end result was a very peaceful class for the last couple years of middle school. I was voted "Most Amiable" by my 8th grade class. And that's how I view NATO's role: the anti-bully that is completely ready to fight if forced.
baybal2 5y ago
gcheong 5y ago
"I'm the kind of weird pacifistic person who literally sat down at school and took the beating from the bullies" And sometimes, a lot of times, that's really the best option. People are under the impression, coded in our mythology and promoted by Hollywood, that if you defeat the bully your problem is over when in reality it often just escalates. You didn't fail because you weren't willing to defend yourself, the system which allowed such behavior to reach that point failed you.
- sillysaurusx 5y ago
  But then what's the option? At least you can maintain your dignity by defending yourself, even if it's supposedly not the best option.
  - mensetmanusman 5y ago
    The other option is mutually assured destruction. Probably works at the micro-scale as well.
    - goldorak 5y ago
      We have proof of the contrary. There is quite a lot of reports about ppl killing their partners (children, family) when abandoned and then committing suicide. I'm not saying that you should not stand your ground, I'm just saying that your are making dangerous assumptions, some ppl can be irrational or just overwhelmed with emotions. With micro-scale MAD 2 ppl die, with a large scale one you just need 1 person go crazy and it's over. TBH I'd never believe that the real reason for avoiding ww3 was MAD.
  - imtringued 5y ago
    The best option is to get the hell away from the assholes. Every time I get angry at some idiot on the road I calm myself down by thinking "I should get the hell away from this guy" instead of escalating it further like my mother who used to get in all sorts of pointless trouble afterwards.
- oneoff786 5y ago
mcv 5y ago
I'm not quite that pacifistic, because I do believe in self-defense, but I'm disgusted by the massive amounts of money that has been wasted on weapons, armies and violence, and I've always supported reducing military budgets. But I do believe in self-defense. Simply surrendering when a powerful dictatorship attacks, and giving up your democracy without a fight, is unacceptable. And defending against that does require weapons. So now I find myself in the awkward position of supporting weapons trade with Ukraine, and expanding European defense budgets. I hate this, but it seems to be necessary. I so wish for a world where we could just have peace.
- cwkoss 5y ago
  The ugliest part is induced demand for violence. A lot of political actions are based on making sure their weapon manufacturer constituents are getting their bread buttered - leading to fabricated pretexts for killing humans to make sure the money train keeps rolling. If hell is real, weapon manufacturer lobbyists are certainly on the guest list.
  - mcv 5y ago
    I'm painfully aware that a lot of weapon manufacturers are carefully paying attention to this real life test of their weapons.
- KennyBlanken 5y ago
  When the Pentagon is regularly putting out reports saying "congress is giving us too much money, this isn't sustainable for society", it's time to sit up and take notice. They started doing that about a decade or two ago. Congress uses the Pentagon as a pork barrel jobs program, buying votes. "Vote for me, I'll make sure the factory producing that troop carrier stays open." Next year: "vote for me, I'll make sure the proposed upgrade program to the troop carrier goes through" etc. The only reason Susan Collins has a job is because she's kept Maine's shipworks in a diabetic coma.
  - pkaye 5y ago
    Its the same thing with the NASA SLS in Alabama. Or how Washington state wanted more NASA funding so Blue Origin still has a shot at projects for NASA. Its all about bringing jobs to your state and keeping certain skills alive. If some industry is highly dependent on government funding, a lapse in project or funding means people will be let go. And it it happens long enough people will switch to different jobs and those skills will deteriorate.
darepublic 5y ago
I feel bad that you went to a school where the bullies could go so far as to break your ribs. While I agree that war spending is a type of monumental waste compared to what we could accomplish theoretically, it's also important to stand up to bullies I think, including the type that would beat anyone just sitting down.
zozbot234 5y ago
> Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. Eisenhower is quite wrong here, because the world is not lacking for food or clothing; we have plenty enough to feed, clothe, shelter everyone, and generally attend to their basic needs. What the world is in desperate need of is good policymaking that promotes human flourishing, as opposed to dictators or criminal cartels depriving their own people of the freedom they need to thrive and grow wealthier through good, productive work and investment. Good national and collective defense is a key part of the solution despite its drawbacks, and we haven't managed to come up with a workable alternative.
- GcVmvNhBsU 5y ago
  You do know the quote is in the context of defense spending, which spends tax dollars on guns, warships, and rockets instead of food and shelter? The “world” may produce enough food and clothing, but that is little consolation to the impoverished who cannot afford them.
watwut 5y ago
> I'm the kind of weird pacifistic person who literally sat down at school and took the beating from the bullies, safe in the knowledge that I had the moral high ground. It didn't make me feel much better when they broke my ribs, but I've never punched someone in my life. I really really heavily blame adults here. It is adults who prefer silence and own comfort that teach kids to be passive and just take it. This is not in kids interest at all. And I don't even mean that you should have beat them up back. Adults should have work with both aggressor and victim. They should have teach the victim healthy assertively and how to set boundaries before bullying gets that bad. And they should have taught the bullies to stop being bullies. And when aggressors are uncontrolable and relationships impossible to navigate for victim, when it escalated to the level of broken ribs, adults are responsible for stopping it all.
- mensetmanusman 5y ago
  Adults are just older versions of these kids. Passing blame around seems less helpful than fixing the problem. Good people need to act…
dchichkov 5y ago
$2.7 billion per day on military, $0.3 billion per day on hydrocarbons from Russia (to release these as CO2 into the atmosphere). Sounds like wasting $3.0 billion per day.
abrbhat 5y ago
Even if the world should achieve complete peace, some power-monger will rise with an ambition to rule everyone. All the weapons of the world exist only to deter that individual.
cryptonector 5y ago
Si vis pacem, para bellum. However, the intent for peace has to be there. Si vis pacem. You can also prepare for war w/ intent for war, after all.
jcranmer 5y ago
Military spending is an example of prisoners' dilemma: the ideal option would be for nobody to have a military, but no matter what the stature of your enemies are, it is more valuable to spend money on maintaining a military than not doing so. My personal views on the matter tend towards what I would call a militaristic pacifism. I am pretty against actually going to war, but I am generally in favor of maintaining a large, powerful military, far more than most pacifists are. Having that military power gives you better leverage in international affairs, and more resistance against others' leverage. While you can theoretically get a similar position with strong moral high ground, the reality is that you need a truly impeccable history of sustaining the moral high ground for that position to not be eroded with whataboutism, a history that I think no political actor has ever attained. Another perspective I will point out is that a decent fraction of "military expenditure" is not on actual military readiness. I've been on research grants that are coming out of the defense spending bucket, but I've never worked on anything remotely close to a weapon (e.g., one line item would have been building compilers, which is difficult to even maliciously twist into working on weapons).
- Banana699 5y ago
  >one line item would have been building compilers, which is difficult to even maliciously twist into working on weapons How so? Your compiler produces a binary, binary gets loaded on a chip inside a weapon system. Is that not working on weapons? That wasn't so difficult. I get the overall point, military spending as a huge funnel of free money to be thrown at research, of which not necessarily all would end up in actual combat ready systems. But you don't know which of your research would the uniforms throw away in government labs and which they would put on assembly lines and send to the field. Compilers are extraordinarily essential pieces of software that lie downstream of literally any source program, so even if your compiler was a research toy, it can be scavenged for that one algorithm or tricky data structure that can increase the efficiency of production compilers that produces the binaries that animate the killing machines on the field. For example, here's [1] an article about how formal verification helps unmanned helicopters be more resistant to cyber attacks. I didn't even search for it specifically for this comment, I had it on open tabs for 3 days. [1] https://m-cacm.acm.org/magazines/2018/10/231372-formally-verified-software-in-the-real-world/fulltext https://m-cacm.acm.org/magazines/2018/10/231372-formally-ver...
62951413 5y ago
Military spending means money flowing into science and education. WWII led to dramatic technological breakthroughs. The cold war inspired much stronger emphasis on STEM for decades. A major conflict would force the government to be more serious about secondary education too and so help with reversing the decay (e.g. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31170431 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31170431) of math programs in particular.
gnramires 5y ago
Thankfully we can make accords: under an accord, everyone can agree to simultaneously disarm themselves. It's not a perfect and forever solution to conflicts, but it's quite close. If everyone is disarmed, and we are under constant watch to make sure everyone is, the risk of conflict is very reduced. If a country breaks the accord others should have enough time to chase and seek peaceful solutions. Political instabilities can dissolve. War really should interest no one with good intentions. Anything war can do, conversations, cultural exchange, agreements and even sanctions can do better (if everyone agrees to abandon war). It's like in a scientific discussion... there's is effectively no, zero, case where punching your peer is better at progressing science than discussion and understanding. Of course, we also need to abolish fascism meanwhile -- it doesn't mean absolute tolerance, just that other tools should always be used to prevent and correct fascism and other dystopias that seem to require weapons to save yourself from.
InTheArena 5y ago
I'm reminded of a recent survey I saw, discussing if NATO expansion post-soviet collapse was a mistake or not. The Americans were all over the board. Some agreed strongly, some disagreed strongly. The eastern Europeans were united - NATO expansion was vital to keeping eastern Europe independent.
la6472 5y ago
Very well written , thanks! And what I don’t get is how even in 2022 decision makers can take a decision that results in killing of innocent lives somewhere. When there is even the slightest chance of dialogue why don’t they seize it?
imtringued 5y ago
Military spending is an easy trap for a developed country to fall into. Once all basic needs are met, there isn't much to do. A stockpile of weapons might not be useful immediately, but it is a better "investment" than doing nothing. The problem with weapon stockpiles though (I include well educated personnel that can use those weapons as part of the stockpile), is that it is inherently negative sum. A neighboring country may feel threatened and thus increase their stockpile. Then one accident or harmless aggression occurs and the calculation shifts in favor of "deploying" those weapons, leading to a far bigger war than is actually necessary to settle the original dispute.

cloutchaser 5y ago

Ok this is very nice, but as someone who was also bullied but is from a country that's been invaded at least 5 times by various empires in the last 1000 years, every gun ever made that wasn't used to feed people - was also made so that my ancestors could defend themselves against some king or dictator who wanted to invade other countries. You can either defend yourself, and possibly survive, or you can die. That's generally the choice throughout history, because hardly any country has ever always been the aggressor. Violence is at the root of all human existence. To deny it is to live in a fantasy land. In the end violence is what rules, because if you are weak at some point someone stronger will rule over you. That doesn't mean a violent person will always rule, because 2 peaceful collaborators can usually take down a violent ruler, but it still means that at the root of it whoever can dominate the other in some way will win. And this isn't unique to humans of course, it's how it is in nature and most tribal animals.

gcheong 5y ago
He’s not saying no military expenditure should occur but it has to be in balance with other things. In the US, where our military more often than not is used imperialistically rather than purely defensively, while the poor are allowed to starve or work for less than living wages, homeless suffer on the streets from mental illness, people are allowed to drown in medical or school debt, and where we got caught with our pants down in a pandemic when we should have been the most ready nation on earth, suddenly spending ever increasing amounts to defend ourselves from some imagined future threat doesn’t make much sense.
- cloutchaser 5y ago
  Take it from someone who's non US and so isn't caught up in self guilt - the US is a much more passive military superpower than almost any superpower in history. I really don't think the US is imperialistic TBH. Just because a few countries got bombed for oil doesn't make you imperialistic. Read a bit of history about what empire building countries/kings/tyrants were actually like.
  - FpUser 5y ago
    >"Just because a few countries got bombed for oil doesn't make you imperialistic." If you bomb country for oil it makes you a fucking bandit and war criminal.
    - trevorboaconstr 5y ago
      Oh goodness, here we go. What country did the US bomb for oil? We went into Afghanistan because the Taliban harbored the organization that committed 9/11 and refused to turn them over. We went into Iraq primarily because a group of Neoconservatives were drunk on the unipolar moment and believed the US could spread democracy at the barrel of a gun and remake the Middle East. Haliburton definitely made money in Iraq, but we did not go in for oil. The invasion of Iraq was based on the fact that Bush and Cheney were neoconservatives, which means essentially liberal Trotskyites. They believed that human rights were universal and it was legitimate to uphold them by force. So in their logic, Saddam Hussein was a bad a guy and Iraq was a good candidate for showing that the US can start rolling into places and giving the people their freedom, just like that. The basic assumption was that stable democracies grow on their own once you get rid of the dictator. So show up to a country, get the dictator, rinse and repeat. Now you have nice democracies all throughout the world. In that view, not invading is immoral because it means you’re condemning millions of Iraqis to live under Saddam’s dictatorship. The basic lesson from this is that countries don’t act out of material self-interest as much as armchair cynics assume. Instead they’re frequently operated on an emotional or ideological basis.

gruez 5y ago

>Eisenhower's famous quote sums it up quite well. It's a nice quote, but it's not backed up by the research. >[...] A basic regression reveals no consistent relationship between GDP growth and military spending for the 38 countries in the OECD. >A sprawling body of research has come to a similar, albeit more nuanced, conclusion. In a discussion paper at Monash University in 2014, Sefa Awaworyi Churchill and Siew Ling Yew examined 42 separate studies. Effects are generally quite small, but they found two distinct categories: military expenditure in poorer countries is often detrimental to growth, whereas in wealthier countries it is more likely to be beneficial. One possible reason, they suggest, is weaker governance in developing countries; a big military budget is a juicy target for corrupt officials. Another possibility relates to the gun-versus-butter framework. The potential returns on civilian investments, from health care to education, are so great in poor countries that military spending has a particularly high opportunity cost. In rich countries with good schools and hospitals, the opportunity costs ought to be lower. https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2022/04/16/what-bigger-military-budgets-mean-for-the-economy https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2022/04/16/w...

runnerup 5y ago
> military expenditure in poorer countries is often detrimental to growth, whereas in wealthier countries it is more likely to be beneficial. I wonder how much of this is that as a very best case for poorer countries, the military expenses are an attempt to guarantee minimal sovereignty and stability. Poor countries which are well-protected client states of a larger power may not need to spend anything on military. Whereas for wealthy countries, marginal increases in military spending are generally towards force projection. This is often used to decrease costs associated with international trade…so there’s potentially a direct return on additional spending. For example, our leadership in overthrowing[0] the government of Guatemala to ensure continued access to unconscionably one-sided contracts for the United Fruit Company (now “Dole” fruit company). The USA still gets >85% of our pineapple from Costa Rica and Guatemala, which was secured via direct forceful subjugation as well as military spending to quietly support favorable factions. I don’t think all our wars are directly profitable to the winning belligerent, certainly the GWOT has not given USA access to enough resources in the Middle East to offset the cost. But these indirect benefits of forceful interventions absolutely do at least subsidize our military, and may often make the marginal spending above the minimum necessary for sovereignty, profitable. Small countries generally can’t leverage this “marginal profitability” so all their military spending is purely a cost center. Potentially necessary, but costly. Even if the wars in the Middle East greatly increased our GDP through deficit spending, or lost money but enriched the powerful owners of defense companies, those profits came from destroying unbelievable amounts of value in other countries. Completely demolished infrastructure and millions of deaths. I wonder how much richer USA businesses would be if that money had been poured into schools post-9/11 instead of into literal destruction of value overseas. People born then would be graduating now with greatly increased skill and ability. USA businesses would have far greater access to top talent, at significantly lower cost. I wonder how much richer the world would be if we’d poured that money into creation, building, and education instead of into destruction and partial reconstruction. Obviously I also wonder how much value the world might be missing out on from the intellectual capacity of South Korea if USA hadn’t spent money on a military intervention there. The money for the global war on terror was enough to immediately build 50% more schools (reducing class sizes from 30 to 20), pay all K-12 teachers $100,000 (in 2006 dollars), and buy every K-12 student a new high end MacBook every year. Lord knows how much internet, highways, railways, port facilities, and manufacturing facilities we could have built with that money. Perhaps we wouldn’t have a shipping crisis right now.

deltree7 5y ago

If Technological advances lead us to a world of abundance, then $2T doesn't matter. Also, military provides plenty of people to a) have a purpose b) be physically fit Military spending also provides stable economies for a lot of countries. Also conflict seems to happen in regions where there are no military spending. Would US have gone into wars with Vietnam, Korea, Afghanistan or Iraq if they had military spending (or nuclear warheads)? What about Russian invasion of Ukraine, Georgia? Paradoxically may be its best that every country have strong military spending and a decent proportion of the population who are physically fit and working on technological advances even if it's military related. Innovations out of military almost always benefits general society.

deltaonefour 5y ago
Not "Always". A lot of spending in the military is wasteful. This typically means a lot of people just are free loading. Then again there's a lot of consumer tech that comes out of military research like the internet.
- yardstick 5y ago
  > A lot of spending in the military is wasteful. This typically means a lot of people just are free loading. Same could be said of any sufficiently large government run programme. Military, healthcare, social security, etc.
  - deltaonefour 5y ago
    I mean a lot of people do crime. Doesn't justify it.
  - KptMarchewa 5y ago
    Not only government run. Large corporations can be similarly inefficient.
    - deltaonefour 5y ago
      less so because of incentives. Capitalism is a bet saying that the incentives of the the commercial world makes it more efficient then an economy run by the government.

credit_guy 5y ago

As someone born behind the Iron Curtain, here’s my reply to Eisenhouer: all those guns made, ships launched and rockets fired contributed to me, and a few hundred million people like me, being free now, rather than living in a North Korea-type Gulag. Edit: they also contributed to a few other hundred million ( W Europe, Japan, etc) continuing to be free rather than being occupied by the USSR.

JumpCrisscross 5y ago
> all those guns made, ships launched and rockets fired contributed to me, and a few hundred million people like me, being free now, rather than living in a North Korea-type Gulag Would add that had Ukraine kept its post-separation guns, millions today wouldn’t be dead or displaced. To say nothing of the millions who will likely face starvation for lack of the grain Russia tramples. There is morality in a life of peace. But peace must be recognised as a luxury bought by the blood of others.
- boplicity 5y ago
  > But peace must be recognised as a luxury bought by the blood of others. Blood is not the only way to achieve peace! There are non-violent ways to sustain and build peace. War is certainly one tool in that can cause (eventual) peace, but it is not the only one.
  - lossolo 5y ago
    > Blood is not the only way to achieve peace! There are non-violent ways to sustain and build peace. Which ways? Which way all invaded countries in WWII, WWI and other wars before could choose to sustain peace? They wanted peace and they got war because stronger nation invaded them. So which way? International organizations? UN security council? Didn't stop invasion of Ukraine. There is an old saying Si vis pacem, para bellum which means - If you want peace, prepare for war.
    - userulluipeste 5y ago

chrisseaton 5y ago

> took the beating from the bullies, safe in the knowledge that I had the moral high ground Would you still just sit there if they were getting to the point where someone was going to kill you? Are pacifists really of the mind that they're happy to stand and be killed if it comes to that? Do you think that's what the Ukrainians should be doing right now?

hinoki 5y ago
Yes, some people are. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dirk_Willems https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dirk_Willems It would certainly shorten the war, but I’m not sure very many Ukrainians would be ok with that.
- chrisseaton 5y ago
  If people want to be this rational, they might as well just hang themselves now and save the climate impact of the Russian advance.

NicoJuicy 5y ago

Note: You can have a higher moral ground while protecting others from bullies too.

SketchySeaBeast 5y ago
In fact your morals can be whatever you make of them.
- mensetmanusman 5y ago
  “Everything is relative except this fact”

FactualActuals 5y ago

Not all military spending is designed for offense. I currently work in the defense industry and the projects I've been on have either been intelligence gathering, passive defense systems, or currently some work on satellites. Advances in these systems do lead to other technologies that are used in other industries. I understand your concern considering that the cost of a Tomahawk missile is $1.87 million dollars. I personally don't see myself working on technologies used for offensive purposes but I find a sense of fulfillment by trying to keep soldiers and sailors safe.

cwkoss 5y ago
Have you considered that your perspective is "keeping soldiers and sailors safe" because it is crucial to your self esteem to believe your work is a net good for society, and if you didn't believe that you'd be unable to continue this work?
- mensetmanusman 5y ago
  This is true for all work.
  - cwkoss 5y ago
    Most work isn't directly involved in the kill chain. That's a ridiculous dismissal.
    - mensetmanusman 5y ago
      I mean the mindset as “crucial to your self esteem to believe your work is a net good for society” Because ‘net good’ is debatable, your beliefs will clash with others who think it is not a ‘net good’ regardless of the work. E.g. people involved with sugar production have probably caused more integrated harm than those making missiles. This is especially true as obesity passes 50% of the population.
- imtringued 5y ago
  Causalities are going down. Indiscriminate killing is going out of "fashion" but there is always going to be collateral damage. What surprises me on the other hand are those armchair drone experts that talk about swarms and extremely high levels of capability at absurdly low cost. Like, just run the "numbers" a can B-52 carry 100000 drones for the cost of one F-35. The obvious problem is the lack of a mission that requires sending this many weapons. People just randomly got this idea we are going to carpet bomb everything but this time with drones.

goodpoint 5y ago

> I really don't know what to think about this Simple: it's bad, very bad. Increasing expenditure increases the threat level: it's the whole point. Not to mention that the world is facing a climate catastrophe and the war machine is amongst the biggest sources of pollution.

yardstick 5y ago
Wouldn’t the war machine also be one of the most incentivised to find alternative energy sources? Can’t defend your country if you can’t source enough energy (legacy and renewables).
- briffle 5y ago
  One of the first 'real' modern uses [0] of Opposed Piston Diesel engines in by Fairbanks Morse, for military uses. the Army is funding [1] Cummins new $87M opposed piston diesel engines for vehicles, they will have about a 25% decrease in fuel use. (which is HUGE for an army that has to carry their own fuel) That will definitely be quickly implemented by the major transportation companies, since fuel is such a huge part of their cost for trucking. 0. https://www.fairbanksmorse.com/blog/new-opposed-piston-engine-from-fairbanks-morse https://www.fairbanksmorse.com/blog/new-opposed-piston-engin... 1. https://www.greencarcongress.com/2021/08/20210803-ace.html https://www.greencarcongress.com/2021/08/20210803-ace.html
- nebula8804 5y ago
  Not if the war machine has enough safe resources. While the Pentagon is "researching" alternative energy sources, I am not sure if they are just paying lip-service or actually serious about it. The US military is the single largest point source of pollution in the world. [1]:https://www.forbes.com/sites/niallmccarthy/2019/06/13/report-the-u-s-military-emits-more-co2-than-many-industrialized-nations-infographic/?sh=14ccbb74372f https://www.forbes.com/sites/niallmccarthy/2019/06/13/report...
- goodpoint 5y ago
  In this context, "alternative" does not mean sustainable. The war machine has one priority: be ready to win wars. Sustainability is not a priority. Unsurprisingly the US army is the organization that uses the largest amount of oil in the world.

tomp 5y ago

Nothing says "pacifism" quite like having the biggest guns (or, well, muscles in case of high-school bullying) and seldom (ideally never) using them.

kspacewalk2 5y ago
In fact, deterrence is the best form of pacifism - the one that won't require surrender to maintain.

staunch 5y ago

I learned a different lesson from school bullies. Which was that, as a nerdy/shy but big/tough kid, I could protect other kids by telling bullies that they'd have to deal with me if they messed with anyone else in our class or anyone else I knew. I probably had to back up the threat maybe twice in minor ways. The end result was a very peaceful class for the last couple years of middle school. I was voted "Most Amiable" by my 8th grade class. And that's how I view NATO's role: the anti-bully that is completely ready to fight if forced.

baybal2 5y ago

gcheong 5y ago

"I'm the kind of weird pacifistic person who literally sat down at school and took the beating from the bullies" And sometimes, a lot of times, that's really the best option. People are under the impression, coded in our mythology and promoted by Hollywood, that if you defeat the bully your problem is over when in reality it often just escalates. You didn't fail because you weren't willing to defend yourself, the system which allowed such behavior to reach that point failed you.

sillysaurusx 5y ago
But then what's the option? At least you can maintain your dignity by defending yourself, even if it's supposedly not the best option.
- mensetmanusman 5y ago
  The other option is mutually assured destruction. Probably works at the micro-scale as well.
  - goldorak 5y ago
    We have proof of the contrary. There is quite a lot of reports about ppl killing their partners (children, family) when abandoned and then committing suicide. I'm not saying that you should not stand your ground, I'm just saying that your are making dangerous assumptions, some ppl can be irrational or just overwhelmed with emotions. With micro-scale MAD 2 ppl die, with a large scale one you just need 1 person go crazy and it's over. TBH I'd never believe that the real reason for avoiding ww3 was MAD.
- imtringued 5y ago
  The best option is to get the hell away from the assholes. Every time I get angry at some idiot on the road I calm myself down by thinking "I should get the hell away from this guy" instead of escalating it further like my mother who used to get in all sorts of pointless trouble afterwards.
oneoff786 5y ago

mcv 5y ago

I'm not quite that pacifistic, because I do believe in self-defense, but I'm disgusted by the massive amounts of money that has been wasted on weapons, armies and violence, and I've always supported reducing military budgets. But I do believe in self-defense. Simply surrendering when a powerful dictatorship attacks, and giving up your democracy without a fight, is unacceptable. And defending against that does require weapons. So now I find myself in the awkward position of supporting weapons trade with Ukraine, and expanding European defense budgets. I hate this, but it seems to be necessary. I so wish for a world where we could just have peace.

cwkoss 5y ago
The ugliest part is induced demand for violence. A lot of political actions are based on making sure their weapon manufacturer constituents are getting their bread buttered - leading to fabricated pretexts for killing humans to make sure the money train keeps rolling. If hell is real, weapon manufacturer lobbyists are certainly on the guest list.
- mcv 5y ago
  I'm painfully aware that a lot of weapon manufacturers are carefully paying attention to this real life test of their weapons.
KennyBlanken 5y ago
When the Pentagon is regularly putting out reports saying "congress is giving us too much money, this isn't sustainable for society", it's time to sit up and take notice. They started doing that about a decade or two ago. Congress uses the Pentagon as a pork barrel jobs program, buying votes. "Vote for me, I'll make sure the factory producing that troop carrier stays open." Next year: "vote for me, I'll make sure the proposed upgrade program to the troop carrier goes through" etc. The only reason Susan Collins has a job is because she's kept Maine's shipworks in a diabetic coma.
- pkaye 5y ago
  Its the same thing with the NASA SLS in Alabama. Or how Washington state wanted more NASA funding so Blue Origin still has a shot at projects for NASA. Its all about bringing jobs to your state and keeping certain skills alive. If some industry is highly dependent on government funding, a lapse in project or funding means people will be let go. And it it happens long enough people will switch to different jobs and those skills will deteriorate.

darepublic 5y ago

I feel bad that you went to a school where the bullies could go so far as to break your ribs. While I agree that war spending is a type of monumental waste compared to what we could accomplish theoretically, it's also important to stand up to bullies I think, including the type that would beat anyone just sitting down.

zozbot234 5y ago

> Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. Eisenhower is quite wrong here, because the world is not lacking for food or clothing; we have plenty enough to feed, clothe, shelter everyone, and generally attend to their basic needs. What the world is in desperate need of is good policymaking that promotes human flourishing, as opposed to dictators or criminal cartels depriving their own people of the freedom they need to thrive and grow wealthier through good, productive work and investment. Good national and collective defense is a key part of the solution despite its drawbacks, and we haven't managed to come up with a workable alternative.

GcVmvNhBsU 5y ago
You do know the quote is in the context of defense spending, which spends tax dollars on guns, warships, and rockets instead of food and shelter? The “world” may produce enough food and clothing, but that is little consolation to the impoverished who cannot afford them.

watwut 5y ago

> I'm the kind of weird pacifistic person who literally sat down at school and took the beating from the bullies, safe in the knowledge that I had the moral high ground. It didn't make me feel much better when they broke my ribs, but I've never punched someone in my life. I really really heavily blame adults here. It is adults who prefer silence and own comfort that teach kids to be passive and just take it. This is not in kids interest at all. And I don't even mean that you should have beat them up back. Adults should have work with both aggressor and victim. They should have teach the victim healthy assertively and how to set boundaries before bullying gets that bad. And they should have taught the bullies to stop being bullies. And when aggressors are uncontrolable and relationships impossible to navigate for victim, when it escalated to the level of broken ribs, adults are responsible for stopping it all.

mensetmanusman 5y ago
Adults are just older versions of these kids. Passing blame around seems less helpful than fixing the problem. Good people need to act…

dchichkov 5y ago

$2.7 billion per day on military, $0.3 billion per day on hydrocarbons from Russia (to release these as CO2 into the atmosphere). Sounds like wasting $3.0 billion per day.

abrbhat 5y ago

Even if the world should achieve complete peace, some power-monger will rise with an ambition to rule everyone. All the weapons of the world exist only to deter that individual.

cryptonector 5y ago

Si vis pacem, para bellum. However, the intent for peace has to be there. Si vis pacem. You can also prepare for war w/ intent for war, after all.

jcranmer 5y ago

Military spending is an example of prisoners' dilemma: the ideal option would be for nobody to have a military, but no matter what the stature of your enemies are, it is more valuable to spend money on maintaining a military than not doing so. My personal views on the matter tend towards what I would call a militaristic pacifism. I am pretty against actually going to war, but I am generally in favor of maintaining a large, powerful military, far more than most pacifists are. Having that military power gives you better leverage in international affairs, and more resistance against others' leverage. While you can theoretically get a similar position with strong moral high ground, the reality is that you need a truly impeccable history of sustaining the moral high ground for that position to not be eroded with whataboutism, a history that I think no political actor has ever attained. Another perspective I will point out is that a decent fraction of "military expenditure" is not on actual military readiness. I've been on research grants that are coming out of the defense spending bucket, but I've never worked on anything remotely close to a weapon (e.g., one line item would have been building compilers, which is difficult to even maliciously twist into working on weapons).

Banana699 5y ago
>one line item would have been building compilers, which is difficult to even maliciously twist into working on weapons How so? Your compiler produces a binary, binary gets loaded on a chip inside a weapon system. Is that not working on weapons? That wasn't so difficult. I get the overall point, military spending as a huge funnel of free money to be thrown at research, of which not necessarily all would end up in actual combat ready systems. But you don't know which of your research would the uniforms throw away in government labs and which they would put on assembly lines and send to the field. Compilers are extraordinarily essential pieces of software that lie downstream of literally any source program, so even if your compiler was a research toy, it can be scavenged for that one algorithm or tricky data structure that can increase the efficiency of production compilers that produces the binaries that animate the killing machines on the field. For example, here's [1] an article about how formal verification helps unmanned helicopters be more resistant to cyber attacks. I didn't even search for it specifically for this comment, I had it on open tabs for 3 days. [1] https://m-cacm.acm.org/magazines/2018/10/231372-formally-verified-software-in-the-real-world/fulltext https://m-cacm.acm.org/magazines/2018/10/231372-formally-ver...

62951413 5y ago

Military spending means money flowing into science and education. WWII led to dramatic technological breakthroughs. The cold war inspired much stronger emphasis on STEM for decades. A major conflict would force the government to be more serious about secondary education too and so help with reversing the decay (e.g. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31170431 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31170431) of math programs in particular.

gnramires 5y ago

Thankfully we can make accords: under an accord, everyone can agree to simultaneously disarm themselves. It's not a perfect and forever solution to conflicts, but it's quite close. If everyone is disarmed, and we are under constant watch to make sure everyone is, the risk of conflict is very reduced. If a country breaks the accord others should have enough time to chase and seek peaceful solutions. Political instabilities can dissolve. War really should interest no one with good intentions. Anything war can do, conversations, cultural exchange, agreements and even sanctions can do better (if everyone agrees to abandon war). It's like in a scientific discussion... there's is effectively no, zero, case where punching your peer is better at progressing science than discussion and understanding. Of course, we also need to abolish fascism meanwhile -- it doesn't mean absolute tolerance, just that other tools should always be used to prevent and correct fascism and other dystopias that seem to require weapons to save yourself from.

InTheArena 5y ago

I'm reminded of a recent survey I saw, discussing if NATO expansion post-soviet collapse was a mistake or not. The Americans were all over the board. Some agreed strongly, some disagreed strongly. The eastern Europeans were united - NATO expansion was vital to keeping eastern Europe independent.

la6472 5y ago

Very well written , thanks! And what I don’t get is how even in 2022 decision makers can take a decision that results in killing of innocent lives somewhere. When there is even the slightest chance of dialogue why don’t they seize it?

imtringued 5y ago

Military spending is an easy trap for a developed country to fall into. Once all basic needs are met, there isn't much to do. A stockpile of weapons might not be useful immediately, but it is a better "investment" than doing nothing. The problem with weapon stockpiles though (I include well educated personnel that can use those weapons as part of the stockpile), is that it is inherently negative sum. A neighboring country may feel threatened and thus increase their stockpile. Then one accident or harmless aggression occurs and the calculation shifts in favor of "deploying" those weapons, leading to a far bigger war than is actually necessary to settle the original dispute.