4 ms·

Indeed. Some people defend war spending by saying that it leads to, say, medial advances. Seems to me that you can fund medical research without spending a tril

Indeed. Some people defend war spending by saying that it leads to, say, medial advances. Seems to me that you can fund medical research without spending a trillion dollars sending humans around the planet, causing another trillion in infrastructure damage, air-conditioning tents in a desert, blowing limbs off the aforementioned humans, flying them home and then still spending the money on the research to fix them (and in the US especially, then also denying these hard-won fruits of this whole taxpayer-funded endeavour to the taxpayers).

ghiculescu 4y ago
The point of military spending is to prevent war by creating a strong deterrent that encourages diplomacy. It’s not to start wars, that’s why it’s called defense spending. (I’m not arguing the US always does this right.)
- kevin_thibedeau 4y ago
  That doesn't work when you have a belligerent who needs to get itself into conflicts every 15 years to keep its experience levels up and foment conflict abroad in the "off season" to support its MIC.
  - hanselot 4y ago
- wing-_-nuts 4y ago
  The continental united states is surrounded by two friendly neighbors that are not a threat to us. We are separated from our nearest peer adversaries by thousands of miles of ocean, and their entire military doctrine revolves around defending themselves from us. We could get by with a tiny fraction of our 700B+ / yr defense budget. One wonders how much better a society we would be if we spent that on things that would actually benefit the average citizen, or did something unthinkable like actually paying down debt.
  - sharkweek 4y ago
    If that happened, we'd invade ourselves to prevent such a country from developing.
  - ckw 4y ago
  - throwaway6734 4y ago
    So give away the strength of the dollar and the ease of international trade?
    - wing-_-nuts 4y ago
      Our military has nothing to do with the strength of the dollar. That is totally reliant on the strength of our economy.
      - orestarod 4y ago
        > Our military has nothing to do with the strength of the dollar. That is totally reliant on the strength of our economy. The strength of the dollar is all about beating whoever disagrees with its role as the oil exchange currency to submission, because that is its current base for its demand. Libya was not invaded because the West suddenly remembered that Kandafi is a dictator. Iraq was not invaded because suddenly WMD were found (did they ever find another tale to cover their reasons?), Syria was not made into anarchy because the West wanted the Syrian people to be free. They all had one common point near the time of invasion. So yes the military does play a big role.
  - water8 4y ago
    ICBMs make this a moot point
    - wing-_-nuts 4y ago
      Which is why we would have nukes, a national guard sufficient to defend the homeland, and little else.
- anthonypasq 4y ago
  this is a tad naive to say the least
- breakyerself 4y ago
  Considering how frequently we put our weapons of war to use ruining the lives of poor people around the world I would say that theory has been disproved. The US is virtually always at war.
  - throwaway894345 4y ago
    What do people think happens if the US withdraws from the global theater and doesn’t maintain its military capabilities? Do we really think that Russia or China would settle for regional skirmishes, and the world would be at peace? The US is very often at war, but there are greater evils than the US bombing ISIS even with the commensurate civilian casualties (hint: few other military powers are so scrupulous about civilian casualties).
    - orestarod 4y ago
      You might want to research the contacts, support, decisions and occurrences regarding the US administration and ISIS. And that's just regarding an organization you mentioned. We would lose count if we started listing the countries the US willingly destroyed in cold blood.
trashtester 4y ago
> Some people defend war spending I prefer to think of military spending during peacetime as "peace spending" not "war spending". Spending on actual wars, once they start, is another matter. Some wars are just (like the support of Ukraine, at present, I would say, or the liberation of Kuwait), some are unjust, many are some shade of gray. But generally, it is preferable when democratic countries have enough military might during peacetime to make would-be conquerors put aside their dreams of being the new Peter the Great, Saladin or Qin Shi Huang.
- thfuran 4y ago
  What peace time? The US has pretty nearly continuously been in some military action or another for the past hundred years.
  - trashtester 4y ago
    Peace is relative. The US has not had war on its own territory since the Civil War, so the civilian population has experienced peace for over 150 years. During WW1 and especially WW2, the US military was employed to nearly maximum capacity, in other words, 1945 was the last time the military was in a state of all-out war. During the Korean and Vietnam wars, the military was partially committed to the wars, maybe around 25% of 1945's commitment. I would label these limited wars. The invasion phases of the two Iraqi wars as well as the invasion phase in Afghanistan saw similar levels of mobilization, but these were over so quickly they would be more like skirmishes. And for the rest, I would label them as little more than policing of occupied territories. (All of the above from the US perspective, from the perspective of the adversary, several of the above were total wars.) If you look at the death toll, WW2 cost 0.4% of the US population at the time. The Vietnam and Korean wars cost less than 0.1% of the population each, and the rest hardly register. Compare that to the 5%-20% death toll of many European countries during WW2, and similar numbers for numerous other wars through history, and you get a perspective of how peaceful the US has been since the Civil War.

ghiculescu 4y ago

The point of military spending is to prevent war by creating a strong deterrent that encourages diplomacy. It’s not to start wars, that’s why it’s called defense spending. (I’m not arguing the US always does this right.)

kevin_thibedeau 4y ago
That doesn't work when you have a belligerent who needs to get itself into conflicts every 15 years to keep its experience levels up and foment conflict abroad in the "off season" to support its MIC.
- hanselot 4y ago
wing-_-nuts 4y ago
The continental united states is surrounded by two friendly neighbors that are not a threat to us. We are separated from our nearest peer adversaries by thousands of miles of ocean, and their entire military doctrine revolves around defending themselves from us. We could get by with a tiny fraction of our 700B+ / yr defense budget. One wonders how much better a society we would be if we spent that on things that would actually benefit the average citizen, or did something unthinkable like actually paying down debt.
- sharkweek 4y ago
  If that happened, we'd invade ourselves to prevent such a country from developing.
- ckw 4y ago
- throwaway6734 4y ago
  So give away the strength of the dollar and the ease of international trade?
  - wing-_-nuts 4y ago
    Our military has nothing to do with the strength of the dollar. That is totally reliant on the strength of our economy.
    - orestarod 4y ago
      > Our military has nothing to do with the strength of the dollar. That is totally reliant on the strength of our economy. The strength of the dollar is all about beating whoever disagrees with its role as the oil exchange currency to submission, because that is its current base for its demand. Libya was not invaded because the West suddenly remembered that Kandafi is a dictator. Iraq was not invaded because suddenly WMD were found (did they ever find another tale to cover their reasons?), Syria was not made into anarchy because the West wanted the Syrian people to be free. They all had one common point near the time of invasion. So yes the military does play a big role.
- water8 4y ago
  ICBMs make this a moot point
  - wing-_-nuts 4y ago
    Which is why we would have nukes, a national guard sufficient to defend the homeland, and little else.
anthonypasq 4y ago
this is a tad naive to say the least
breakyerself 4y ago
Considering how frequently we put our weapons of war to use ruining the lives of poor people around the world I would say that theory has been disproved. The US is virtually always at war.
- throwaway894345 4y ago
  What do people think happens if the US withdraws from the global theater and doesn’t maintain its military capabilities? Do we really think that Russia or China would settle for regional skirmishes, and the world would be at peace? The US is very often at war, but there are greater evils than the US bombing ISIS even with the commensurate civilian casualties (hint: few other military powers are so scrupulous about civilian casualties).
  - orestarod 4y ago
    You might want to research the contacts, support, decisions and occurrences regarding the US administration and ISIS. And that's just regarding an organization you mentioned. We would lose count if we started listing the countries the US willingly destroyed in cold blood.

trashtester 4y ago

> Some people defend war spending I prefer to think of military spending during peacetime as "peace spending" not "war spending". Spending on actual wars, once they start, is another matter. Some wars are just (like the support of Ukraine, at present, I would say, or the liberation of Kuwait), some are unjust, many are some shade of gray. But generally, it is preferable when democratic countries have enough military might during peacetime to make would-be conquerors put aside their dreams of being the new Peter the Great, Saladin or Qin Shi Huang.

thfuran 4y ago
What peace time? The US has pretty nearly continuously been in some military action or another for the past hundred years.
- trashtester 4y ago
  Peace is relative. The US has not had war on its own territory since the Civil War, so the civilian population has experienced peace for over 150 years. During WW1 and especially WW2, the US military was employed to nearly maximum capacity, in other words, 1945 was the last time the military was in a state of all-out war. During the Korean and Vietnam wars, the military was partially committed to the wars, maybe around 25% of 1945's commitment. I would label these limited wars. The invasion phases of the two Iraqi wars as well as the invasion phase in Afghanistan saw similar levels of mobilization, but these were over so quickly they would be more like skirmishes. And for the rest, I would label them as little more than policing of occupied territories. (All of the above from the US perspective, from the perspective of the adversary, several of the above were total wars.) If you look at the death toll, WW2 cost 0.4% of the US population at the time. The Vietnam and Korean wars cost less than 0.1% of the population each, and the rest hardly register. Compare that to the 5%-20% death toll of many European countries during WW2, and similar numbers for numerous other wars through history, and you get a perspective of how peaceful the US has been since the Civil War.