The largest part of the defense budget is pay and benefits, and it turns out Americans are much more expensive to employ than Chinese. China has 2.1 million act

The largest part of the defense budget is pay and benefits, and it turns out Americans are much more expensive to employ than Chinese. China has 2.1 million active duty service members while the US only has 1.3 million.[1] The US also requires all equipment to be manufactured in the US, which is much more expensive than manufacturing in China. You need to account for military purchasing power parity to have an honest discussion about defense spending.[2] > And what is the associated opportunity cost? The entire global economy relies on trade, which relies on ocean shipping, which relies on freedom of navigation, which is enforced primarily by the US Navy. American security guarantees have also allowed and protected the development of prosperous democracies like Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan. There’s also the time the US military led a coalition to stop Milosevic’s campaign of ethnic cleaning in the former Yugoslavia. The opportunity cost here is a poorer, less prosperous, less democratic world with even more genocide and war. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_number_of_military_and_paramilitary_personnel https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_number_... [2] https://cepr.org/voxeu/columns/debating-defence-budgets-why-military-purchasing-power-parity-matters https://cepr.org/voxeu/columns/debating-defence-budgets-why-...