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The US spends more on defense spending than all the other countries in the world combined and yet they're "never prepared" for the "new era" of warfare. Gonna n

The US spends more on defense spending than all the other countries in the world combined and yet they're "never prepared" for the "new era" of warfare. Gonna need more money for the defense contractors to research the issue. This has been the state of affairs since WWII. Now the world is starting to realize that the US has been sustaining this spending level to the detriment of their health and education, and that lack of education has created a group of bozos poised to take over the government and control those armaments. It's a sad state of affairs.

xenospn 2y ago
No need to prepare for a new era when you can just bomb everyone into a previous one.
ahmeneeroe-v2 2y ago
>and yet they're never prepared Of course not, how could we be prepared unless we continuously invest? In what other sphere does life continue to flourish in the face of evolving threats without continuous co-evolution? As an American I am not an at all concerned about the total amount spent. I am highly concerned that it gets spent effectively. > to the detriment of their health and education The US is starting to realize that Europe has neglected its own defense in favor of social projects, while relying on US taxpayer defense spending. >It's a sad state of affairs. Agreed.
- wkat4242 2y ago
  > The US is starting to realize that Europe has neglected its own defense in favor of social projects, while relying on US taxpayer defense spending. It's not that simple. Our social programs matter more to our citizens. The US wastes a lot of money on feeding its military industrial complex, including waging totally unnecessary and inconsequential wars like the second Iraq war or Afghanistan. As soon as they pull out after wasting trillions, things are back the way they were. And in the case of Iraq a lot worse (ISIS). The money for those wars would have been better spent on health and education, and less lives would be lost as well. What is most important for our safety against countries like Russia is the nuclear umbrella. And the US doesn't want to see more than France and Britain have nuclear capabilities.
  - ahmeneeroe-v2 2y ago
    >Our social programs matter more to our citizens Partially correct. Given the US taxpayer funding Europe's defense, the European public wants social programs rather than spending their own gold on their own defense. Europe's security needs are being met, so they don't want to spend incremental funds on more security. >And the US doesn't want to see Yes, the US gets to make the choices when we're the ones paying for Europe's defense. If Europe (as a whole or individually) could match or exceed the US's military might, then Europe would not need the US's permission to make a nuclear umbrella. >The US wastes a lot of money on feeding its military industrial complex 100% agree. We waste a simply breathtaking amount of money. But again, I am less concerned about the total spend and more concerned with the effectiveness of the spend. I agree that we don't always spend effectively.
    - rightbyte 2y ago
      > they don't want to spend incremental funds on more security. You could argue that at some point the "security" is the main threat against your security. It is like if I had some armed guard at a post outside my front door. The risk of him shooting me, or my drunk kids crawling through the bushes to avoid discovery, by mistake or at will due to some dispute surely out weight him protecting me from a 1/100 000 risk or what ever of lethal home invasion.
      - ahmeneeroe-v2 2y ago
        Sure, if your threat model is 1 incident per 100,000 days (274 years), your analogy holds. 274 years ago to Present time includes a lot of European wars. Claude AI gives me the following: 7 years war, Napoleonic wars, Crimean war, Franco-Prussian war, WWI, WWII, Ukraine-Russia So I would argue that your analogy is built on bad data and isn't exactly useful for real world.
    - wkat4242 2y ago
      > Partially correct. Given the US taxpayer funding Europe's defense, the European public wants social programs rather than spending their own gold on their own defense. > Europe's security needs are being met, so they don't want to spend incremental funds on more security. It's just that we don't really have a serious security problem. A bit more so now since Russian agression. But military is not about showing muscle, it's about having sufficient to do the job and not more. Having a military is a prerequisite of freedom but not an end goal in itself. In the US it does seem to be like that. > Yes, the US gets to make the choices when we're the ones paying for Europe's defense. If Europe (as a whole or individually) could match or exceed the US's military might, then Europe would not need the US's permission to make a nuclear umbrella. This is the thing about the US. It's always about money and war. Not about quality of life. In Europe we don't care as much about having a powerful military because we're not looking to march all over the world protecting our interests. It just needs to be powerful enough to protect our borders and meet NATO commitments (which it does now). Don't forget the US offered us to join NATO, partly in an attempt to prevent us from aligning with other geopolitical entities. If we hadn't had that, we would have built more.
snakeyjake 2y ago
The US already spends enough money on healthcare. It's just sucked up by health insurance companies. Spending less on war won't fix healthcare. Spending less on war and more on healthcare will just make healthcare worse because it will give the private equity vampires running the system more cash with which to bribe politicians and screw us over even more. Fixing healthcare means spending less. Spending less on healthcare means we get to spend more on war. If the US would just get off its ass and implement single-payer we could save so much money that we could have a military capable of killing God. Same goes for K-12 education spending. The US is consistently in the top 4-5 nations as a percentage of GDP per capita. The money is being wasted. On what, I don't know, I haven't looked into it. But I do know that the US could halve what it spends on healthcare and "only" be spending what everyone else is spending. That would save like $2.25 trillion per year. $2.25 trillion dollars can buy a lot of B-21 bombers. Thousands of them.
- taylodl 2y ago
  Excellent points. I don't know if the US could halve their spending on healthcare, but I do believe they could reduce overall healthcare spending by 25%, and be able to provide healthcare to ALL of their citizens. Their problem is they have too many citizens who believe they can only climb by pushing others down, and so they need to deny their fellow citizens healthcare so they themselves can believe they're succeeding. Such a selfish civilization is doomed to collapse. Even AI agrees with me! :)

xenospn 2y ago

No need to prepare for a new era when you can just bomb everyone into a previous one.

ahmeneeroe-v2 2y ago

>and yet they're never prepared Of course not, how could we be prepared unless we continuously invest? In what other sphere does life continue to flourish in the face of evolving threats without continuous co-evolution? As an American I am not an at all concerned about the total amount spent. I am highly concerned that it gets spent effectively. > to the detriment of their health and education The US is starting to realize that Europe has neglected its own defense in favor of social projects, while relying on US taxpayer defense spending. >It's a sad state of affairs. Agreed.

wkat4242 2y ago
> The US is starting to realize that Europe has neglected its own defense in favor of social projects, while relying on US taxpayer defense spending. It's not that simple. Our social programs matter more to our citizens. The US wastes a lot of money on feeding its military industrial complex, including waging totally unnecessary and inconsequential wars like the second Iraq war or Afghanistan. As soon as they pull out after wasting trillions, things are back the way they were. And in the case of Iraq a lot worse (ISIS). The money for those wars would have been better spent on health and education, and less lives would be lost as well. What is most important for our safety against countries like Russia is the nuclear umbrella. And the US doesn't want to see more than France and Britain have nuclear capabilities.
- ahmeneeroe-v2 2y ago
  >Our social programs matter more to our citizens Partially correct. Given the US taxpayer funding Europe's defense, the European public wants social programs rather than spending their own gold on their own defense. Europe's security needs are being met, so they don't want to spend incremental funds on more security. >And the US doesn't want to see Yes, the US gets to make the choices when we're the ones paying for Europe's defense. If Europe (as a whole or individually) could match or exceed the US's military might, then Europe would not need the US's permission to make a nuclear umbrella. >The US wastes a lot of money on feeding its military industrial complex 100% agree. We waste a simply breathtaking amount of money. But again, I am less concerned about the total spend and more concerned with the effectiveness of the spend. I agree that we don't always spend effectively.
  - rightbyte 2y ago
    > they don't want to spend incremental funds on more security. You could argue that at some point the "security" is the main threat against your security. It is like if I had some armed guard at a post outside my front door. The risk of him shooting me, or my drunk kids crawling through the bushes to avoid discovery, by mistake or at will due to some dispute surely out weight him protecting me from a 1/100 000 risk or what ever of lethal home invasion.
    - ahmeneeroe-v2 2y ago
      Sure, if your threat model is 1 incident per 100,000 days (274 years), your analogy holds. 274 years ago to Present time includes a lot of European wars. Claude AI gives me the following: 7 years war, Napoleonic wars, Crimean war, Franco-Prussian war, WWI, WWII, Ukraine-Russia So I would argue that your analogy is built on bad data and isn't exactly useful for real world.
  - wkat4242 2y ago
    > Partially correct. Given the US taxpayer funding Europe's defense, the European public wants social programs rather than spending their own gold on their own defense. > Europe's security needs are being met, so they don't want to spend incremental funds on more security. It's just that we don't really have a serious security problem. A bit more so now since Russian agression. But military is not about showing muscle, it's about having sufficient to do the job and not more. Having a military is a prerequisite of freedom but not an end goal in itself. In the US it does seem to be like that. > Yes, the US gets to make the choices when we're the ones paying for Europe's defense. If Europe (as a whole or individually) could match or exceed the US's military might, then Europe would not need the US's permission to make a nuclear umbrella. This is the thing about the US. It's always about money and war. Not about quality of life. In Europe we don't care as much about having a powerful military because we're not looking to march all over the world protecting our interests. It just needs to be powerful enough to protect our borders and meet NATO commitments (which it does now). Don't forget the US offered us to join NATO, partly in an attempt to prevent us from aligning with other geopolitical entities. If we hadn't had that, we would have built more.

snakeyjake 2y ago

The US already spends enough money on healthcare. It's just sucked up by health insurance companies. Spending less on war won't fix healthcare. Spending less on war and more on healthcare will just make healthcare worse because it will give the private equity vampires running the system more cash with which to bribe politicians and screw us over even more. Fixing healthcare means spending less. Spending less on healthcare means we get to spend more on war. If the US would just get off its ass and implement single-payer we could save so much money that we could have a military capable of killing God. Same goes for K-12 education spending. The US is consistently in the top 4-5 nations as a percentage of GDP per capita. The money is being wasted. On what, I don't know, I haven't looked into it. But I do know that the US could halve what it spends on healthcare and "only" be spending what everyone else is spending. That would save like $2.25 trillion per year. $2.25 trillion dollars can buy a lot of B-21 bombers. Thousands of them.

taylodl 2y ago
Excellent points. I don't know if the US could halve their spending on healthcare, but I do believe they could reduce overall healthcare spending by 25%, and be able to provide healthcare to ALL of their citizens. Their problem is they have too many citizens who believe they can only climb by pushing others down, and so they need to deny their fellow citizens healthcare so they themselves can believe they're succeeding. Such a selfish civilization is doomed to collapse. Even AI agrees with me! :)