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The USA has the strongest military in the world. Unlike the Netherlands, we can actually defend ourselves against an aggressor. I would rather come from a stron

The USA has the strongest military in the world. Unlike the Netherlands, we can actually defend ourselves against an aggressor. I would rather come from a strong country than one that needs to rely on others when it comes to defense. Your social programs aren't worth a damn if you don't have the ability to defend yourself.

Retric 12y ago
That's mostly a function of size. Several countries have stronger military's per person. Worse we gain little from a strong military. Sure, there are a few economic benefits but suspending 1/3 as much would be a huge net gain. Picture zero national debt.
- ejain 12y ago
  Don't know what you mean by "strong", but the US has the highest per-capita military spending: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_expenditure_per_capita http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_e...
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
  - Retric 12y ago
    Spending money and getting value for that money are vary different things.
happyscrappy 12y ago
Europe is too important to US power to leave to chance so those forces would be redundant.
- ladytron 12y ago
  So you are content to allow the USA to defend Europe while you spend your money on domestic services? Personally I find it hard to respect those decisions. We end having to protect Europe because we are the only ones who understand defense of one's liberty should be the first priority.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
  - IkmoIkmo 12y ago
    Who did the US protect Europe against? Last I checked the US came to Europe last 70 years ago, and not to defend Europe but to aid one part of Europe against another part of Europe, years after the war started, in an effort that was puny compared to the sacrifice of say the Russians to whom we're much more indebted, and in doing so the US was heavily involved in every end-of-war and post-war treaty in which the US were rewarded more than anyone else. And hey you nicely rounded off the war with dropping atomic bombs on civilians, the act of killing civilians and terrorizing them for political ends, something we happen to call terrorism these days, LIBERTY! And since then the US has mostly abused that position of powers with silly wars in Vietnam, or in Iraq fighting the guy twice that they funded and armed, as well as all the support for dictators like Pinochet or the overthrow of democratic secular governments in say Iran, anyway the list goes on and on I'm sure you're familiar. I'm certainly glad the US came and helped 70 years ago, but this notion that the US is the world's moral police force and we all live in safety because of it good will is bit myopic. It's a much more contextualized story than that. It's partially true, absolutely, no denying that US hegemony keeps others from employing military opportunism. But that has more to do with US interests in keeping geopolitical control for its own benefit than US sacrifice out of benevolence. And so the notion then, that the US commands global power and Europe doesn't try to fight it or compete with it by investing in a military that wouldn't make us any safer, but SPENDS MONEY ON THE QUALIFY OF PEOPLES LIVES is hard to respect, while cooperating with the US in NATO and supporting the US in legitimate wars (say when Iraq invaded Kuwait, or say fighting the Taliban (that the US funded and armed in the first place, by the way) in Afghanistan), is ridiculous. Yeah I put that in caps because you didn't seen to grasp how this is basically the best thing you can do, spending money on your own people. I mean, what do you want, for the EU to pay some kind of tithe to the US for protection? The US military isn't that big because it's so kind, it's big because being the world superpower is extremely beneficial. There's no country that large that's anywhere close as rich. It has little to do with liberty. And yeah I'm content with the US having that power and wealth, and to spend my tax euros on improving the lives of me and my peers. > We end having to protect Europe because we are the only ones who understand defense of one's liberty should be the first priority. That's why Snowden is such a hero in the US right? Especially with the military who just want to bring liberty to all, those guys must love the way he showed of this massive three letter organisation that makes constant attacks on all our liberties. Give me a break with the 'liberty' rhetoric already. In short, yes we Europeans value liberty, no we're not the world superpower we were in the colonial era and spend more on our citizens than on being a superpower, and yes that has put western europe at the top when it comes to rankings and metrics for standard of life (including metrics of liberty, say freedom of the press? My country ranks 2nd, the US? 46. Have fun with your liberty. Similar story for say civil liberties or corruption, you don't score anywhere near the top 10 on liberty metrics) And we're generally quite content about that.
- philh 12y ago
  If Europe comes out ahead partly by defecting in a farmer's dilemma[1], it hardly seems fair to hold it up as an example of what the US should aspire to. (You might argue that the US doesn't need to spend that much on military. But you didn't argue that. You argued that Europe doesn't need to spend as much on military as the US, because the US does.) [1] I could have sworn the farmer's dilemma was a standard term, but I can't find it on google. If two farmers have fields next to each other, and one of them irrigates, then both of them benefit. They can split the work, or one can say "I'm not going to bother. What are you going to do, let your crops die, just to spite me?" So the second one irrigates. Then people look at the first farmer and see that he runs a successful farm without working as hard as the second, and they assume that she must be doing something wrong.
  - IkmoIkmo 12y ago
    Prisoner's dilemma is more widely known. In any case it's known as game theory.
    - philh 12y ago
      It's not the prisoner's dilemma. In PD, both players are better off defecting, regardless of their opponent's move. In FD, if one defects, then the other gets a better result by cooperating.
vacri 12y ago
And yet in the lead-up to WWII, the US had a very small army. Any aggressor other than Canada or Mexico would have to first cross the twin giant moats of the US. Canada has nowhere near the size to take on the US, and a sufficient military build-up in Mexico would be seen coming a long way away. If the goal is simply "defend ourselves", a strong navy is all the US needs, plus a few nukes to stay in the nuke club. Any aggressor with a large enough army and navy to take on the US would, again, be seen coming a mile away.
- ladytron 12y ago
  That may have been true 50 years ago, but not now. The future of military defense is the future of technology: genomics, information systems, robotics, self driving and flying vehicles, nanotechnology. A constant investment in technical capabilities and human capabilities is needed to defend against future threats from aggressive actors. Those investments require money from tax payers.
  - frostmatthew 12y ago
    > Those investments require money from tax payers. Congress is more interested in "investing" in tanks the Army doesn't want[1] than flying vehicles and nanotechnology. [1] http://www.military.com/daily-news/2014/12/18/congress-again-buys-abrams-tanks-the-army-doesnt-want.html http://www.military.com/daily-news/2014/12/18/congress-again...
    - ladytron 12y ago
      Yes, one challenge for the military is educating congress and the American people on new emerging threats so new defense products can be researched, developed, and funded. The global military environment is dynamic and evolving and our defense plans need to reflect that reality.
brazzy 12y ago
Given geography and its current land neighbors, the US military is 5 to 10 times oversized for a defensive role. But that's of course not what it's for. It's for bullying the entire world and to provide massive opportunities for lobbying and pork barrel politics. Not something to be proud of, really.
- philwelch 12y ago
  The US military has the following missions, by law and treaty: 1. Protect the United States 2. Provide mutual defense to Canada, the entire continent of Europe, and South Korea. 3. Defend counties like Japan and Iceland, which are treaty-bound not to have militaries of their own. By tradition and policy, but not necessarily binding treaty or law, the US military also has the following missions: 4. Protect the entire Western Hemisphere from foreign aggression (the Monroe Doctrine). 5. Protect the economic supply chain of the developed world, particularly the oil supply. 6. Occasionally intervene, militarily, in humanitarian crises (this goes back and forth; yes in Somalia, no in Rwanda, yes in Yugoslavia). 7. Provide purely humanitarian assistance in case of natural disasters (the military has tons of logistical ability that's occasionally repurposed to provide food and water to e.g. Haiti whenever it gets hit by a hurricane). 8. Keep the world's sea lanes open for shipping (this is kind of a shared responsibility with every major naval power, but we're practically the only one left). Also, there are non-functional requirements to the US military, driven by purely political forces that almost no potential US enemy has: 9. Minimize friendly casualties. Spare no expense to accomplish this. 10. Minimize civilian casualties. 11. Maintain good PR so they don't look like bullies. In other words, the US has to bear the bulk of the entire world's military requirements, and not just be able to win wars, but win them in absolute routs that are nearly unprecedented in world history. If anything, the US military is undersized for its current requirements. It's oversized if you're looking at requirement #1, but that's a ridiculous understatement of the actual requirements, or any realistic set of requirements, for the US military.
tinco 12y ago
Don't be so quick to downvote ladytron, there's a core of truth in it. As long as our surrounding countries allow us to be, The Netherlands is the greatest country in the world (to live in), obviously WW2 has shown us that can be taken away from us in an instant. Arguing that the US wouldn't let it happen is stupid. Last time the US saved us it took 5 years for it to make that decision (for which we are eternally grateful) and in those 5 years the agressor had killed almost an entire subculture of our society in gas chambers and put us through one of the worst food shortages in our history. I'm not saying we should make an effort to go all Israel and build an army worthy of Mordor, but there's no shame in simply admitting we are weak and depend on our diplomacy to survive. The social programs really are worth a damn though. From my perspective (easy as a Dutch person) countries like The Netherlands is what we're fighting for. It's simply civilization, a world where we don't have to behave like animals to get what we need. Take away your social structure, and you take away civilization from the less wealthy. And the result is obvious, only the hyenas and vultures make it out, and they'll be the ones perfect for a job as Congress man/woman.
- eli_gottlieb 12y ago
  >I'm not saying we should make an effort to go all Israel and build an army worthy of Mordor Take back your insult to Israelis! Mordor lost. >there's no shame in simply admitting we are weak and depend on our diplomacy to survive. Not true. You're an American protectorate.
  - tinco 12y ago
    > Take back your insult to Israelis! Mordor lost. It's not an insult. Mordor only lost because they depended on the power of the ring to unite their armies. Only when it was destroyed their armies fell into chaos. If it were up to the military power of Mordor Middle-Earth would surely have fallen. > Not true. You're an American protectorate. The whole idea of being a protectorate is that you're weak and are depending on your allies to survive, which is exactly what I'm saying.
    - eli_gottlieb 12y ago

Retric 12y ago

That's mostly a function of size. Several countries have stronger military's per person. Worse we gain little from a strong military. Sure, there are a few economic benefits but suspending 1/3 as much would be a huge net gain. Picture zero national debt.

ejain 12y ago
Don't know what you mean by "strong", but the US has the highest per-capita military spending: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_expenditure_per_capita http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_e...
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- Retric 12y ago
  Spending money and getting value for that money are vary different things.

happyscrappy 12y ago

Europe is too important to US power to leave to chance so those forces would be redundant.

ladytron 12y ago
So you are content to allow the USA to defend Europe while you spend your money on domestic services? Personally I find it hard to respect those decisions. We end having to protect Europe because we are the only ones who understand defense of one's liberty should be the first priority.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- IkmoIkmo 12y ago
  Who did the US protect Europe against? Last I checked the US came to Europe last 70 years ago, and not to defend Europe but to aid one part of Europe against another part of Europe, years after the war started, in an effort that was puny compared to the sacrifice of say the Russians to whom we're much more indebted, and in doing so the US was heavily involved in every end-of-war and post-war treaty in which the US were rewarded more than anyone else. And hey you nicely rounded off the war with dropping atomic bombs on civilians, the act of killing civilians and terrorizing them for political ends, something we happen to call terrorism these days, LIBERTY! And since then the US has mostly abused that position of powers with silly wars in Vietnam, or in Iraq fighting the guy twice that they funded and armed, as well as all the support for dictators like Pinochet or the overthrow of democratic secular governments in say Iran, anyway the list goes on and on I'm sure you're familiar. I'm certainly glad the US came and helped 70 years ago, but this notion that the US is the world's moral police force and we all live in safety because of it good will is bit myopic. It's a much more contextualized story than that. It's partially true, absolutely, no denying that US hegemony keeps others from employing military opportunism. But that has more to do with US interests in keeping geopolitical control for its own benefit than US sacrifice out of benevolence. And so the notion then, that the US commands global power and Europe doesn't try to fight it or compete with it by investing in a military that wouldn't make us any safer, but SPENDS MONEY ON THE QUALIFY OF PEOPLES LIVES is hard to respect, while cooperating with the US in NATO and supporting the US in legitimate wars (say when Iraq invaded Kuwait, or say fighting the Taliban (that the US funded and armed in the first place, by the way) in Afghanistan), is ridiculous. Yeah I put that in caps because you didn't seen to grasp how this is basically the best thing you can do, spending money on your own people. I mean, what do you want, for the EU to pay some kind of tithe to the US for protection? The US military isn't that big because it's so kind, it's big because being the world superpower is extremely beneficial. There's no country that large that's anywhere close as rich. It has little to do with liberty. And yeah I'm content with the US having that power and wealth, and to spend my tax euros on improving the lives of me and my peers. > We end having to protect Europe because we are the only ones who understand defense of one's liberty should be the first priority. That's why Snowden is such a hero in the US right? Especially with the military who just want to bring liberty to all, those guys must love the way he showed of this massive three letter organisation that makes constant attacks on all our liberties. Give me a break with the 'liberty' rhetoric already. In short, yes we Europeans value liberty, no we're not the world superpower we were in the colonial era and spend more on our citizens than on being a superpower, and yes that has put western europe at the top when it comes to rankings and metrics for standard of life (including metrics of liberty, say freedom of the press? My country ranks 2nd, the US? 46. Have fun with your liberty. Similar story for say civil liberties or corruption, you don't score anywhere near the top 10 on liberty metrics) And we're generally quite content about that.
philh 12y ago
If Europe comes out ahead partly by defecting in a farmer's dilemma[1], it hardly seems fair to hold it up as an example of what the US should aspire to. (You might argue that the US doesn't need to spend that much on military. But you didn't argue that. You argued that Europe doesn't need to spend as much on military as the US, because the US does.) [1] I could have sworn the farmer's dilemma was a standard term, but I can't find it on google. If two farmers have fields next to each other, and one of them irrigates, then both of them benefit. They can split the work, or one can say "I'm not going to bother. What are you going to do, let your crops die, just to spite me?" So the second one irrigates. Then people look at the first farmer and see that he runs a successful farm without working as hard as the second, and they assume that she must be doing something wrong.
- IkmoIkmo 12y ago
  Prisoner's dilemma is more widely known. In any case it's known as game theory.
  - philh 12y ago
    It's not the prisoner's dilemma. In PD, both players are better off defecting, regardless of their opponent's move. In FD, if one defects, then the other gets a better result by cooperating.

vacri 12y ago

And yet in the lead-up to WWII, the US had a very small army. Any aggressor other than Canada or Mexico would have to first cross the twin giant moats of the US. Canada has nowhere near the size to take on the US, and a sufficient military build-up in Mexico would be seen coming a long way away. If the goal is simply "defend ourselves", a strong navy is all the US needs, plus a few nukes to stay in the nuke club. Any aggressor with a large enough army and navy to take on the US would, again, be seen coming a mile away.

ladytron 12y ago
That may have been true 50 years ago, but not now. The future of military defense is the future of technology: genomics, information systems, robotics, self driving and flying vehicles, nanotechnology. A constant investment in technical capabilities and human capabilities is needed to defend against future threats from aggressive actors. Those investments require money from tax payers.
- frostmatthew 12y ago
  > Those investments require money from tax payers. Congress is more interested in "investing" in tanks the Army doesn't want[1] than flying vehicles and nanotechnology. [1] http://www.military.com/daily-news/2014/12/18/congress-again-buys-abrams-tanks-the-army-doesnt-want.html http://www.military.com/daily-news/2014/12/18/congress-again...
  - ladytron 12y ago
    Yes, one challenge for the military is educating congress and the American people on new emerging threats so new defense products can be researched, developed, and funded. The global military environment is dynamic and evolving and our defense plans need to reflect that reality.

brazzy 12y ago

Given geography and its current land neighbors, the US military is 5 to 10 times oversized for a defensive role. But that's of course not what it's for. It's for bullying the entire world and to provide massive opportunities for lobbying and pork barrel politics. Not something to be proud of, really.

philwelch 12y ago
The US military has the following missions, by law and treaty: 1. Protect the United States 2. Provide mutual defense to Canada, the entire continent of Europe, and South Korea. 3. Defend counties like Japan and Iceland, which are treaty-bound not to have militaries of their own. By tradition and policy, but not necessarily binding treaty or law, the US military also has the following missions: 4. Protect the entire Western Hemisphere from foreign aggression (the Monroe Doctrine). 5. Protect the economic supply chain of the developed world, particularly the oil supply. 6. Occasionally intervene, militarily, in humanitarian crises (this goes back and forth; yes in Somalia, no in Rwanda, yes in Yugoslavia). 7. Provide purely humanitarian assistance in case of natural disasters (the military has tons of logistical ability that's occasionally repurposed to provide food and water to e.g. Haiti whenever it gets hit by a hurricane). 8. Keep the world's sea lanes open for shipping (this is kind of a shared responsibility with every major naval power, but we're practically the only one left). Also, there are non-functional requirements to the US military, driven by purely political forces that almost no potential US enemy has: 9. Minimize friendly casualties. Spare no expense to accomplish this. 10. Minimize civilian casualties. 11. Maintain good PR so they don't look like bullies. In other words, the US has to bear the bulk of the entire world's military requirements, and not just be able to win wars, but win them in absolute routs that are nearly unprecedented in world history. If anything, the US military is undersized for its current requirements. It's oversized if you're looking at requirement #1, but that's a ridiculous understatement of the actual requirements, or any realistic set of requirements, for the US military.

tinco 12y ago

Don't be so quick to downvote ladytron, there's a core of truth in it. As long as our surrounding countries allow us to be, The Netherlands is the greatest country in the world (to live in), obviously WW2 has shown us that can be taken away from us in an instant. Arguing that the US wouldn't let it happen is stupid. Last time the US saved us it took 5 years for it to make that decision (for which we are eternally grateful) and in those 5 years the agressor had killed almost an entire subculture of our society in gas chambers and put us through one of the worst food shortages in our history. I'm not saying we should make an effort to go all Israel and build an army worthy of Mordor, but there's no shame in simply admitting we are weak and depend on our diplomacy to survive. The social programs really are worth a damn though. From my perspective (easy as a Dutch person) countries like The Netherlands is what we're fighting for. It's simply civilization, a world where we don't have to behave like animals to get what we need. Take away your social structure, and you take away civilization from the less wealthy. And the result is obvious, only the hyenas and vultures make it out, and they'll be the ones perfect for a job as Congress man/woman.

eli_gottlieb 12y ago
>I'm not saying we should make an effort to go all Israel and build an army worthy of Mordor Take back your insult to Israelis! Mordor lost. >there's no shame in simply admitting we are weak and depend on our diplomacy to survive. Not true. You're an American protectorate.
- tinco 12y ago
  > Take back your insult to Israelis! Mordor lost. It's not an insult. Mordor only lost because they depended on the power of the ring to unite their armies. Only when it was destroyed their armies fell into chaos. If it were up to the military power of Mordor Middle-Earth would surely have fallen. > Not true. You're an American protectorate. The whole idea of being a protectorate is that you're weak and are depending on your allies to survive, which is exactly what I'm saying.
  - eli_gottlieb 12y ago