Originally Posted by slapass (Post 19589613)

This is something that has always bothered me. Why does the US spend so much on military? The US spends 39% of the world total. 4.4% of our GDP. Saudi Arabia our ally spends more as a % of GDP. Of the top 15 countries only two are not solid allies (China and Russia).

When I was a kid, I was always told it was to protect our interests abroad. When you look at the EU, Japan, China, etc who are out exporting the US then this starts to seem a bit thin. I wonder how much stronger the US economy would be if we didn't waste money on this endeavor?

Edit - link to Wiki - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...y_expenditures

Originally Posted by JoshGirls Josh (Post 19590235)

the answer, in a sentence, is that military spending is holy & untouchable.

same with social security/medicare. the politics are such that it is impossible to cut the program. if you do, you are "opposed" to national security, or to seniors. so we now have a situation where the pentagon is incapable of leaving some places, like okinowa, germany, & korea, wars that were over 2 generations ago.

as with all issues in DC it comes back to special interests leeching the public dime, & a political class for sale to those special interests. & nothing the common man can do about it cept talk about bitcoins.

Originally Posted by Rochard (Post 19590262)

We can leave Japan and Germany.

Originally Posted by Rochard (Post 19590207)

Great, fine, let's stop all military spending. We can argue that the US military helped to move technology forward during the cold way - in huge ways - but honestly, we don't need this now. US industry - as well as other countries - can easily take over this role if they haven't already.

But then... All that money we spend on the military, it's dependents, the tens of millions of civilian contractors.... All of them would be unemployed. We'll save billions, hundreds of billions, but then we'll have tens of millions unemployed.

I'm cool with this really. Let's get rid of the Air Force, the Amry, and the Navy. Let's close nearly all of our bases across the world. The US Marines can handle the rest.

Originally Posted by dyna mo (Post 19590289)

cuts are happening, via the automatic sequestration, ~$40 billion this 1st year. what's $40b? that's = ~7% of the military budget, let's start there.

Department of Defense officials told state lieutenant governors Thursday to plan for possible base closures and cutbacks in civilian work forces as sequestration budget cuts begin affecting every state.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/0...n_2926629.html

Originally Posted by JoshGirls Josh (Post 19590286)

the point however, is that we dont leave japan & germany.

even you can't justify why we are still defending the US from 1941 japan or germany. but find a defense lobbyist selling night-vision binoculars & they will give you quite a story about how our national interest is protected by our troops in okinowa.

Originally Posted by JoshGirls Josh (Post 19590286)

i personally agree with the Paul family. that 2 oceans & 2 allies on our borders provides more then ample national security & 80% of our defense spending is needless. one day we read how the sequesters gonna kill the troops. next day the pentagons gonna spend new billions on more missiles sitting in alaska to "protect" us from the north korean child-king.

Originally Posted by Rochard (Post 19590475)

We can justify. (Keep in mind here I'm not agreeing with this, just giving you the reasons why.)

We aren't defending the US from Japan or Germany. We have bases in Japan because we need bases in Asia, mostly because of North Korea but also in the past because of China.

With Germany (Really Europe, being as the US has multiple bases in Europe), it's partially because of our involvement in NATO, as well as we need a forward base in Europe. However, I personally see no reason why we cannot close most of these - do we need three bases in Italy?


But that doesn't provide us with "ample national security". We were attacked on 9/11 and our oceans and borders didn't protect us. At the same time we also need to have the ability to reach out and bitch smack one when required - such as Afghanistan. We have a large military not only to protect our country, but also to have the ability to deploy anywhere quickly... As well as to "project force" in an area.

Originally Posted by Rochard (Post 19589708)

You can look at the EU, Japan, and China all you want - This is not where the current problem is. Imagine if Iraq took over Kuwait and then invaded Saudi Arabia. Suddenly the vast majority of oil coming out of the middle east is supplied by one man who has a twenty year history of starting wars. You fuckers bitch when the price of gas goes up forty cents; Imagine it tripling over night and the effect that would have on the US economy.

Originally Posted by Rochard (Post 19589708)

A large portion of the US population benefits from the US military. You can start with military personal and their dependents, then civilian contractors. (When I say "civilian contractors" I mean both civilians who work on base, civilian contractors who supply the bases, as well as contractors who build the ships, planes, tanks, weapons, etc etc.) Then factor in the cities and counties that get nearly all of their business from military bases - grocery stores and apartments.

Originally Posted by Rochard (Post 19589708)

Then factor in the technological aspects. With the US military you can argue we would not have computers, GPS, the Internet - even cell phones.

Originally Posted by Rochard (Post 19590150)

Lots of reasons.

At the end of WW2, Korea was occupied by Japan and when Japan surrendered to the US suddenly the US (and it's Allies) were in control of a large amount of territory. Eventually Korea was split in half, with the Southern half being a country the US set up, and the Northern half controlled by communists. Eventually North Korea attacked South Korea, the country we had created - our friends and allies - was about to be over run.

The US could have sat back and said "You are on your own". All of Korea would have been communist, and being as the US had followed a course of appeasement in Asia... China would have clearly taken Hong Kong, the Philippines, and eventually Japan. Sounds unlikely now, but not right after WW2 where Japan had expanded from Japan proper all the way across the Pacific to attack the US.



I don't see how this is even a discussion. It's simple - A terrorist organization supported, financed, and encouraged by the government of Afghanistan attacked the United States causing billions of dollars in damage and killing thousands of Americans. When the United States went to Afghanistan and demanded assistance in arresting the people who did this to the US, Afghanistan said "Not interested". Thus, the United States attacked.




Iraq - after a ten year war with Iran - attacked one of our allies and threatened not only Saudi Arabia (who begged for US support), but also the oil supply of the middle east. Thus we attacked Iraq.



Maybe.

Maybe Korea would be all communist now and China would have taken over all of Asia including Japan, The Philippines, and perhaps Hawaii.

Maybe if we allowed Afghanistan to be a base for terrorists they would have continued to attack the US, and every day we would have bombs going off in major cities. That would make what just happened in Boston seem minor.

Maybe if we allowed Iraq to take Kuwait, they would have attacked Saudi Arabia too. I believe the primary reasons Iraq attacked Kuwait was because Iraq owed Kuwait billions (loans for the Iraq - Iran war) AND wanted their oil. Iraq also owed Saudi Arabia a large amount of money too, more than Iraq could ever repay. Maybe we if did nothing the entire Middle East would be run by Saddam - And imagine how that could affect the US economy. Perhaps you don't remember the gas lines in the 1970s, how you could only by gas on certain days, IF you could find gas, and IF you could afford it.



Sure thing. We wouldn't have a huge national debt and we could send everyone to college. Only... Unemployment would be higher than we could ever imagine, technology would be set back forty years, and we wouldn't have to worry about sending anyone to college because we would all be speaking Chinese.

At least we wouldn't have to worry about oil because so few of us would have cars.

Originally Posted by crucifissio (Post 19590692)

hilarious....

so instead the USA with a 50 year history of starting wars controls all the oil in the middle east and has cheaper gas than the rest of the world? :1orglaugh:1orglaugh

Originally Posted by crucifissio (Post 19590692)

hilarious....

yes yes the billions you spend on killing other people abroad would not be better spent in your own country...

Originally Posted by JoshGirls Josh (Post 19590534)

the philosophy of whether the US needs to command a military that spans the globe is one where i'm sure we would disagree on. we had a 500 billion pentagon in 2001 & it did not stop an attack on the US. our jets were clueless on 911. It still took 60 days to mobilize a force to topple the taliban, & 10 more years to kill osama. so all those bases around the world didnt really hasten the end of GWOT.

Originally Posted by JoshGirls Josh (Post 19590534)

if you can honestly tell me what national interest the US is protecting in okinawa, i'd love to hear it. all i see are thousands of troops doing drills, enjoying the weather, & a few ruffians raping the locals every few years. all costing millions a year for what exactly. so we can invade china faster? When are we gonna be invading china when we wont even invade syria or iran after the lesson of iraq.

Originally Posted by slapass (Post 19590800)

China has almost never sent troops outside of its own borders. Sure this might have changed after WW2. So far they have kept to that.

Originally Posted by slapass (Post 19590800)

The Cold war? Did we think that Russia would invade? My Russian friends say that they grew up fearing we would invade because we had proven we could attack other countries. It is something to consider. Maybe if we stayed out of it more, the world would be more peaceful?

Originally Posted by Rochard (Post 19590954)

Can you list all of the wars the US started in the past fifty years? Not wars we fought in, but wars we started.

Yes, we do have some of the cheapest oil in the world. The reason for this is WWII. From the US perspective, WWII was about oil. Japan attacked the US because as it was expanding in the South Pacific, the US was cutting off it's oil supply there. Furthermore, during WWII, both Japan and Nazi Germany had huge issues with oil supply. Since then our oil has been the cornerstone of American police - not for the general public, but instead so that the US military could continue on if required. No oil means no military.



We are killing people abroad? Where? We've pulled out of Iraq, and I honestly don't give a fuck about Afghanistan after 9/11. The drone strikes in Pakistan are directed against terrorists - I don't care about those either. We can't legally arrest them so something has to be done.

Originally Posted by Rochard (Post 19590475)

We have a large military not only to protect our country, but also to fight in illegal wars over oil making sure Haliburton get the contract to rebuild the country after we fuck it up.

Originally Posted by DamianJ (Post 19591093)

Fixed that for ya.