A few different comparative measures of military spending, all taken from World Bank (as a percentage of GDP, in current USD):

Total Spending in USD by country (2017):



As a percentage of GDP (2017):



US Trend in Current USD:



US Trend as % GDP:



I'm including both total dollars and %GDP since they give different impressions. More subjectively, in my adult lifetime when I think of US military interventions I think about the Iraq war in 2003, Afghanistan, Libya, and a bunch of smaller actions. Most of which I've tended to oppose.

Being liberal, I also tend to look at the top line dollar figures (especially the expansion in the 2000s), or the comparison to the %GDP spent by other larger nations, and think that money might be more productive put to some other use. And I would imagine even conservatives or libertarians might think the same, even if they imagine other uses (tax cuts?)

I can also see how military spending has some meaningfully stimulative effect on the economy insofar as it's a fairly good paying job for a lot of people, and it supports various industries. So dramatic changes in funding might cause disruptive shocks in the short term.

But what I've not really been able to understand is: why is it necessary for us to spend so much on the military? What do we really get out of it? Is it worth it (morally or economically)? Is it true that economic interdependence and trade is a better way of maintaining diplomatic relationships that reduce the chance of war than having an enormous military?

Yeah this stuff is completely insane and the #1 reason I'm completely behind Bernie and Warren. There is absolutely no reason for our military spending to keep increasing like this. We could be helping so many of the country's problems with that money. Instead we're just breaking windows and fixing them.

Although I'm realistic to know they may not even make much of a dent in it. But at least it probably won't go up another 50% in 4 years under them.

You have to break this up into it's major components to get a full appreciation of what the US "military" budget actually covers.

Eisenhowerfarewellspeech.youtube

This Matt Taibbi article does a good job explaining just how big a cluster**** US military spending is. It's way worse than you think, probably by design. https://www.rollingstone.com/politic...ystery-807276/

Just looking at the trend there, military spending was flat until about 2001, then ramped up and only started to decline a few years ago.

We'd have to look at the breakdown of spending, but it seems that "what we get" is war and "peacekeeping" activity in the Middle East. I'm not taking a position on anything right away, but interested in trying to understand how the budget is allocated to different things.

Google is your friend.

From wiki

DOD Budget

Quote:

Benefits

Personnel payment and benefits take up approximately 39.14% of the total budget of $686,074,048,000[1]

The MHS offers a rich health care benefit to 9.5 million eligible beneficiaries, which includes active military members and their families, military retirees and their families, dependent survivors, and certain eligible Reserve Component members and their families. The Unified Medical Budget (UMB), which comprises the funding and personnel needed to support the MHS’ mission, consumes nearly 9% of the Department’s topline budget authority. Thus, it is a significant line item in the Department’s financial portfolio.[1]

FWIW the critics often ignore the spending on personnel both current and retired.

TRUMP has basically maintained that NATO members need to bare more of the military costs for maintaining current NATO operations. The USA has a significant number of troops in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. Are we stating that it is time to withdraw our troops?


US Military Deployments

For instance would it be wise to cut back in Germany and Japan signicantly?

It’s necessary to maintain our military superiority:

https://www.usip.org/sites/default/f...on-defense.pdf
Providing for the Common Defense
The Assessment and Recommendations of the National Defense Strategy Commission
Executive Summary
The security and wellbeing of the United States are at greater risk than at any time in decades. America’s military superiority—the hard-power backbone of its global influence and national security—has eroded to a dangerous degree. Rivals and adversaries are challenging the United States on many fronts and in many domains. America’s ability to defend its allies, its partners, and its own vital interests is increasingly in doubt. If the nation does not act promptly to remedy these circumstances, the consequences will be grave and lasting.

I agree with their assessment along with maintaining our USA #1 status on the global stage. Bottom-line: if China doesn't alter their course, we're going to war in the not too distant future, so best to prepare for the worst while hoping for the less worse.

No.

Sorry for my brevity, but we are the police on behalf of freedom. Europe isn't doing it (though, to be fair, we forced Germany not to do it historically).

*Team America voice* Freedom isn't free

We definitely spend way too much. We could spend a fraction of what we spend and achieve the same results if it were managed properly.

The biggest problem is congress, both houses. Everyone in congress views military appropriations as one of their primary jobs. This is a huge issue and why we waste so much money on the military. This is not a partisan issue with congress both parties are guilty. They all view it as a necessity and one of their primary responsibilities as an elected official.

On one hand, we obviously do. We are the strongest military in the history of the world by far, we are protected by 2 giant oceans and nuclear weapons.

On the other hand, what else does all that spending buy? The US led world order has benefited the US a lot. Though you could argue most of those benefits go to the middle and upper classes. Would gas still be this cheap if the US didn't lead the world order? Could you still buy a 4K TV for $500 at Walmart if the US didn't lead the world order? What would be going on in Europe, Asia and the middle east if the US decided to remove all foreign military bases and become another Switzerland? etc etc etc

I still think the answer is yes the US does spend way too much, but if you did decide to drastically cut the budget and have the sole focus of the military be to protect the US and nothing else, there would be far reaching consequences and it might actually have been worth it.

Hell yeah, we spend too much. We shouldn't have to shoulder the burden of global security practically alone.

But alas, the world (OECD/NATO at least) seems to like having US as the global policeman and has little interest in helping out. Since every time we withdraw, the world goes to hell, we seem to have little choice but to keep stepping up even as our share of the global GDP shrinks, making it increasingly burdensome to absorb the spending necessary to keep global peace.

I am on record for saying US military probably needs more money and manpower, mainly because there is our allies consistently refuse to step up to the plate and do their part and nobody is currently comprehending just handing over responsibility for global security to China and Russia.

Ideally, NATO allies, Japan, and other democracies should just step up and do their part. But they are not. And we're faced with the reality that we're asked to keep peace with an increasingly small share of global military spending and GDP.

Chart derived from data from WorldBank. ****ty formatting but 0 is 1960 and so on.


It is worth noting US military spending probably overstates US military capabilities. A lot of the budget is spent on R&D and C&C logistics/infrastructure that we essentially give away for free to our allies.

Both charts indicate our military is slowly fading from superpower status and it shows. We no can legitimately claim the ability to fight two major conflicts at the same time. That has major strategic implications on our ability to credibly threaten force in order to keep peace.

This is fair. I am pretty sure a lot of federally funded scientific research falls under the military budget. I am sure if we discount this, it is still a giant number we can argue should be smaller, but it does cloud the issue some.

while i think we could obviously lower spending, im more concerned with the waste and lack of accountability involved. the pentagon releasing that report that they dont have accurate recording for trillions of dollars of spending, and more reports like the US has no record of 500 million in aid given to yemen in 2015. this is what most glaringly needs to change, imo.

Generally speaking I agree with this sentiment. Tbh I think Japan pays billions for to the US to have US troops there. Not sure how much other countries pay.

The thing that isn't clear to me is whether we (or the world in general) are actually better off because of this insistence on us being the world's policeman. I also don't think I can make a convincing argument that we're clearly not; it seems like a really big question, and I'm not sure I find the answers about North Korea, Russia, China, and Iran all that compelling.

But, I need to read that DoD document more closely to comment. Thanks for the link.

That seems fair to me. My big philosophical question is: to what extent does globalization and trade play a more important role now than military super-power? That is, I might accept your argument as true historically. It makes sense to me that US global hegemony has been good for the US middle class throughout the second half of the 20th century specifically. (Although: Some will point out that this also involves the US doing a lot of things that make a lot more people in the rest of the world worse off. I think that ought to matter too.) But is it really military might creating stability now?

I didn't know NSF was in the military budget. That does make it harder to measure, if true. But I'm so far away from being able to give very detailed answers on any of this that it probably doesn't matter. This is very 50k foot view stuff for me.

We keep peace? Europe is the strongest argument for that. But our involvement in East Asia and the Middle East has been disruptive and phantasmagorically sanguinary.

It is naive to think that what the US does is maintain peace and stability. We are a traditional empire in the sense of holding the strategic points of military and resource import. We are a global POWER.

If peace, freedom, and stability were the central goals we would have invaded several of our key allies long ago.

For the trillions of dollars we've spent dominating the Persian Gulf we could have bought everyone in the world a home fusion reactor.

Empire ain't worth it, it's the long con.

It’s not entirely clear to me either. But what is clear to me is if the world in general does abhor that particular vacuum, it’s best filled by us rather than China or Russia.

What has Russia or China done as remotely reckless and catastrophic as our invasion of Iraq? Or the overthrows of the Shah of Iran and Arbenz in Guatemala, which caused decades of bleeding and strife that's still going on? Our invasions of Vietnam and North Korea killed about five million. We partially own the genocide in Cambodia because we set the table. American hegemony has been a cataclysm.

Our naive certainty in our good intentions keeps contributing to ridiculous wars.

You confuse inability with unwillingness.

Russia straight up invaded Ukraine and annexed Crimea. It's still waging an unofficial war in Eastern Ukraine. This is to say nothing of ongoing Russian shenanigans in the Caucasus and Soviet interventions all over the world.

China is obviously still stuck in North Korea, having enabled a petulant Kim family now holding nuclear warheads. China is assimilating Tibet with a policy of "sinicization" and straight up genocide. Mao Zedong invaded Soviet Union. Deng Xiaoping invaded Vietnam. They still argue with India over patches of useless land. They are building military bases on "shoals" within sight of Southeast Asian countries.

All indications are Russia and China are not going to play nice as US cedes its superpower status.

American hegemony as a cataclysm is very rich in irony. The years since WWII, especially after cessation of the Cold War, have been the most prosperous and most peaceful period in human history, by a lot.

This is to say nothing of the fact that the last two times US withdrew from international affairs US ended up in WW I and II.

On an absolute level, yeah I think its pretty insane what we spend on the military. For organizations that pride themselves on creating efficient and effective military forces, they are inefficient and ineffective with money.

On a realistic level, as others have said, no we are the worlds military.

A bit of a conspiracy theory, but I have a feeling that our national debt and military prowess go hand in hand and there is a lot more going on with that than simply, we run at an inexplicable deficit.

2003

USA put the Shah of Iran in power actually. 50’s. Iranian revolution in the late 70’s removed him.


1954

Didn’t invade Vietnam or North Korea actually. 50’s and 60’s basically.

Gulf War in the 90s basically had support of all Western powers.

Revisionist history ftw.

They are brutal, it is true. But all of these examples are from their border areas where any regime will feel touchy. We were talking about how the US behaves around the globe, not on the Canadian Mexican borders. So the US is still unparalleled in contemporary reckless aggression.

Not because of the US, outside Europe. I give specific wars. You give vague platitudes.

WWI? I am unsure what are you talking about. 1898 is when the US launched overseas empire, the opposite of withdrawal.

And the US did not withdraw from international affairs after WWI. The Europeans rejected Wilson at Versailles is what happened. Public sentiment was isolationist, which slowed entry into WWII, but did little else.

Yes, I misstated that. That coup destroyed democracy in Iran and led directly to the Islamic revolution of 1979. Oops.

Why are you dating these events? Are you suggesting there is no continuity in American policy?

You can quibble on Vietnam, at least in the sense that Ngo Diem invited the US into Vietnam just like the Afghani government requested Soviet troops in 1979.

But saying we did not invade North Korea is such a whopper. U.S./UN forces crossed the 38th Parallel, seized the capital, and drove all the way to the Chinese border. This was September to November 1951.

No, 1950, and it was a UN counter-offensive in response to North Korea's invasion of the South. The UN then pulled back because the Red Chinese with Stalin's backing attacked in enormous numbers.

In terms of the present US defence budget, 3% of GDP isn't all that large. Britain was spending 50% in 1939, on account imminent world war, and 6% in the 1960s due to the Soviet threat. Britain is now at 2%, which doesn't buy all that much.

As to whether the US gets good value for its 3%... hard to say. They've got a ridiculously large navy which no one can challenge, meaning said navy doesn't have a great deal to do. It's mainly centred on carrier groups which provide offshore 'airfields' for littoral operations, but USAF shore-based aircraft can usually reach any relevant area due to diplomatic alliances and the provision of land bases. The carrier force is extremely costly and meanwhile the US is a bit slim on infantry, armour and artillery, while most of the fast-jet fleet is elderly and obsolescent.