What would be the best use for the money spent by the US and other countries on their military budgets?

Question

What would be the best use for the trillion dollars a year spent by the United States and other countries on their military budgets?

This question was asked at the Dropping Knowledge event on 9th September by Howard Zinn, USA.

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Answer 1

To pay me and my colleagues compensation for being out of a career. (Currently serving).

The military are on a shoestring budget as it is!

If we were shut down, then it will be open season on our nations. terrorists and conquerers would attack us every week!

A nation needs it's military to keep it safe. A nation without a military is easy pickings. We can never shut down our military. It will never be safe enough to do so.

Answer 2

500 billion to saving the ozone/reinvent the battery
500 billion to space travel/colonization of Titan

Here's the breakdown, but in a word, we have to fix our planet before we destroy ourselves.

We need to fix the global warming thing. Everyone knows that by now. Cars and factories emit CO2, blah, blah blah, you know the rest. What a lot of people don't realize is about this is the human race plays a huge factor in this. See, the earth can only realistically hold about a billion people with no harmful effects. Currently, where at 6.5 billion and climbing. Humans are like a virus with shoes to the planet earth. With technology and medical science changing by leaps and bounds every day, new cures coming out and people living longer, our precious earth which has been so kind to let us live on her, will fight overpopulation with all she's got and she's got quite a left hook. AIDS is doing a pretty good job (40 million and rising), but I still think some disease will come out and knock a third of the global population out...it's either that or sea level rising from global warning to kill off a few million.

If I sound cold and ungrateful, sorry. But at the rate where going, the global population will be close to 10 billion by 2050 and the more people we have on this planet, the harder it will be to fight global warming, the harder it will be to govern, the harder it will be to feed and clothe people, the harder it will be to find landfills for waste for 10 billion people. It's either something seriously bad happening that will kill off half the global population in the next 50-100, or in 200 years, we'll all die because our planet will in inhabitable from a nice doomsday cocktail of global warming and overpopulation. Remember, we only have a finite amount of land (and oil, but that's another argument all together).

This is why we need to colonize Titan, as it's probably our best shot, being it has an atmosphere (nothing we can breath, but it's a start, and the only start we have that's not light years away). And we have to do it soon before we run out of fuel to get us there. Once we run out of oil, we are stuck on this planet forever. And what do we have NASA for? It's not to just look at stars and planets and moons from our planet. I thought the general idea was that we would actually go somewhere someday. The longer we wait, the harder it will be.

Answer 3

Money spend on wars is a recycled money since t generates from Country tax payers for use and supply from country companies. So this money is taken from people and given to the rich and wealthy companies that supply the military. This also provides business for the media and for the politicians. So this money is spend on a useful cause that makes the powerful more wealthy and provide the country with powerful weapons through which they control the world. Power is the game and all wars raging those days are not for ideology or ethnic or religious purposes in spite of the fact they appear so. This will never change unless a second world power is present and threatens the US and its allies, as UK, NATO, EUROPE, ISRAEL and others. One thing will be missing and decaying which is the training and sharp behavior of the military since this you cannot buy but only have when your foe is strong and powerful which now does exist. As for the core of your question too many purposes can be made available to spend that money not entirely military but also peaceful ones. But here this will not be in favor of mentioned before. The best spending spree in my eyes will be on energy and its use. Agriculture also has its importance since food must be plenty and healthier and that requires lots of R&D. Water is a scarces resource that will make nations fight very soon specially in the Middle East where sources of water are scarce in a population growing area.

Answer 4

This question is analagous to: "Why do we need police?" or even "Why should we defend ourselves?"

The best use for defense spending is,...,well, defense. The huge and much-maligned US military, through its technological domination, managed to win a war simply by defense spending. You will notice that, unlike the First and Second World Wars, the campaign between the communist Soviet Union and the federalist United States (along with their respective allies) had no all-out war. And we did it with 2/3 the nuclear weapons the Soviets did.

If our defense budget was not a great during those years, then Soviet aggression might have gotten worse, causing a "hot" war, costing millions of lives, civilian and military.

Similarly, there are now parties who refuse to accept religious and social freedom in the Western World. Their statements are clear that their goals are to convert or destroy the evil societies of the West, because of their wanton liberties. Military spending right now is what has prevented a dozen major attacks in the last five years, not to mention how many unknown attacks worldwide.

To put up a fight seems against our ideals, but neglecting our right to live safely is a noble cause above all others.

As an aside, military research often produces non-military gains. Transportation, electronics, aviation, safety innovations regularly find their origin in military research. Remember also, that the internet you are now using was also a military product.

Answer 5

On the military of course. The second best army is a the most expensive mistake in the world. What I feel thought is that everything as a whole has to be looked at. More like how to make sure that military money is properly and efficiently used would be a better question. The military is not all evil and they do good things too. The problem is that yes the military is the teeth of any country. How would you like warlords roaming around because underfund the military and that is just about what you get.

How can things get better well how about us as people start goal building again. I am ready for colonization at anytime of space. I rather aim our money then let if float through the market. If we had more of drive then check book to check book living we would actually feel as if we were going somewhere. For now we are like a ship aimlessly drifting somewhere and letting the currents take us.

I would not feel right taking money that was need to keep a solider alive away from them. I also think that the money should be better used for vets, and disable vets, and families of disabled vets. Then again that is me, especially after we told our people to go over and fight and get maimed or killed I think they deserve their money how about you? Then again I could be wrong why don't we leave them all on the streets, make it hard for their children to live because we aren't paying them correctly. Cut or not build the facilities they need for recovery... but wait then again we are almost already doing that.

Yup, you guessed right my father was a vet, of course it was vietnam but the government lied their arsses off to him. Told him he was healthy when he was having heart problems. Not even a month after he left the military a civilian doctor looked at him and said, wow you have a huge heart problem. So big that if we were to do surgery you would die. When did I get it? This would have had to have taken years to build up like this. Looking at that useless bill of clean health from the military, I would have been angry. The military not owning up would have pist me off. But not my dad. He deserved the money and so do other vets who are wounded and trying to recover.

They deserve the best protection that money can buy on and off the battlefield. Now if you are talking about how to clean up the government and use all the wasted money there I'll be right there with you looking for the answers.

Answer 6

Making sure that the middle class gets access to higher education, regardless of race or ethnicity. The middle class is the backbone of Western society - in both social and economic terms.

Though I do think gutting the military for this money is pretty short sighted - since there are still dangerous people in the world. The idea is nice, to not have to spend a lot on the military, but it is dangerously naive - it's the kind of thinking that Howard Zinn and his buddies like Noam Chomsky are infamous for. To think that we could've beaten the Axis powers of WW II with non violent measures, as he stated in "Hiroshima: Breaking the Silence",is mind numbingly crazy.

Answer 7

Perhaps less needs be spent on military budgets, but only a self deluded moron would have no military budget. Not every country can live within close proximity to the U.S., such as Canada, and receive that type of benefit. Behold the Swiss, or the Swedes, or many other countries you can name. Neither the Swiss, or Swedes have been engaged militarily for many hundreds of years. Why don't you ask them what would be the best use for the billions of dollars a year they spend on defense. Frame your questions in reference to the real world, not the disconnect from reality you seem to be experiencing.

Answer 8

By giving eveyone in the world
Drinkable Water, Healthy Food, and Decent Shelter.
That's how it'll be better spent...

But they aint gonna do that, so I'm not gonna go into details about how and why, because it's pointless at this moment...
the gov's of the world will do whatever with their $$$ as they please, same thing with corperations, and the rich.
Take for example what Bill Gates is suddenly "giving away" is a fraction of what he even has, not to mention he can make it all back and maybe more if he does his Taxes right... so don't let that little theif fool you. If he's doing it for anything he's doing it for a PR of himself campain LOL! If he was serious he would give ALL his money away.

;-)

one word for people like that - "fake" (and fake people have issues, and when people with issues have their hand in running communities, countries, even the world, then we all deal with THEIR issues and they make us have more issues... lets stop all the fake people from running our lives so we can work on our issues and not theirs because at this point we all need some kind of help LOL for our issues)

Cya!
::: Peace :::

Answer 9

That's a really great question and i am sure that are those with better answers than me. I would like to see the money used to help the less fortunate, the poor, the needy,and most of the CHILDREN OF HOME HAVE LOST THEIR FAMILY BY THE KATRINA HURRICANE and then all those soldiers and their families of whom miss soooo many holidays together even though there are some that get to spend a week or two together for thanksgiving and Christmas it just don't seem to me like enough time with the family especially when there are children under school of whom can't understand when Daddy or Mommy takes off again and alllllllll the crying starts all over again. My heart just really goes out to them all SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT. FAMILIES AND THOSE CHILDREN

Answer 10

Well in a perfect world it could buy more I PODS ,more TV,more entertainment. Hey half the entertainment is based on war like behavior so I guess we need the weapons money to have wars to be entertained with? Does Art Imitate Life or Life Imitate art? In all seriousness it definitely could be better spent ,but will my I POD be lethal when another Osama shows his face? Till we get all that bad over and done with the money is being spent where it should be. Make peace one person at a time that is where all the money comes from, Take Care,
Cynical Angel M

Answer 11

I would say that what's supposed to be for the Military should remain to be alloted to them since the Military plays a vital role in protecting the country and its people. However, what is not a necessity should be attributed to some other causes, like free education for the poor children. It would be nice to see that there would be no streetchildren begging for alms on the thoroughfares. All the children must be sent to school for proper education because they are the youth of today that might someday be our great citizens. This way, these children will be out of danger from drugs, stealing, child abuse, and other crimes that might get them into if they are not properly educated. This will also give them a hope for their better tomorrow.