Do you believe we the USA can continue with the military spending around the globe?

Question

We are spending a huge amount around the world and the obligations at home are even bigger, many say we can't continue at this pace. Is it time to finish up major combat missions and begin to bring all troops home, that includes Europe, Korea, Japan, everywhere, and let them do their own defense. Plus stop the big spending on foreign projects and spend that money at home. Basically pull back scale back and just use overwhelming force when necessary if someone messes with us.

Nice try r1 but it doesn't work like that, you need to study economics. The gdp is the total of all goods and services produced in the country and the national debt is the amount reflected on the balance sheet for the government plus you forgot to mention all that has been taken from social security and spent and the 50 to 70 trillion dollar obligation to the baby boomers retirement.

Answer 1

The US is the number supplier of military weapons and it is the reason why it likes to promote war in order to have a market for their products.

Answer 2

I think if you look at the figures you will find the US pays a significant higher percentage in wages then many of the other countries. China and Russia both pay the military members poorly compared to average for the countries and the benefit cost for US military personnel is also much higher. Comparing it to "Cold War" figures goes back to the draft days of the 1950's and 1960's. I joined the Marine in 1970 and the monthly pay to start was approximately $100.00 a month base pay and the minimum wage was approximately $2.00 per hour or $80.00 for a forty hour work week so took a huge pay cut compared to if I had gotten a minimum wage job on the street-that is not true now and should not be or ever been true but the draft provided inexpensive labor. Today a single recruit makes about what I made in base pay as a Gunnery Sergeant with 20 years in when I retired in 1990. You want to put that in the figures and see what it all comes out too. Save money would be simple cut the pay and benefits and reinstate the draft. A second factor in this is much money is spent on research and development on new systems and technology which is used by ourselves and out allies plus often copied by other countries which means they don;t pay to develop it so the budget looks smaller. Much of the medical advances through out the years in the "civilian sector has been based on military developed research so the cost would be moved from the military to the civilian sector or the advances would not be made. The last thing to look at is counting it in dollars instead of percentage of GNP where the US does not rate that highly and some of the lower countries depend on the US to provide military support. Taking the dual military and civilian "hidden cost" and counting it as all military spending is also suspect. The US pays a lower percent on the military from the military budget now then in most post WW2 periods but the world is really less safe now then then.

Answer 3

I couldn't agree with you more, everything you said. Let their tax payers pay for their defense. France boasts 'make babies, not bombs.' Let's see what tune they're singing when they don't have a big ally willing to back them up and die for them. Europeans don't put enough into defense to defend and/or help any situation on this planet on their own. That's a fact.

Defend our interests with, as you said, 'overwhelming force.' Our interests such as the Kuwait pansies, wealthy country who didn't give enough to defense to even defend its very existence. Of course, you'll have the delusional that will claim our interests are/were oil, when if they had half a brain cell, they'd know that Iran tried to overtake Iraq and if successful, they would have gobbled half of the Middle East by now without our help and we'd have one huge enemy chanting Death to America. That was an effort to try to avoid the Germany/Czechoslovakia/France type situation of history. I guess libs like to wait until it's absolutely desperate.

And as far as current events, not one American should die for anyone in Darfur. If other countries want to keep crying about the issue, let them go. And watch as no country takes the initiative.

The Japanese and SKoreans are always chanting, "Yanks, go home." I say let's do it and let them deal with that crazy region on their own.

Answer 4

US debt almost nine trillion
$ 8 , 9 7 4 , 5 0 5 , 4 7 1 , 6 9 8 . 4 6
http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock/

US GDP
GDP: $13.13 trillion (2006 est.)
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/us.html

Imagine you make 13K a year and owe 9,000 after taxes you have about 8,000 that is were the US is today. How long do you think the US can keep this up?

Answer 5

NO. We cannot afford the current military spending we are on. Look at england, rome, any other empire in history. They expanded and exhausted their resources and troops so much they were pushed back to nothing. We need to bring all of our troops home, defend OUR country and OUR borders. We need to drop out of NATO and the United Nations. Having such a presence around the world is going to harm our safety and our economy.

Answer 6

not really,as we are spread kinda thin.
I don't know ware the goverment got the idea that we hafto impose our beliefs on the world.It's a dangers game to play and
our troops are the one that die for polotics.

Answer 7

the us is the roman empire today; and it will collapse the way rome did