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I’m sold, let’s get rid of the part of the government that costs the most and delivers the least. I’m talking about the military, of course.
by adwhit 8y ago
I’m sold, let’s get rid of the part of the government that costs the most and delivers the least. I’m talking about the military, of course.
- jki275 8y agoMilitary in the US is 18% of the budget. SS and medicare are something like 70%. If you want to live in a country without a military there are a bunch of them. I wouldn't personally want to live in any of them, but of course everyone is free to do as they see fit.
- bufferoverflow 8y agoSwitzerland has no military, it's not that bad.
- louisswiss 8y agoSwitzerland definitely does have a military.
- ceejayoz 8y agoFun fact, though: their air force has office hours. https://www.theguardian.com/world/shortcuts/2014/feb/19/swiss-air-force-ethiopian-airlines-hijacking-office-hours https://www.theguardian.com/world/shortcuts/2014/feb/19/swis...
- thecopy 8y agoSwitzerland has mandatory conscription.
- dagw 8y agoSwitzerland not only has a military, it has mandatory military service for all males.
- blattimwind 8y agoSwitzerland actually even has military ships. [1] [1] Patrol boats of the Grenzwachtkorps.
- isostatic 8y agoIceland has no military spending Ireland spends 0.4% of it's GDP on military Switzerland 0.7% Sweden 1% Finland (who have actually been invaded in living memory) 1.4% The U.S. spent $574b on defence and $79b on veterans last year, both increased way above inflation - total of $57b. Education by comparision dropped by 14%, or $9b. Health by 18% or $15b. The largest slice of the U.S. budget is healthcare (mainly medicare/medicaid). This cost $5,500 per citizen, despite only covering 1/3rd of the population. This is because the U.S. health care system is fundamentally broken, and costs about 3 times as much per person in europe.
- seibelj 8y agoWithout the US military all of these countries would be required to fund a large military to avoid being conquered. Pax Americana has allowed Europe to shirk their responsibilities, but some people would argue its worth it to the US.
- cryoshon 8y agoi keep seeing this canard whenever military spending arises. tell me: who would invade? germany has no ambition to conquer france. poland has a buffer to protect it from the russians. estonia is in NATO. seriously, what threat is going to suddenly gobble up europe? oh yeah, and where are the millions of US troops currently stationed in europe that would supposedly stop the threat?
- keiferski 8y agoRussia would absolutely invade / interfere with ex-Soviet states if they didn’t have the protection of NATO. See: Ukraine.
- jki275 8y agoIt doesn't take millions to make that kind of aggression politically unpalatable.
- seibelj 8y agoI believe you are quite foolish if you think an opportunistic power wouldn't invade if they had the opportunity.
- golergka 8y agoThere hasn't been a world war for two thirds of a century now, and US and their trade partners enjoy safe trade routes. I wouldn't call it "not delivering".
- atmosx 8y agoThe mess the US foreign policy of the previous administration caused in Middle East alone ( not counting Ukraine and Libya ) has an immense cost and no real benefit. Of course others are left alone to pay the bill. I would call that a total failure by any possible interpretation.
- golergka 8y agoYou can only call that a total failure if you ignore the entirety of human history and compare it to some fantasy of world peace instead. It's good to thrive for a better world, and notice when things go worse, but when evaluating effectiveness of american military as a whole, you should compare it to a time before Pax Americana. Also, did I understand you correctly: you not only want to cut american military spending, but also keep US morally responsible for situation in Ukraine?... Now, both these viewpoints are to some extent reasonable, if they come from corresponding first principles. But I can't possibly imagine how the same person can hold these two views at the same time: they completely contradict each other. Either US is responsible for events across the globe, OR it shouldn't have a huge military - how on Earth can you believe both?!
- hopefulengineer 8y agoWhat is the US supposed to do? You literally cited two cases, Ukraine and Libya, which are polar opposites. Ukraine the US is criticized for NOT intervening, middle east and Libya US is criticized FOR intervening. And now we have Myanmar muslim situation and Yemen where people are begging for US intervention, but in all probability if we intervened we would be getting criticized for it by the same people asking us to intervene in a few years
- scottlocklin 8y ago
- ckastner 8y ago> I’m sold, let’s get rid of the part of the government that costs the most and delivers the least. I’m talking about the military, of course. This is the same tortured logic that leads to cost-cutting with regards to IT security expenditures.
- hopefulengineer 8y ago1. US military is only 16-18% of federal spending. Entitlements like social security, medicaid, and welfare make up 65-70% of federal spending. The majority of military spending is on salaries and benefits anyway, it's essentially a welfare program itself >delivers the least 2. most major advancements in tech and healthcare are due to the military. Silicon Valley was built on military spending. Self driving cars were initially funded by DARPA. AI was funded by military. If you have a job in the tech industry you can thank the US military There's also the minor detail of the US navy making global trade possible and the strength of the US military making traditional war pointless which has resulted in the last few decades being the most peaceful in human history in terms of probability of dying in combat
- patricius 8y ago> 2. most major advancements in tech and healthcare are due to the military. Can you back that up? That military spending has been high gives no guarantee that having spent the same money in the private sector wouldn't have led to even better results and advancements.
- astura 8y agohttps://steveblank.com/secret-history/ https://steveblank.com/secret-history/ The military spends on R&D where it makes zero business sense for a for-profit company to spend. Private companies must be profitable.
- patricius 8y agoStill, the question remains: Can we say a priori that the funds for R&D military spending wouldn't have been spent better by the private sector?
- notfromhere 8y agoprivate sector doesnt do basic research and has a short view of things because of the drive towards profitability. gov't-funded R&D is why we have nice things. everyone strategically forgets that silicon valley exists because of bottomless cold war spending, so silicon valley's obsession with the superiority of the private sector is ever ironic