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5% is far too much?
List of countries by military expenditures - Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaRank ↓ Country ↓ Spending ($ b.) ↓ World Share (%) ↓
— World Total 1464.0 100
1 United States United States 607.0 41.5
2 People's Republic of China China 84.9a 5.8a
3 France France 65.7 4.5
4 United Kingdom United Kingdom 65.3 4.5
5 Russia Russia 58.6a 4.0a
6 Germany Germany 46.8 3.2
7 Japan Japan 46.3 3.2
8 Italy Italy 40.6 2.8
9 Saudi Arabia Saudi Arabia 38.2 2.6
10 India India 30.0 2.1
Not unless some crazy wackos like the Iranian government get nuclear weapons.
The important large scale competition will be economic.
The US spends far too much of its GDP on defense, to protect us from nobody in particular, and nobody with a real military threat to our homeland that we can't already deter (nuclear). The rest of the world is glad to let us squander our resources on defense, and spend theirs on their economy.
What the rest of the world is spending:
List of countries by military expenditures - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The number 2 spender, China, spends about 15% of what we spend. Why do we need to spend 8 times what they spend. Who is the threat to our national sovereignty? What is the nature of the threat? Are we properly spending to protect ourselves from the threat against us today? Will another futuristic fighter plane be effective on combating Islamic Fundamentalism? Why do we need to spend so much?
It seems our problem as a nation is not that our military is too weak, but that our economy is not stable, and is doing a poor job of providing jobs for our population, good jobs that provide a good standard of living, and health care that is accessible at prices that are reasonable.
None of this changes the fact that we only spend 5% of our GDP on defense. Who cares what percent of the total world's defense spending we are? Seeing as how our economy is vastly larger than anyone else's, that's a meaningless statistic in this context.
None of this changes the fact that we only spend 5% of our GDP on defense. Who cares what percent of the total world's defense spending we are? Seeing as how our economy is vastly larger than anyone else's, that's a meaningless statistic in this context.
China is not involved in countless of conflicts at the same time.What the rest of the world is spending:
List of countries by military expenditures - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The number 2 spender, China, spends about 15% of what we spend. Why do we need to spend 8 times what they spend. Who is the threat to our national sovereignty? What is the nature of the threat? Are we properly spending to protect ourselves from the threat against us today? Will another futuristic fighter plane be effective on combating Islamic Fundamentalism? Why do we need to spend so much?
It seems our problem as a nation is not that our military is too weak, but that our economy is not stable, and is doing a poor job of providing jobs for our population, good jobs that provide a good standard of living, and health care that is accessible at prices that are reasonable.
Who is the boggy man who threatens us? What is the nature of the threat? What is required to defend ourselves from that threat?
If we could defend ourselves from all known threats to our sovereignty, and do it at 2% of GDP, should we as a nation spend more than that?
That's not a fiscally conservative attitude. It's actually the opposite. And it's one of the many reasons we find ourselves Trillions of dollars in debt right now.
But then the response will have to be to use nuclear weapons against them. Like France have stated for example, they will not hesitate to use them.
None of this changes the fact that we only spend 5% of our GDP on defense. Who cares what percent of the total world's defense spending we are? Seeing as how our economy is vastly larger than anyone else's, that's a meaningless statistic in this context.
We are the most powerful country in the world, how could we not have enemies?
No major world power spends 2% of its GDP on defense. Not even China.
No, it's not. Defense spending is less than 20% of all government spending. In fact, it is barely more, as a percent of GDP, than other major countries.
Vague generalities. You don't answer my question.
You don't figure out how much to spend by asking "what % of my GDP do I need to spend to defend myself?". You should as, who are my main enemies, what is the risk they will attack, if they attack how will they do it, what do I have to do to prudently protect myself from those attacks?
Who will come at us with their navy to land troops on our shore? Who will send their bombers to bomb our cities? Does anyone have a big enough laser in space to disrupt our cities (I don't think so)? Can anyone hack our internet and halt significant commerce in the US with a relative small expenditure? Can we tell who did it? Can we retaliate so they won't want to do it?
I don't think anyone can float their navy over here, or send their bombers over here, or attack us with lasers from space (technology is not there, cost is prohibitive, what would they gain and at what cost?).
Terrorist attacks are here, and hacking attacks are here. What type of defense do we need?
Spending five times what your likeliest opponent spends does not give five times the defence. Spending more than the rest of the top ten spenders together might seem excessive.
Not when you consider that we have more money than the top ten spenders put together.
And think about the second spender on the list get a lot more money per dollar.
You're in a global war now, with Militant Islam, most people are in a creepy denial though.
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