An old saying has it that when you have a
hammer, everything looks like a nail. It's probably fair to say
that when you have a honking huge military machine, everything
looks like...Kosovo? Iraq? Afghanistan? Libya? Syria? Well, a handy
target for some expensive ordnance, anyway. If you want everything
to stop looking nail-ish, it's a good idea to put that hammer away.
And if we want Syria—let alone the next target of opportunity—to
stop looking like the latest good place for the U.S. to install new
craters, we probably need to reduce our military's ability to reach
around the world at will.
Over the 10 years between 2001 and 2011, acccording to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, annual U.S. military expenditures rose, in constant 2010 dollars, from roughly $385 billion to $690 billion, and from three percent of GDP to 4.8 percent. SIPRI's definition of such expenditures is more inclusive than some governments use, and so perhaps a tad more eye-popping (and honest) than most officials like, since they tend to emphasize "defense budgets" and downplay military aid and the often off-budget costs of actual operations. That means other numbers float around out there, military spending-wise, but these are good numbers with which to start and they can be compared across nations.
And what a comparison!
http://reason.com/archives/2013/09/05/the-case-for-a-military-too-small-to-be
Over the 10 years between 2001 and 2011, acccording to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, annual U.S. military expenditures rose, in constant 2010 dollars, from roughly $385 billion to $690 billion, and from three percent of GDP to 4.8 percent. SIPRI's definition of such expenditures is more inclusive than some governments use, and so perhaps a tad more eye-popping (and honest) than most officials like, since they tend to emphasize "defense budgets" and downplay military aid and the often off-budget costs of actual operations. That means other numbers float around out there, military spending-wise, but these are good numbers with which to start and they can be compared across nations.
And what a comparison!
http://reason.com/archives/2013/09/05/the-case-for-a-military-too-small-to-be
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