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America's International Military Bill is More than China, Britain, France and Russia Combined
Being the greatest superpower in the world was never likely to be an inexpensive business but new figures reveal just how costly the battle for international war and peace can be.
'Exceptional military spending': U.S. defense expenditure has increased by 81 per cent since 2001. (Photo: US Navy)
Military spending in Europe has fallen by 2.8 per cent in the last year as governments tighten their belts in the search for economic recovery.
But for the U.S., international conflict and peacekeeping has become staggeringly expensive, with $698 billion spent in 2010.
The figure is a 2.8 per increase from the previous year and around six times the expenditure as China, America’s nearest rival when it comes to military spending.
Incredibly, U.S. military spending has almost doubled in the last ten years as operations in Iraq and Afghanistan have dragged on – last year’s outlay represented an 81 per cent increase on the 2001 figure.
The U.S. spending figures are not matched worldwide, however, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute said.
Global military spending hit an all-time high of $1.6 trillion in 2010, but spending increased by 1.3 per cent in real terms, a steep drop from a 5.9 per cent drop the previous year.
The biggest defence budget cuts came in small central and Eastern European economies, as well as financially troubled nations like Greece.
‘In many cases, the falls or slower increases represent a delayed reaction to the global financial and economic crisis that broke in 2008’ the institute said in a statement.
‘Further cuts are expected in most of Europe in 2011 and subsequent years, although these are likely to remain relatively modest in the major spending countries.'
The US, however, ‘continues to be exceptional in terms of its military spending’, SIPRI said.
Its defence expenditure comprised 42.8 per cent of world military spending in 2010 – the second biggest spender, China, had just a 7.3 per cent share.
The UK had the third highest spending, with France and Russia narrowly behind.
The institute also revealed that spending in South America increased by six per cent to $63billion, buoyed by the strength of Peruvian and Colombian insurgents, while African expenditure rose by five per cent.
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29 Comments so far
Show AllBut if we didn't spend all this money on the military ie laid of servicemen, stopped research , didn't buy unnecessary jet engines, how much more unemployment (and lower tax revenues) would there be?
Also our balance of payment deficit would be even higher.
Maybe we should bring back the draft to fight the wars?
(PS I am not serious...., but I bet you some bean counter somewhere can prove it to be good economic policy)
I know you are being facetious, but what you say is basically true. If we were to eliminate all this military spending, it would put millions of Americans out of work.
What we have with all this military spending is in effect a form of socialism -- a massive jobs program known as the military industrial complex.
What we need to do is restructure our economy so that instead of a system of military socialism -- which provides nothing of value and in fact is a destructive force on the planet -- we have ACTUAL socialism, with people producing things that are needed.
If the terrorists wished to instill fear and hysteria among the American populace, then the U.S. government is doing an outstanding job of doing just that.
"Almost all propaganda is designed to create fear. Heads of governments and their officials know that a frightened people is easier to govern, will forfeit rights it would otherwise defend, is less likely to demand a better life, and will agree to millions and millions being spent on 'Defense' ". - John Boynton Priestly [1894-1984], English writer
"It's our taxes that are paying for the wars in Afghanistan and Colombia. Bombs are being dropped that kill innocent people. And our money is paying for those bombs. We have to take responsibility. We have to say: This is our money. The check that I send the IRS is being used to make bombs. And today, with the tightening U.S. budget, we're being asked for more money than ever before to make more bombs. We can look at it from a very personal viewpoint. When they talk about war, we're the ones who end up paying for it."-Dolores Huerta [1930-], co-founder of United Farm Workers of America
The real number, of course, is much higher than $698,000,000,000 when you add in the military "aid" to other countries, the portions of Homeland Security, DOE, etc. that are military, making it greater than $1 Trillion/year.
How to stop the military madness?
Pictures are worth thousands of words.
Vietnam was halted at least in part by mainstream pictures (e.g., the running child burning of napalm).
After 'Nam, the MIC decided to eliminate war reporting, to thereby eliminate mainstream dissent. They made it illegal to disseminate pix of flag-draped caskets, producing their own Pentagon-made "news releases," embedding "reporters," greatly increasing funding and staffing of MIC marketing, coaching up the talking head Generals on msm, etc.
War isn't pretty. The anti-war movement can easily coincide with the Wisconsin movement, just add pictures.
Death Wish
We should abolish the military; it's a criminal organization for sure:
Deconstructing the US Military; or How to Cut a Trillion Dollars a Year from the US Budget
http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig11/visalli4.1.1.html
Well at least we are number one at something! USA! USA!
Actually, that's real. A lot of non-liberal-progressive feel proud that, even though they may not be much themselves, they're part of the biggest baddest nation ever.
David Sirota's book Back To Our Future does a good job of depicting just how militarized the US culture has become and how deliberate that transformation is.
It looks as if the intention is to solve the budget deficit by cutting every single thing that helps anybody, "drowning government in the bathtub," like they say, but not give up on one bit of this warmaking thing until the troops desert because there's nothing left to pay them with.
Nick Turse also gives his take on this topic in his excellent book The Complex: How the Military Invades Our Everyday Lives.
It's becoming clearer every day what is going on here, like a battleship emerging from a fog bank.
The resources for supplying the modern "way of life" for the rich countries are just about to become a lot more scarce. The US has begun an armed global resource grab in anticipation of the day that other nations will not sell their resources willingly. That day is very close, maybe already here, and the US Corporation has got its enforcers* stationed right in the middle of the action.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, we see fascism falling into place and very quickly, too.
Someday, whoever is left will call this World War III. The fuse has been lit.
*oops, I mean HEEEroes
"Being the greatest superpower in the world was never likely to be an inexpensive business but new figures reveal just how costly the battle for international war and peace can be."
I stopped reading it right there. If the opening premise is so far off-base, what is the point of reading further?
For the second time today, I have come face to face with profoundly naivete and ignorannce from a Brit regarding the degree of corruption in the US.
US military spending is NOT, I repeat, NOT about a "battle for international war and peace", "security, "making the world safe for Democracy", the "GWOT" or any other such noinsense! Even all that stuff in the cold war days about "engaging the Soviet Threat" was nothing but a load of lies.
A drive around the DC Beltway, or comparably wealthy and booming areas of San Diego, Orange County California, Atlanta or Salt Lake City will make it clear that US military spending is about making certain corporations and individuals fabulously wealthy and powerful. Period.
Woe to those great swaths of the Rust Belt and midwest that don't base their economies on the "defense industry", they are sinking deeper into poverty every day.
What do the British think Eisenhower's "Cross of Iron" speech was warning the US people about?
This is from the Daily Mail.
It is not naivete. It is deliberate right wing propaganda.
Good catch. One person's cost is another (corporate) person's profit.
Q: What does it profit a person to gain the world but lose his soul?
A: The world*.
*Which is a good deal for corporate persons, who have no soul to lose.
The article is from the Daily Mail (uk). Of course it is right wing propaganda.
I guess CD was looking for the first article it could find on this, and just grabbed whatever was available.
I think that all members of the US military should wear jumpsuits just like NASCAR drivers do: corporate logos head to toe.
I also think that all military vehicles should have NASCAR paint jobs: corporate logos bumper to bumper, nose to tail and bow to stern!
Ein neuen Walsprucht fur alten McReich: Arbeit! Macht Fries!
How shameful for Bush and the Republ.....errrr.....excuse me, Obama and the Democrats to keep shoveling millions of money into pieces of metal that destroy thousands of innocent lives while the poorest Americans continue to be at the brunt of Bush's and the Repub.....eerrrr....sorry, Obama and the Democrats effort to make up what there dropping on every non-white nation that has a mineral resource that either goes into a phone, ipad or a car.
Duh!! This is NOT news!
With the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 the U.S. became the world's military super-power. A few wished to see a "peace dividend" to radically reduce the military budget, and re-direct funds to civilian needs. But the "military-industrial complex", built up over decades of Cold War insanity, was far too powerful to allow such a reduction in power and profit.
The neo-cons immediately realized the political and economic significance of this historic event in the Project for the New American Century (PNAC). This superior military power could now be the used to insure U.S. corporate profit in the global marketplace and to secure global political and economic hegemony. The PNAC agenda became the foreign policy of the United States, with many PNAC members becoming part of the Bush administration. (Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, etc. signatories of the PNAC Statement of Principles.)
Since the 1970s U.S. manufacturing industry, with the loss of millions of jobs and the actual decline in real wages for working people, could not compete against cheap labor in China and Asia. Capitalists needed new places to invest for maximization of profit. The waging of war and the privatization of war became very profitable in itself. Thus the wars in the Middle East and Central Asia, to protect the profits oil corporations, and to protect cheap-oil dependent transportation industries such as auto, aviation, and even the military itself as the largest consumer of oil in the U.S.
All of this war for oil profits has caused the massive pollution, global warming, and vast environment damage and devastation to humanity. The PNAC agenda initiated by Bush and the Republican Party has been fully promoted and expanded by Obama and the Democratic Party.
But the root cause, of course, lies not in the personalities of Bush or Obama but in the underlying bi-partisan support of gangster capitalism. There ultimately is
NO SOLUTION TO UNENDING WARS,
NO SOLUTION TO GLOBAL WARMING,
NO SOLUTION TO MASSIVE UNEMPLOYMENT, POVERTY, DESTRUCTION OF HEALTH CARE AND PUBLIC EDUCATION, THE PUBLIC COMMONWEALTH, ETC.
NO SOLUTION TO THESE MANY CRISES WE NOW FACE
UNLESS AND UNTIL
THE CAPITALIST ECONOMIC SYSTEM IS ENDED.
HUMAN SURVIVAL DEMANDS A TRANSITION TO A GLOBAL SOCIALIST ECONOMY!
Read the World Socialist Web Site: http://www.wsws.org
In California, register now with the Peace and Freedom Party
Putting aside that war is obviously one of the most profitable rackets ever devised by man and taking a look at its psychological underpinnings we get this study which shows that the dominant mindset of both the political and military establishments in the fascist neoliberal West is hardwired for fear as evidenced in an enlarged amygdala which is key to the production of the emotions of fear and anxiety.
"Political views 'hard-wired' into your brain"
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/8228192/Political-views-hard-wired-into-your-brain.html
"Tory voters found to have larger 'primitive' lobe in brain"
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1342239/Brain-study-reveals-right-wing-conservatives-larger-primitive-amygdala.html
Yes, yes, I know these are British studies and the article is speaking of America's defense spending but I believe some general questions may be raised.
Again, leaving profit/racketeering aside, how can one view the complete and utter insanity that is America's defense budget and accumulation of arms without looking at the psychology of the people who are behind the decisions that have brought us to this point?
We know they are mad but don't we really try and dismiss it all as mere greed and power-hunger?
But what drives greed and hunger for power? Fear and anxiety.
We live in a world with nuclear weapons. If China or anyone else attempted to cross either of the two vast insulating oceans in an attempt to invade the U.S., don't you think that a reminder of our nuclear arsenal would deter any further encroachment?
Yet we have ships shooting lasers now, HAARP which leaves the healthy mind to ponder its purposes and the development of battle robots - cousins to everyone's friend the killer flying drone.
Ever since the early Cold War when planning was undertaken that encouraged our intelligence agencies to render even the least statistically probable attack as something that should actually be defended against we as a people have been the victims of minds that - dare we say it - are clinically abnormal, diseased and physiologically aberrant.
Gee, and we are all left to wonder why leftist ideas have been systematically "phased out" in any "mature" conversations here and abroad.
Does this mean that we should cull people based upon brain structure and not allow them to assume positions of power in our societies?
I would say no.
However, as people on the left have been systematically beaten down, ostracized, ignored, imprisoned and killed over the last century in this and other countries, shouldn't we better ask, hasn't this type of culling already been taking place?
Sure, there may not have been a scientific reason given for the culling but barring that rationale, what exactly is the difference between what I hypothetically proposed and what has happened/is happening all across Western democracies?
Leftist ideas/people are so abhorrent to the neoliberal culture that the level of ignorance, ridicule and outright hatred towards them approaches the vitriol past society's have reserved for the "mad" and "diseased".
Obviously, the adults could never entertain a country run by a "mad" socialist or "diseased" communist, eh?
Funny, isn't it then that those who are leading the charge are potentially the ones who actually possess physical anomalies - physical anomalies that lead individuals to overly exaggerated levels of fear and anxiety.
Again, I bring all this up knowing that it is controversial but in an era when the unemployed and poor are STILL labeled "lazy" and "stupid", gays "aberrant", abortions "murder" and minorities "subhumans" one's mind tends to imagine how our dear leaders would respond to a little labeling of their own.
This is where our childrens education went. This is where our Universal, Single Payer Healthcare went. This is where our well earned (and paid for) retirement went. This is where our well earned (and paid for) Medicere went. Revolting!
Those socialist namby-pamby items don't generate enough profit fast enough for the greedy oligarchs.
Ain't Kapitalism grand???
I will wager you $1 that without any wars or even defense spending, none of those programs would ever have been established.... They are not the American way.
The US government can't keep the poor and elderly properly cared for with national health insurance but can out spend almost every other country on earth for weapons of war and military operations. I don't know but something doesn't sound right about this state of affairs.
You have to admit that when a country, more blatantly the u.s., guts its manufacturing system that leaves little alternate to what the u.s. can produce and export. Arms, weapons, munitions which only creates revenue for the mic who's in it for the money.
The lunacy of the matter is that it is ostensibly all for a war on ghosts. Absolutely NO BODY identifiable in person or groups or countries, just names popping up to give a semblance of legitimacy to a 'ghost' and empty BS to maintain the status quo of ever increasing military budgets.
That does bring up an underlying reason that really has little to expose it, BLOWBACK. What the u.s. is doing to people in sovereign nations around the world is criminality of the worst degree. By its self these unwarranted invasions are creating a much designed hostility that will create another illusion of having to 'always watch our backs' while we enrich the worst of the worse criminal ever to have inhabited this planet. Any number of them guilty of treasons just to keep perpetual war blatantly running at all times.
The congress, the president both when the occasion arises that something other than the course we are on should be stopped or altered, the citizens just get slapped in the face again with a smirky 'how do you like that?' for an answer.
I am just bewildered as to how much the people are willing to give up and lose just for a lost hope of 'surely it will end one day and everything will be better' and that is when the people are 'reenforced' by some action that let's them/us know real quick the it WILL NOT BE OVER ANYTIME SOON!
From day one when columbus landed, it has been like this with a few times that 'seem' to be good times but now I don't know how much more obvious it can be that it will never be back to them 'good times'.
Don't think about the subversion of the laws of the land. As an example: It is amazing that everyone commenting here criticizing the lackey, buffoons, traitors in the government and the most horrible aristocracy or questioning what OUR government is doing, it is amazing that we haven't been rounded up and put away in our own gitmos because that is now considered aiding abetting and giving comfort to the enemy.... uh, ghosts, and nothing to do with a military industrial governmental M$M gone insane.
This is what you get when lunatics are in power. That is of course thanks to the lunatics that allowed them to take the power.
"U.S. international conflict and peacekeeping"
"U.S. international conflict and warkeeping" - more like it.
Background fact: during the last couple of decades, the US has faced no military threat of any magnitude, and currently faces none. Largely due to haplessness, 'terrorism' managed a one-off low-tech success on 9/11, which has been inflated by nearly cosmological proportions to fill the vacuum left by the Russkies. One measure of the inflationary scale is to divide the amount spent by the US (trillions) by the amount spent by the bad guys -- which measured in the hundreds of thousands. The ratio is roughly on the order of ten million to one.
Against this background, it becomes a pressing question to figure out what's driving the expenditure and what the money is going for. Does it really require this much to simply maintain the trade empire? I'm inclined to guess, rather, that much of it is crypto-Keynesian stimulus to certain sectors of the economy. But I'd like to hear more.
Dont forget the second Superpower - The People of the Planet. Under utilised and needing cohesion.