So you're saying this is a lie:
No, I don't toss around "lie" too much. It implies not only error, but intentional and dishonest error.
And in this case, its more "not showing the whole picture" than error, or at least than clearly and certainly in error.
There are two important ways that it doesn't show the whole picture.
1 - It doesn't include the whole world, only the US and 15 other countries.
2 - It doesn't include all the costs even for those 15 countries (or the US either, but the US doesn't have a draft, which is a major category of non currency spending).
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And the invisible part is a bigger factor elsewhere. Ranging from total command and control to grab for the military whatever they want without bothering with taxes and budgets, to businesses owned by the PLA, to drafts that take resources (people) without fully paying for them (so the budgetary cost is much lower than the real cost).
Message 26219331
Our offical budgets may equal or exceed the rest of the world, but many countries spend more money on the military outside the budget (as a percentage of spending, mostly or totally not in absolute terms) than the US. China is a very good example of this, the majority of its spending is probably outside its defense budget.
Also the real issue is not how many dollars, yen, marks, yaun/renminbi, etc. are spent but how many resources are used up. If an authoritarian government grabs resources without paying for them, or if you draft people and pay them next to nothing, the official budget cost will be far less than the actual cost.
The exact actual amount of resources devoted to the military for the different countries around the world are pretty hard to determine but its pretty clear the US doesn't devote as much or more than the rest of the world (even if it does devote far more than any other country or group of allied or potentially allied possible enemy countries). So even if you drop the "we spend more than the rest of the world" argument, you still have the "why do we have to spend a lot more than any other country or potential coalition of enemies"?
One answer to that is that we expend more money, preparing for and during wars in order to expend less lives, and also to deter the enemies. Another is deterrence. If your only modestly more powerful than an enemy they may think of challenging you. If your overwhelmingly more powerful deterrence is a lot stronger. Another reason is simply because we have the means to do so, defense has been on a long term decline as a portion of our economy, from nearly 40% down to under 5%, and that decline is likely to continue as is the decline as a percentage of the federal budget (from over 80% to under 20%). Its still expensive, but its becoming less and less so compared to our ability to cover the expense, and it isn't a major long term problem going forward.
None of which implies that we don't spend too much (or that we do), only that we don't spend crazy, ridiculous, unsustainable amounts on defense.
Message 25663510
We do completely dominate military spending, but not quite to the extent show on that chart. China has all sorts of ways money goes to the military without showing up in their defense budget, they even have companies owned by the military. Also any country with a draft, devotes an important resource, its people, to the military without accounting for the true cost of that person's labor. Then in very poor conflict ridden countries the military may just take what it wants without much in the way of formal budgets.
Instead of about a half, the US's portion of the world's resources devoted to the military might be more like a third or a bit more. While our GDP is between a fifth and a fourth.
Message 26265704
And beyond all of that, apparently even if you just take the military budgets we don't quite equal all the rest of the world combined (but its not very far away from half).
Also see
Message 26275312 |
