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Politics : 2000:The Make-or-Break Election -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Dayuhan who wrote (731)	8/26/2000 6:34:46 PM
From: TimF	Respond to of 1013

Do you know that at current levels, the US accounts for one third of all military spending worldwide? That we spend four times what the Russians spend, eight times what the Chinese spend, more than twice the spending of Britain, Germany, France, and Japan combined? I do not think the Chinese figures really include all spending on national defense. The government spends money on the military that doesn't show up on the military budget and the PRA makes money from its business activities that it can spend on weapons, not to mention that the pay for a Chinese soldier is really low. Few people would dispute that the US army is more effective per soldier but China can pay a lot more soldiers for the same money. Effectively there real military spending is not just the money they spend but the value of the conscripts they call up. Russia probably also has some hidden military spending, but it is true they spend far less then we do. It is also true that there military is a mess partially because they don't have enough funds to spend on it to keep it in a good state of readiness. None of the countries you mentioned gives its military anywhere near the mission responsibility that we give ours. Even if you drop many of the peacekeeping and "nation building" jobs, the US military has a far heavier burden then that of any other country. No other country demands that it's military be prepared to bring massive power to bear any where in the world the way we do. We are not adequately funded for the strategic mission of being able to fight two wars (say defeating an invasion in the Middle East and stopping a North Korean attack on South Korea or a Chinese move on Taiwan at the same time. If we are to be engaged in such battles ideally we should not just have enough to eventually prevail but enough to smash the enemy quickly. A longer war would result in more American deaths and quite possible more enemy deaths (and in modern times killing millions of the enemy even enemy soldiers has come to be frowned on in many circles). You can argue that we should not give out military the same level of responsibility that we do. That we should cut back on our alliances and commitments, but if we are to maintain the level of commitments and responsibilities that our military has then we are getting a bit thin. Tim