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Politics : Right Wing Extremist Thread -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Bilow who wrote (15953)	9/10/2001 11:45:18 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 59480

Bilow a lot of what you say is basically accurate but its not like there is no threat to the US. Russia and China couls still nuke us or try to influence our actions by subtlly (or not so subtly) making threats. Russia is in decline but China is getting stronger. More then threats to the US there are threats to our interests and our allies, and then there are all the humanitarian inverventions we get ragged in to. We could save some on the defense budget if we didn't get involved in places like Bosnia and Kosovo. We now spend 35% of the world's military expenses. I don't think that is an accurate. It might be right in terms of offical defense budgets, but some countries (inlcudeing China) spend money on the military that isn't in the defense budget. Also instead of spending more money to attract soldiers they simply draft them. It is accurate to say we spend far more on our military then any other country but saying that we spend 35% of the world's military expenses doesn't provide a true picture of how much resources other countries use on their militaries. What would you have us spend, 50%? We only have 5% of the world's population, how long do you think we can keep spending 35% of the military expenditures? Forever, atleast until other countries spend more. We have 20% of the world's gross production. And we can aford to spend 3% (and declineing) of our GDP on defense for ever. Whether we should or not could be debated but it isn't at all hard for our country to continue its current level of military spending. Tim