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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TimF who wrote (175806)	10/2/2003 5:22:44 PM
From: tejek	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1578560

How can I answer that question without serious analysis. However, without being specific, the answer is much less than we have now. Enough to defend our country without having to be policeman to the world. OK I can see that the actual level would require a lot of analysis but what broad general principles would you apply to that analysis. You've made a start on that. "Enough to defend out country", and not enough to "be policeman to the world". I would include missile defense as part of "enough to defend our country", but from past conversations I'm fairly sure you would not. I am not against a missile defense; I am against building star wars. BTW, I see a missile defense as a deterrent to other nations attacking us, and not something we actually deploy. I wouldn't want to live in a world that's been nuked. What about "enough to protect our interests", or to retaliate against those who attack us (rather then just providing a direct defense)? Like I said, once nukes had been unleased, I don't think life would be worth living. Another consideration is that having more then enough to get the job done usually allows the job to be done quicker and with fewer casualties on your side and frequently even on the enemy side. How much extra is that worth to you? Now, you're entering the realm of the nonsensical. I know you know what you're saying...its all rational and logical......but do you ever think through the implications? I've explained before how the statement in the article is misleading, but also we have over 1/5th of worlds economy and interests all over the world. Its true that many other countries get a partial free ride on our defense spending because they know that if things really go to hell somewhere in a way that threatens important shared interests that we will be there to take control of the situation. This might be unfair but we don't have anyone bigger then us to pass the problem along to. If we don't assume the burden I'm not sure anyone will. The EU can pick up the burden and in a few years, so can Russia. NK and Japan can take care of their corner of the world. Its not necessary to shoulder the burden........Some of us keep telling us that. Why? "Pre-emptively" isn't relevant to this specific point. It has all the relevance in the world.......it would be a whole different ball game. If Saddam had declared war on us with no provocation on our part and then we invaded Iraq and kicked him out of power the aid will still be related to the fact that we went to war. It would still be part of the cost of the war. In the first approach, we brought the cost upon ourselves; in the latter, we had no choice. I'm sorry if you can't see the difference but many of us do very clearly. ted