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

To: tejek who wrote (327910)	3/6/2007 1:08:38 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1574006

Its not the type of thing you could easily construct a controlled experiment on, or even a really solid study, but power does have a deterrent effect. That's just crazy. Out culture has become significantly less militaristic over time, at least since WWII. I see.........because not all our industry is focused on the war effort like it was in WW II, the US has become less militaristic Not just industry, but everyday lives. About 13% of the population served in the military in WWII, today the figure is less than half a percent on active duty. You had "war bonds", and blacking out cities at night, and massive propaganda efforts. Just about every family had someone involved in the war. Military budgets where larger in WWII than today, despite the much smaller economy. And I'm not just talking about percentage of GDP but in real dollar terms. csmonitor.com (the data is almost a year and a half old, so the Iraq war costs should show a bit higher, but it gives some perspective compared to WWII) In WWII you had rationing so that the resources could be devoted to the military, now the direct impact of the war is nearly nil in the every day life of many Americans. And its not just WWII, look at the Korean War or Vietnam, or even the cold war as a whole. The country was more focused on the military than then we are now. We've had an uptick with Iraq and Afghanistan and anti-terrorism operations, but a move up from the most recent low point still doesn't change the fact that our country is less focused on the military today than it has been for the majority of the last 65 years. You could argue that we are more focused on the military than we used to be, but to claim we are totally focused on the military is to lose all perspective.