1. US military is only 16-18% of federal spending. Entitlements like social security, medicaid, and welfare make up 65-70% of federal spending. The majority of military spending is on salaries and benefits anyway, it's essentially a welfare program itself
>delivers the least
2. most major advancements in tech and healthcare are due to the military. Silicon Valley was built on military spending. Self driving cars were initially funded by DARPA. AI was funded by military. If you have a job in the tech industry you can thank the US military
There's also the minor detail of the US navy making global trade possible and the strength of the US military making traditional war pointless which has resulted in the last few decades being the most peaceful in human history in terms of probability of dying in combat
> 2. most major advancements in tech and healthcare are due to the military.
Can you back that up? That military spending has been high gives no guarantee that having spent the same money in the private sector wouldn't have led to even better results and advancements.
private sector doesnt do basic research and has a short view of things because of the drive towards profitability.
gov't-funded R&D is why we have nice things. everyone strategically forgets that silicon valley exists because of bottomless cold war spending, so silicon valley's obsession with the superiority of the private sector is ever ironic
The private sector is generally very, very heavy on short-termism. Even when companies do have internal long-term research initiatives, there is often a strong aversion to pursuing research that could cannibalize high-margin products.
Unequivocally, no, the reasons are stated in the post you're replying to.
Which private, for profit, company would spend five (5) billion dollars (unadjusted for inflation) to launch GPS satellites into space and then allow their unlimited use free of cost to anyone in the world who has a receiver? That cost doesn't even account for ongoing maintenance.
Maybe no company would do exactly that, but that is irrelevant. Companies would do other things with that money. Maybe they would have cured some disease instead. Maybe they would have found another breakthrough technology. Who knows.
And there is nothing free about using those satellites. Tax payers pay for their launch and subsequent maintenance and running costs.
From an economics point of view, an unnecessary job is inefficient not because it gives people money (they can spend it efficiently on themselves), but because it wastes people's time when they could be doing something else. (Not to mention other wasted resources.)
Social security is efficient because it doesn't have this problem.
The mess the US foreign policy of the previous administration caused in Middle East alone ( not counting Ukraine and Libya ) has an immense cost and no real benefit. Of course others are left alone to pay the bill.
I would call that a total failure by any possible interpretation.
You can only call that a total failure if you ignore the entirety of human history and compare it to some fantasy of world peace instead. It's good to thrive for a better world, and notice when things go worse, but when evaluating effectiveness of american military as a whole, you should compare it to a time before Pax Americana.
Also, did I understand you correctly: you not only want to cut american military spending, but also keep US morally responsible for situation in Ukraine?... Now, both these viewpoints are to some extent reasonable, if they come from corresponding first principles. But I can't possibly imagine how the same person can hold these two views at the same time: they completely contradict each other. Either US is responsible for events across the globe, OR it shouldn't have a huge military - how on Earth can you believe both?!
What is the US supposed to do? You literally cited two cases, Ukraine and Libya, which are polar opposites. Ukraine the US is criticized for NOT intervening, middle east and Libya US is criticized FOR intervening.
And now we have Myanmar muslim situation and Yemen where people are begging for US intervention, but in all probability if we intervened we would be getting criticized for it by the same people asking us to intervene in a few years
>and US and their trade partners enjoy safe trade routes
Bingo, and that's from the Navy and the U.S. Coast Guard actively patrolling GLOBAL waters.
Maritime piracy alone is a considerable economic threat, yes in the 21st century. An estimated 2 BILLION dollars a year is spent on naval operations just off the coast of Somalia (PDF WARNING - PDF WARNING - PDF WARNING http://www.ics-shipping.org/docs/default-source/Piracy-Docs/... )
In this article from 2014 ( https://worldmaritimenews.com/archives/134829/annual-global-... ), again just Somalia, "The OEF estimates the total cost of piracy off the coast of Somalia at US$7–US$12 billion in 2010; US$6.6–US$6.9 billion in 2011 42 and US$5.7–US$6.1 billion in 2012".
Military in the US is 18% of the budget. SS and medicare are something like 70%.
If you want to live in a country without a military there are a bunch of them. I wouldn't personally want to live in any of them, but of course everyone is free to do as they see fit.
Iceland has no military spending
Ireland spends 0.4% of it's GDP on military
Switzerland 0.7%
Sweden 1%
Finland (who have actually been invaded in living memory) 1.4%
The U.S. spent $574b on defence and $79b on veterans last year, both increased way above inflation - total of $57b. Education by comparision dropped by 14%, or $9b. Health by 18% or $15b.
The largest slice of the U.S. budget is healthcare (mainly medicare/medicaid). This cost $5,500 per citizen, despite only covering 1/3rd of the population. This is because the U.S. health care system is fundamentally broken, and costs about 3 times as much per person in europe.
Without the US military all of these countries would be required to fund a large military to avoid being conquered. Pax Americana has allowed Europe to shirk their responsibilities, but some people would argue its worth it to the US.
Not entirely true. It has no standing army, but it does have a militarized coast guard, air defense systems and an air force base it maintains, as well as a small Crisis Response Unit that can be deployed internationally. In addition it is a full NATO member for which it has certain costs.
You get to have that system because the US has taken on the role of global police and funds our military at a level commensurate to that role.
If you funded your military appropriately, we wouldn't have to fund your defense.
Your comment about healthcare is so simplistic it's not even worth a reply, but I'll simply note that the vast majority are not on medicare or medicaid and are covered by private insurance. Your assertion that the system is broken is simplistic and uninformed (ETA, I'm not saying the system isn't broken, there are many issues with healthcare in the US, but "just be like Europe" isn't going to work for so many reasons it's not really feasible to list them here).
The US spends $10200 a year per head on healthcare, most of it ($8k a year) government or compulsory spending.
Canada spends $4800 a year on healthcare in total -- under half that of the U.S. Israel spends $2800.
That's a sign of a broken system.
Use Canada's system, cut your mediacare/aid tax, and your companies no longer need to spend money on healthcare when employing them. Using Canada's system removes the tax on jobs that the U.S. loves so much.
> You get to have that system because the US has taken on the role of global police
Why? Who benefitted from invading Iraq? Who benefits from a dozen different aircraft carrier groups around the world?
IIRC The stated goal of our (Sweden) armed forces is something like the ability to defend 1-2 regions for a single week if we are faced with an invasion.
Our defence budget is 1% of GDP because we are betting on the US (and a few others) continuing to spend as it does, and that it will be in their national interest to help us if the time comes.
If the US slashed its defence budget to a 'reasonable' level, we would have to increase ours in turn to the best of our abilities. If the US brought theirs down all the way to 1%, the only people laughing would be the PLA and Putin himself.
>delivers the least
2. most major advancements in tech and healthcare are due to the military. Silicon Valley was built on military spending. Self driving cars were initially funded by DARPA. AI was funded by military. If you have a job in the tech industry you can thank the US military
There's also the minor detail of the US navy making global trade possible and the strength of the US military making traditional war pointless which has resulted in the last few decades being the most peaceful in human history in terms of probability of dying in combat