[rifung]

> It's difficult to say this isn't a net moral good, as things currently stand.

I disagree but am open to being persuaded otherwise.

I don't consider national defense to be an immoral goal. I believe it's unrealistic for there to exist a world without weapons. That being the case, I believe it's important for us to constantly improve our military capability otherwise we will be left behind.

[mrguyorama]

>I don't consider national defense to be an immoral goal

My personal opinion is that what the United States has been doing for over 20 years has not been national defense

[rifung]

I agree but I consider improving military capability to be orthogonal to decision making into what the military does. If we wait until the military does only that with which we agree, then it may already be too late.

[Latteland]

You raise that in an interesting way. I'm all for national defense. But we aren't using them for national defense. I'm all for having a military strength such that we don't have to have wars with Russia and China, powerful, belligerent countries. Strength is a deterrence.

But the capabilities being built, like drone bombing are primarily used in our endless wars, and used by our 'allies' like Saudi Arabia in places like Yemen.

Have you read the book "Forever Peace" by the author of the more famous "Forever War", Joe Haldeman? F.P. is a world with an endless battle against people that could stand in for the endless wars against Islamic terrorists we fight today. In this world they have robots that can be remotely controlled and you can just walk up to people and kill them. It really reminds me of the way technology could make wars in the future.

[brokenmachine]

> I believe it's important for us to constantly improve our military capability otherwise we will be left behind.

Looking at the amount you spend on the military, it would be ridiculous if you weren't 100x further ahead of any other nation already.

As an Australian, I'm personally happy with the US being ahead over the alternatives - but if I was a US citizen I would be seriously questioning how far ahead you need to be if it's really about "defense".