[corporate_shi11]

The US is not imperialistic, that's just a cute talking point.

That said I do agree we spend too much on our military. We should always spend more than any other nation to ensure dominance, but I'd imagine cutting the budget down would force efficiency and actually improve the military at this point.

However it seemed the person above was saying that militaries in general are bad or murderous which is very different from saying the budget just needs to be reduced.

[FpUser]

The US has nukes. Nobody's ever going to attack it directly. Why do you need overwhelming military dominance in conventional forces then? I suspect it has something to do with being able to force point of view by having big stick available to back it up.

[unishark]

There's also a lot of middle ground between a "point of view", by which I assume you mean interests which are not justifiable defense, and behavior so beyond the pale you'd want to melt an entire city to prevent it. Particularly since the pollution and lingering health effects of nukes are so unacceptable compared to conventional alternatives.

[FpUser]

Somehow I do not notice middle ground. All I see is the overwhelming force present virtually everywhere you can point your finger on the map bar couple of places where the US dares not to go. Meanwhile I think even with 1/10th of it current force the US can surely defend its territory and citizens. I agree about pollution: depleted uranium and agent orange for example are way more preferable then the alternative.

[ta999999171]

> The US is not imperialistic, that's just a cute talking point.

Cuba's shiny new banking system, Japan's Navy(?), and Afghanistan's poppy fields disagree.