[markkanof]

Looks like DARPA's budget is about 3.5 billion a year vs. the overall defense budget of something like 715 billion. I'm betting that a lot more people would feel ok about paying taxes if more of it was going towards these types of projects rather than empire building in far away parts of the world.

[demadog]

The U.S. isn't empire building. It's mainly a policy of retaining superpower status for world peace.

Containment of China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea is largely the defining policy of the last 70 years.

Of course tons of blunders like Vietnam and Afghanistan. Tragedies. But there has not been a World War III nor have there been large scale wars killing a sizable portion of the populace such as most wars pre-WWII.

For further evidence that the U.S. isn't interested in empire building is the fact that in wars over the last 70 years, the U.S. hasn't gained land and tried to turn the countries into vassal states like in classical European wars or like USSR did. The U.S. aims to build allies not an empire.

[vasco]

The U.S. isn't creating vassal states because that wouldn't fly with the current zeitgeist, because it'd allienate the EU and other current friendly countries which buy a lot of crap from US companies. Keeping the USD as the base currency of the world is the most important thing. When the a country owns the de-facto base currency it can print it's way into prosperity, having the most powerful army assures that everyone will respect that the pieces of paper you print are worth something.

This way you can get yourself out of trouble any time it arrises by printing your way out of it. Inflation then comes and your debts are now easier to repay. Meanwhile all the schmuck countries holding your debt can't do much about it, since you're the only one that can print USD.

Keeping those countries close and doing trade is way better than a few extra official vassal states, when you can instead just get most of the profits without any of the hassle of actually having to manage a remote piece of land. Why have all that trouble when you can sell your current_gen-2 weapon systems to most countries on earth with loads of profit? Plus they can't ever go to war against you because you'll just stop supplying them.

I'm very pro-US myself but to think that this "benevolent world management" stance is just out of the kindness of the US government's heart seems a bit naive. It's subtle empire building, but it's still empire building. I for one don't mind, because I think out of the options there are, the US definitely isn't the worse choice.

[tarsinge]

> I for one don't mind, because I think out of the options there are, the US definitely isn't the worse choice.

I'm relatively pro-US, but being from EU I for one mind becoming a second class citizen in the US empire without being consulted.

[NaturalPhallacy]

> But there has not been a World War III nor have there been large scale wars killing a sizable portion of the populace such as most wars pre-WWII.

This is as much if not more of a result of Mutually Assured Destruction due to nuclear weapons. Humanity finally built something so destructive we had to collectively choose not to use it because the only way to win that game is not to play it.

Now it's all proxy wars, cyber 'wars', and trade 'wars'.

>For further evidence that the U.S. isn't interested in empire building is the fact that in wars over the last 70 years, the U.S. hasn't gained land and tried to turn the countries into vassal states like in classical European wars or like USSR did. The U.S. aims to build allies not an empire.

This much I agree with.

[atatatat]

Less HONEST wars.

Tell people exactly why they're dying again, see how many SpecOps get fucking cancelled.

[scotty79]

There wasn't a WWIII just because some russian dude once thought "eh, maybe it's just a glitch". USA can't take credit for preventing WWIII when it was one russian guy's single decision away from becoming exacltly half of the WWIII.

[adventured]

Yes, the US can still take a lot of credit.

Just because the Soviets didn't officially screw up and get everyone killed (thanks to Stanislav Petrov), that does not detract from the stabilizing effect the US as a superpower has had overall (yes, local wars like Iraq have caused local instability) in preventing massive wars between global powers that would inevitably kill tens of millions of people.

The US superpower also constantly discourages smaller regional wars and spiral conflicts, because the parties involved have to play the risk that the US takes the opposite side and picks winners. If you're North Korea and you invade South Korea, you know you're going to war with the US. If you're Russia and you invade Lithuania, Poland or Romania, you're going to war with the US. If you're Iran and you declare war on Israel, you're going to war with the US. If you're Venezuela and you have a tense political conflict with Colombia, and you invade, now you're going to war with the US (directly or indirectly).

The US umbrella shields nearly every democratic nation in the world, including all the young democracies in Eastern Europe (some need that shield a lot less than others). And this is where the Reddit-knowledge reactionary cynic jumps in and mentions the coup against Iran and how they were a democracy, and somehow that magically undermines everything else I said (they were not a democracy, that's factually false, their leadership was authoritarian and appointed, not elected; they were no more a democracy than modern Iran is; although the US should not have involved itself with Iran regardless).

China routinely lobs military threats at Australia now, recently telling them that the Australian military will be the first to be targeted if they get involved in any conflict related to Taiwan. Australia knows that if a military conflict ever breaks out with China (including over trade), the US will be on its side. It's that simple. It keeps a lot of bad behavior in check (which, again, simultaneously does not excuse any bad behavior by the US; I shouldn't have to spend so much time including statements like that, but so many people fail at basic logic).

There are positives and negatives to the US and what it does with its superpower position (people only like to mention the negatives, naturally), one of the positives has been substantial overall global stability in the post WW2 era versus all of the recorded history that came before.

[elefanten]

This is a great explanation of decades of work in conflict studies, IR and political science. This viewpoint seems almost unnaturally misunderstood on HN. The presumptive view of American military power around here seems to be some variant of these "empire" claims, with a logic that implies US hegemony is no better than any other state of the world.

In the present political climate (especially among highly-educated segments and subcultures of society), it's common to be met with derision when suggesting the American "empire" has been incredibly restrained and self-effacing compared to virtually any empire in world history. But no, it's cool to just cite Chomsky's latest rhetoric and declare America as bad as the worst of them.

I predict a lot of rude awakenings will occur if China manages to achieve primacy, and Europe will have an especially hard landing.

[scotty79]

After WWII, due to only the lack of war destruction and spinning up their economy on war manufacturing, USA chose to assume the role of world's hegemon which was completely new invention in previously multilateral world.

Russia took offence with that. USA insisted on being hegemon, phrasing simple conflict of interest as good vs evil situation, escalating the whole thing to the point where we were just one guy's decision away from being bombed back into the stone age.

Whatever stabilizing influence having world hegemon might have is nullified by the fact that USA insisting on being the hegemon nearly wiped us all.

If Russia went to war with USA, cities in Poland were the targets for american warheads.

And that stabilizing influence is somewhat debatable too. USA discourages some wars while actively encouraging others. Last few years Europe suffered huge wave of political destabilization due to immigration crisis cause in huge part by US sponsored conflicts south.

China will definitely take offence if USA insists on staying world hegemon, just as it takes offence now with being treated like third class citizen by western countries that should know their place, so best thing USA could do for the world peace is to learn how to take a second place among many, behind economy that will soon become superior to theirs in all measures, not just growth.

USA is not unique. It's not good (except for some minor mishaps). It is just a country about as moral as average one that got lucky in WWII, then got to be central bank for world economy and is cutting coupons since then while getting slowly overtaken by nearly every other economy.

[atatatat]

I'll let others duke it out with you on the rest, but:

> preventing massive wars between global powers that would inevitably kill tens of millions of people.

Everyone thinking this is the default in today's era is clearly disconnected from the priorities and thoughts of the citizen.

That is to say, most modern nations, you will not find someone pissed off at people in far lands that they'll volunteer to go flying or sailing after them without means and motive given to them.

[1cvmask]

The defense budget is in fact over 1.25 trillion dollars in real terms. We just don’t count it like most other countries. For example nuclear weapons are under the Department of Energy.

https://www.pogo.org/analysis/2019/05/making-sense-of-the-1-...

https://tomdispatch.com/hartung-and-smithberger-a-dollar-by-...

[MattGaiser]

Yeah, but a vast amount of healthcare is under the DoD in America while it wouldn’t be in other countries.

[systemvoltage]

Defense is business in an abstract sense. DaaS is desirable for many nations instead of building domestic capability which would be far worse due to scale/reinventing-the-wheel. Look up US defense treaties with various nations across the world - this is a mutual agreement in exchange for IP, defense sales, assurance and guarantees, soft power, etc.

[gnulinux]

Right, so we need both. Defund the military, make sure rich people still pay their fair amount of taxes, and use that money to invest in science, education, healthcare, education etc.

[b9a2cab5]

Defunding the military has real impacts. Those free trade deals that lower the cost of goods for average people don't just magically get signed, generally U.S. military presence is also a part of the deal.

More generally if the U.S. loses global hegemony then so does the dollar, and a mass exodus from the dollar as foreign reserve would cause rampant inflation as demand for dollars crashes.

The geopolitical situation is more complicated than just "defund the military". You can see both the current and past administration are trying to get other countries to pay more for the U.S. presence, which is a form of slow withdrawal of U.S. power, so I think they recognize that there is a need to redirect funds, but I don't think you can just outright leave in a year.