[jerf]

No, it's certainly been true. Many world economics have avoided military buildups by piggy-backing on the back of the US buildup. In fact I've seen credible arguments that it has actually contributed to world peace significantly to have the US building up the way it has, yes, even despite the wars the US sometimes engaged in, by making it not worth it for anybody else of significant size. The rule about "democracies not going to war" may in fact have been false... it may merely have been Pax Americana happening to coincide with a lot of democracies.

As America becomes "enlightened" (heavy scare quotes) and withdraws its military umbrella, a strange world is left behind... how does Europe feel about having effectively no military with which to counter Russia's growing imperial ambitions? It's officially all smiles (or forced grins) while they're stuck depending on Russia now, but I'm sure wheels are spinning behind closed doors even now. If the US elects another President with ambitions to back off the foreign involvement even more, or if the situation deteriorates enough more on this one's watch, what are the odds that Europe has to start building up? And how many other places will have to follow?

And how will a social-benefit-addicted continent react to having to fund a military again? They certainly won't be able to maintain the current level of social commitments everywhere.

Maybe the US shouldn't be enforcing Pax Americana depending on your own personal values, but don't think for one second it hasn't had its benefits even outside of the US, and don't think that the end of Pax Americana is somehow going to occur with a burst of rainbows and puppies, where we go from one dominantly-powerful military to zero. The number can only go up.

[arethuza]

"effectively no military"

That's a slight overstatement - the countries of the EU spend 38% of what the US spend on it's military - which given the arguable massive overspend of the US doesn't look completely unreasonable to me.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_of_the_European_Union

Now of course what Europe doesn't have is strong unified leadership in these areas - which, given our history, is probably no bad thing although not the greatest thing to have at the moment.

Russia spends less that the UK and France combined on defense:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_e...

[jerf]

The real difference between militaries is projection power. The US can credibly project most of its power all over the world. The European military certainly exists, but it's projection capabilities are greatly less than the US', even on a per-dollar/per-Euro basis. It could defend itself against a straight-up Russian attack (which is precisely why that will not be happening anytime soon), but it leaves Europe without pieces when Russia is playing chess on the world stage [1]. If Europe would be starting to assert itself more thoroughly in the world, against credible threats, it would need to spend a great deal more money to do so.

[1]: Diplomacy is not chess, but it has chess-like elements (along with the poker-like elements). Trying to play diplomacy without the ability to threaten anything, even with no real intent or prospect of following through on the threat, leaves you with a proportionally much weaker portion.

[phillmv]

>No, it's certainly been true.

Pray tell, is your threat model a revanchist, bankrupt Russia from the 90s making a daring lunge across Alaska? Canada's only credible threat is, well, America.

>In fact I've seen credible arguments that it has actually contributed to world peace significantly to have the US building up the way it has,

Within the context of the Cold War, and say, NATO buildup in post war central Europe this may or may not be true. It was certainly a boost to West German/French economies that didn't have to invest quite so heavily in fending off the Warsaw pact.

Outside of the European theatre, that's a significantly weaker argument given the proxy wars the US/USSR engaged in throughout the third world.

[swalkergibson]

> In fact I've seen credible arguments that it has actually contributed to world peace significantly to have the US building up the way it has, yes, even despite the wars the US sometimes engaged in, by making it not worth it for anybody else of significant size.

Citation needed.