Military Spending Is Already Bankrupting America

To a certain - lesser - extent this is true.

But the senior staff in the Pentagon are entirely complicit in the Game of Thrones. Desk-bound soldiers love their bright shiny toys that go bang. And besides that, cynical old me sees a direct correlation between the Pentagon top brass and the defence industry. And a direct correlation between the Pentagon, the defence industry and the intelligence community.

Why else has America been permanently at war for so many decades?

The old saw still holds good: it take two to tango.

But in the case of Rome on the Potomac, everybody is dancing with their hands shoved down somebody's else's pocket.

 

That is a myth. A relatively small number of combat missions in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria doesn't a war make.

 

Combat is war. Next time you try it

 

You completely misunderstand the purpose of the military.

The military projects power. The projection of power is necessary to maintain hegemony.

In the words of your own government:

The costs of not implementing this strategy are clear. Failure to meet our defense objectives will result in decreasing U.S. global influence, eroding cohesion among allies and partners, and reduced access to markets that will contribute to a decline in our prosperity and standard of living.

[emphasis mine]

https://dod.defense.gov/Portals/1/Documents/pubs/2018-National-Defense-Strategy-Summary.pdf

You cannot possibly tolerate a lower Standard of Living.

I can tolerate a lower Standard of Living along with maybe 10% of Americans, but you and the other 90% cannot.

One wage-earner per household, one car per household, eating meat only 4-6 nights per week because you can't afford it and severe restrictions on your Life-Style and so on is not something people will tolerate.

Maintaining hegemony and imposing your will on others is the reason why your Standard of Living is so much higher.

Your inability to do that will have disastrous consequences economically.

The Soviets were unable to project power and hegemony. They only had one, um, "aircraft carrier" (snicker) which really wasn't an aircraft carrier, it was just a floating airfield with aircraft whose sole function was to protect other ships in the surface group. They weren't capable of launching air superiority missions or attacks on ground targets, like US aircraft carriers do. It's kind of hard to project power when the aircraft on your aircraft carrier don't even have the combat range to reach targets inland.

Yes, they will. A few States have that capability, but the vast majority don't.

You couldn't be more wrong. Why did the Air Force support the Army's request for the HUMMV family?

Because the Air Force knew that if Congress authorized the purchase of HUMMVs, Congress would also have to authorize the purchase of new cargo aircraft.

So, Congress authorizes the purchase, and then the Army says, "Hey, the Air Force doesn't have planes to transport our vehicles."

Now, Congress has to authorize funding to purchase the C-17 Globemasters for the Air Force.

That's how it works.

But, of course, it does.

 

Not in your eyes it doesn't. But most other people are more attached to reality than you are, I think.



Have a nice rest of your day sticking your head in the sand...

 

Tell that to the loved ones of those who came home in body bags, or missing limbs and PTSD for the rest of their lives. And still are?? If that isn't war I'm ****ed if I know what is! FFS!

 

Dayton likes to stir by using strict legal language, Cerb. If the US hasn't actually formally declared war on a foreign nation then in his narrow and hidebound mind there is no war - even as the US bombs and invades nations and kills them in their tens of thousands and US soldiers come home in body-bags.

 

How can you not see that veteran pensions are not related to military spending? When you get a bigger army, you do end up paying more vets a pension. That the US got a separate department for this, only shows that they need that many people doing administration to keep track of all them vets that they can fill in an entire department.

 

That isn't at all what I believe. Because for starters no nation actually "declares war" any more. There have been only two since World War Two.

 

All those things happened during the Cold War as well in confrontations with the Soviet Union. and I'm not referring to Korea and Vietnam.

 

And they've happened since - as recently as Afghanistan, and how many more are still being killed/maimed but it's being hushed up? US foreign policy is suffering a crisis of basic common sense.

 

Exactly. That is precisely my point; your contentiousness in the legal definition of what is war is obsolete and obstructive - an argument for the sake of being ergumenttative.

 

You actually make a little sense in this post - a rare moment unfortunately.

What however, does this have to do with the OP ? - the idea that military spending is bankrupting us.

 

Something that is less than 4% of our GDP and only about 20-25% of the federal budget isn't going to bankrupt the U.S.

Common sense will tell you that.

 

Common sense is something you rarely exhibit .. and certainly lack in this case.

1) Total Military Spending is way over 20%
2) Even if it was only 20% - if this number was correct that still does not mean we are not being bankrupted by this amount of spending.

Lastly - once again (aside from the fact that you make no attempt to support your utterly nonsensical claim) you have no clue what you are talking about.

 

What makes you say that? And what kind of "expert knowledge" do you bring to the subject?

And you're wrong anyway.

https://www.google.com/search?biw=1...c#imgdii=aZKoWgEilLVVXM:&imgrc=5jKp9Kz7WYa7uM:

 

Cut it in half...we will be safer

 

I am not the one making unsupported claims here. I have trotted out the numbers to you previously.

You sit in the peanut gallery making claims backed up with nothing.

Only an idiot does not realize that a large contribution to the deficit is a contribution to bankruptcy - should it happen.

Whether or not it happens is a different question - a question obviously out of your league.

 

And what about the pie chart I linked to that shows military spending plus veterans benefits amounted to 20% of federal spending in 2015?

 

Dirty Donald now looking to raise defense spending in 2019 budget.

 

Good.

 

Of course. because thanks to the Republicans in Congress with an assist from President Obama (sequestration) the U.S. military basically had its budget frozen when it was overdue for massive increases.

I wrote an article back about then years ago "The Case for a Trillion Dollar Defense Budget" that laid out why the U.S. should be spending one trillion of spending (not including veterans benefits) per year with a 50 billion increase annually indefinitely just to replace and upgrade the systems it needs to fulfill our treaty obligations and defend the U.S. to the level it needs to be defended.

 

Can't have both

Guns & Butter.​

 

My God it's never enough

 

Not to me you didn't .. and obviously your chart is missing some stuff if it only came out to 20%. Total Military spend has been over a Trillion for years and we have never had a 5 Trillion dollar Budget.

Regardless - this does not account for your unsupported claim in relation to the "bankruptcy" nor address the recent military spending increase.