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Do we spend enough on the Military?

Do we spend enough on the military?

  • We need to spend more on the military.

    Votes: 7 12.3%

  • We spend the right amount on the military.

    Votes: 6 10.5%

  • We spend too much on the military.

    Votes: 44 77.2%
  • Total voters
    57
  • Poll closed .
Chips said:
  1. That is what the UN is for, to prevent unilateral action by one country against another for reasons of human rights violations.
  2. There are lots of nations where the government commits atrocities. We seem to pick and choose where we will intervene.
  3. Most of the governments we install commit crimes against their citizens that are equal to, if not worse, than their predecessors.

Where were we when Rwanda descended into chaos? Sudan?



And we had successfully repelled that invasion. By that logic, we should've invaded Russia recently, and should also be considering similar action with Morocco for their continued occupancy of Western Sahara.

Just for starters.



I'm not saying that the countries would've been great had we not intervened. I'm just saying that our presence didn't improve things as dramatically as most Americans would like to admit. And that it isn't necessarily our job to continue replacing governments around the world.




Noriega was an American assisted dictator.

That was us cleaning up our own mess.
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The UN has proven largely ineffectual. When you've got countries like Cuba and Saudi Arabia on human rights panels......

Obviously we can't intervene everywhere without vastly over stretching ourselves and hearing screeches of "imperialism" from the far left and "world police" from the far right.

Please inform me of the crimes that new Afghan government(to pick just one example) has committed that were as bad as what the Taliban did. Or things the German or Japanese governments had done which were as bad as the Nazis or Imperial Japanese's crimes.

And if Russia attacks a NATO country, we will. In theory, anyway. Whether the Donald pulls the trigger is another story.
 
Jredbaron96 said:
I still maintain that is was the RAF's obsession with strategic bombing that really ****ed over the Wallies in Belgium. Plus the utter lack of air defense weapons for them.
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Pouring all those resources into the Maginot Line definitely didn't help either. Another case of a military fighting the new war with the mindset of the old one.
 
Tigerace117 said:
Pouring all those resources into the Maginot Line definitely didn't help either. Another case of a military fighting the new war with the mindset of the old one.
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Well to be fair, the Maginot Line's primary intention was to free up troops for maneuvers in Belgium, since France's population remained critically smaller than Germany's.

The French obsession with the slow, methodical battle is what primarily doomed them in my opinion.
 
trouble13 said:
Thats fine. I was just making the point that our military spending isnt what is breaking our budget.

Sent from my SM-G920P using Tapatalk
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No, it isn't. The thing that irks is that SS shouldn't even be part of the budget in the first place. It's a specific deduction from the wages of working people, and it should never have been lumped in with general tax revenue or general expenditures. SS would be easy to fix if the parties actually wanted to. They have always seemed more intent on funneling it to their friends and then saying, "look, it's gone!"
 
Jredbaron96 said:
Well to be fair, the Maginot Line's primary intention was to free up troops for maneuvers in Belgium, since France's population remained critically smaller than Germany's.

The French obsession with the slow, methodical battle is what primarily doomed them in my opinion.
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True. In the face of the sheer speed of the German offensive, it ended up costing them dearly.

But throwing so many resources into a gamble that the Germans were just going to charge headlong into the meat of France's defenses was a foolish move.
 
Tigerace117 said:
True. In the face of the sheer speed of the German offensive, it ended up costing them dearly.

But throwing so many resources into a gamble that the Germans were just going to charge headlong into the meat of France's defenses was a foolish move.
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Yes. The failure of France can largely be laid on the shoulders of it's senior leadership. And it's army paid for it dearly.

100,000 men lost in just two months of fighting is a terrible attrition rate.
 
Jredbaron96 said:
Yes. The failure of France can largely be laid on the shoulders of it's senior leadership. And it's army paid for it dearly.

100,000 men lost in just two months of fighting is a terrible attrition rate.
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True true.
 
Jredbaron96 said:
APS and composite/reactive armor have actually made modern MBTs incredibly resilient to guided missiles. The only surefire way to defeat enemy tanks is with heavy shells.
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I passed this buy my bro-in-law, a colonel in the French Air Force who "flies" drone attack aircraft.

He had a good laugh ... and sent me this photo:
drone-de-combat-neuron-dassault-aviation.jpg


Say hello to the French furtive attack-drone "Neuron" ...
 
Lafayette said:
I passed this buy my bro-in-law, a colonel in the French Air Force who "flies" drone attack aircraft.

He had a good laugh ... and sent me this photo:
drone-de-combat-neuron-dassault-aviation.jpg


Say hello to the French furtive attack-drone "Neuron" ...
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Then I hope you're brother never has to lead men into battle, because that kind of cockiness will get people killed. Anyone who knows the basics of modern warfare knows you can't match a tank's armor and firepower. It's been tried before and it's always failed.
 
With the additional $54 billion, the US - by itself - will account for 39% of all global government spending on the military per annum (196 nations).
 
Jredbaron96 said:
Then I hope you're brother never has to lead men into battle, because that kind of cockiness will get people killed. Anyone who knows the basics of modern warfare knows you can't match a tank's armor and firepower. It's been tried before and it's always failed.
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That's the way war is going generally. It's inevitable.

Too many soldiers have died for absolutely nothing in past wars - it's better to stop a country by knocking out its ability to make war.
 
Lafayette said:
That's the way war is going generally. It's inevitable.
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really? ATGMs have been rendered largely non-effective against MBTs due to the rise of APS and reactive/composite armor. That technology is only going to improve over time.
 
Carjosse said:
You mean the Falklands war they won quite handily with specialized forces?
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They won and while you can say quite handily, they still lost more troops in the battle then they should have. Their dependence primarily on smaller navel vessels turned out to cost them more in blood.


You are also using a logical fallacy because in order to claim that US defense allows them to fund their "socialized medicine", you would first have to prove that all European nations would spend more on military and second that money is being spent on healthcare instead which it is not.

I think you can work that one out on your own if you will put a bit more thought into it. Trump was right. Our European NATO partners have not stepped up and put in their share of the costs, both in equipment and troops compared to the US.....especially during the cold war. Had we not provided the defense umbrella that we did, those European nations would have had to budget much more for their own defense. Not doing so did enable them to spend enormously on their entitlement programs including universal healthcare.

They have smaller military forces, they don't buy nor need to buy as much as the US does,
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if not for their dependence on us, they certainly would need to buy much more then they are now buying.


they also are not as deep in the military industrial complex as the US is.

Nobody is asking them to kick in quite as much as America does. However they need to step it up and do their fair share. Trump has made that point to them and they are in fact now starting to step up.


The US uses European bases around the world and is supplied by many European arms manufacturers.
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The US should not have to be involved as much around the world as we are. Europe for instance should not have needed US assistance in Bosnia.
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trouble13 said:
WADR Winston, defense is not the largest drain on our budget. It is a distant 3rd. I do agree with you that serious budget cuts should be implimented in regard to our military. Your post however is ignoring the $2.5 trillon gorilla in the room. Medicare and social security eat up every penny in collected tax revenues plus some. Cut everything else completely out and we are still running in the red.



Sent from my SM-G920P using Tapatalk
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Discretionary and mandatory spending are different categories. Of our discretionary spending DoD is over 1/2. It's hypocritcal of conservatives to advocate a defense budget that isn't in harmony with austerity while making operational cuts to the EPA.
 
RabidAlpaca said:
I was going to write exactly this but you beat me to it. Bernie Sander's tuition free public college program would've cost about 70 billion a year, just a little more than this increase. For months we were assaulted with "Who's going to pay for that, comrade!?", then when it comes to a republican increase they have no problem spending other people's money. Hell, the war in Iraq alone could've made all colleges tuition free for 30 years. It's all about priorities and the republicans have shown where theirs is.
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Priorities. We prioritize tax cuts for wealthy people over something as easy as single-payer. It's a policy decision to allow multimillionaires to be enshrined in protection and tax perks, while people on the lower end have to work 2 jobs to support themselves. It's a policy decision to prevent Medicare from using it's purchasing power to drive pharmaceutical prices down. It's a policy decision to add administrative costs of insurance to the middle class when single-payer is cheaper and more efficient. It's a policy decision to drag the war in Syria out by funding terrorist groups allied with ISIS. When people figure out all the lies politicians have told them, they will start asking themselves why the U.S. leads the world in incarceration rates and mental health disorders but, not access to education or healthcare.
 
Winston said:
With Trump proposing a $54 Billion dollar hike in defense spending, I have to ask, do you agree with this? $54 Billion dollars that could be used to provide educational opportunities or rebuild our infrastructure. Americans constantly criticize people with big ideas like universal healthcare or free college. Who's going to pay for that? Who's going to pay for these bombers, fighters, and navy war ships? You are. Instead of cutting defense and reinvesting American tax payer money in our society, we've chosen to put it in the Pentagon to create more terrorists.

What do you think? Do we spend enough on the military?
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I believe our spending is fine where it is. I also believe our involvement around the world is too much, however, and if we pulled back a bit that would be the same effect as an increase in spending.
 
Winston said:
The thing that bugs me about this is, the American perception that defense spending grows as a function of time.. but, if someone proposes an educational program that costs $54 Billion dollars, they get screamed at by people saying, "Who's going to pay for it?" So, there's a double standard. If someone wants $54 Billion for bombs and warships, it's okay. But, if someone wants to invest $54 Billion dollars in education, they are "pie in the sky". Then conservatives set in with the argument of "I'm not paying for someone else's school." That's fair but, then that validates the liberal argument of, "I'm not paying for someone else's war."
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And that's a fair observation.
 
Winston said:
With Trump proposing a $54 Billion dollar hike in defense spending, I have to ask, do you agree with this? $54 Billion dollars that could be used to provide educational opportunities or rebuild our infrastructure. Americans constantly criticize people with big ideas like universal healthcare or free college. Who's going to pay for that? Who's going to pay for these bombers, fighters, and navy war ships? You are. Instead of cutting defense and reinvesting American tax payer money in our society, we've chosen to put it in the Pentagon to create more terrorists.

What do you think? Do we spend enough on the military?
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The Federal Gov't (IMO) main purpose of taxation should be to protect us from foreign entities that may wish us harm (including illegal immigration), so on one hand I feel as if they do not spend enough (having very low levels for the US Navy as an example) but on the other hand we blow money on many things that we have no idea where the funds actually go.. (like Area 51), so if you have a very general comment as spend too much on military I would agree.. but if you state money spent on actual veterans and active duty I disagree.
 
76% agree -- we spend way too much -- about $700 Billion per year. That could be used to support tens of millions of poor and disabled people.
 
If USA spent $150 Billion a year on the Military and extra $550 Billion on Welfare it could do wonders -- it could give extra $20,000 a year in assistance to 27 million disabled people.

US welfare system really does not help people with disability.
 
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I am sorry for my mistake -- USA military budget is only $521 Billion for 2016. Most of this money will be salary to the very rich people. Tens of millions of moderately disabled Americans and even many more people in Developing countries who could have been helped will suffer.
 
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