How much does $1,000,000,000,000 a year in defense cost?

[_Analytics]

From another thread…

That's why I hope they'll accept another Aspin-type bottom-up review. The last one, in 1993, was intended to set priorities and strategies in the wake of the end of the Cold War. Given that we are coming out of two regional wars and global operations against terrorism--not to mention the Chinese desire to restrict us from shipping lanes--it is high time for a major review…

Defense spending has trippled since 1993--so much for the peace dividend. Just as the USSR lost the Cold War because its defense spending drove it into bankruptcy, the U.S. is losing the war on terror for exactly the same reason. If Republicans want to have the largest and most expensive military on the planet by far, then they must accept having the highest taxes on the planet by far to pay for it.

We need to take a giant step backwards and examine our values. If we honestly needed to spend $1,000,000,000,000 a year in order to keep shipping lanes open and be the global police force, I'd suggest that it just isn't worth it. Let's look at the opportunity cost.

Do you know how much those giant windmills you see popping up in the midwest cost? They are very expensive—about a million dollars each. But each one generates about 4.7 million kwh a year. For one trillion dollars—the money we spend on the military each year—we could build one million windmills. That is enough to supply America with all of its energy needs—we would be free of not only foreign oil dependency, but free of domestic oil dependency, and we wouldn't need to burn coal, burn natural gas, or split uranium, either. Think of how nice America would be if there weren’t hundreds of millions of smog-producing cars and electricity plants across our country. For the cost we spend on "defense" in one year, we could build enough turbines to provide us with more than enough electricity to fuel all of our vehicles, keep our houses cold in the summer and hot in the winter, run our computers, charge our phones, etc.

Of course I’m not arguing for a simplistic wind-only energy plan—I’m simply illustrating the absurd about of money we spend on defense. $1,000,000,000,000 a year to finance the military-industrial complex in this never-ending war comes out to about $1,000 a month for every man woman and child every month.

Is this the best use of our resources? Really?

[_Bob Loblaw]

Of course it's not the best use. I don't want the largest or most expensive military, but we should expect an effective military, and we shouldn't have to pay jacked-up prices to contractors to get it. A lot of our allies spent much less per capita than we do on defense because they expect us to defend them, which is ridiculous. A strong and effective military is not necessarily an expensive one.

[_EAllusion]

I'm fond of pointing out that it is nigh impossible to actually invade the United States because we own the most powerful cache of nuclear weapons on the planet. 9/11 was a scratch compared to what many nations face and that caused us to pour out like fire ants when someone steps on their hill. Imagine our response to a true military assault. We have weak neighbors, ocean barriers, nuclear weapons, and vast wealth to quickly build up a military if need be. That alone will prevent the kind of threats standing militaries traditionally exist to thwart. In relative terms, it's cheap to have that kind of defense. Defense is more complicated that simply being prepared to deter a full-scale invasion from another country, of course, but the real cost of defense in the sense of defending the United States could be had for a small fraction of what we do now. We act as a default global quasi-police force, wage multiple wars, defend allied interests with massive military bases scattered all over the globe, provide corporate welfare to defense contractors to the tune of billions, etc. That's a choice that doesn't have to be made. The opportunity cost in that is so mind-bogglingly huge, that people have a hard time wrapping their brain around it. Analytics has the right approach, and it disappointing me that politicians don't reach to these analogies more frequently.

You could pay for free higher education (much like there is free secondary education) for every adult in the nation for less than the cost of our military budget. I'm not saying that's something we should do, but think about that. Much like Analytic's example, think how radically different life in the US would be if that was the case. That's the kind of money we are actually talking about.

[_krose]

I'm fond of pointing out that it is nigh impossible to actually invade the United States because we own the most powerful cache of nuclear weapons on the planet. 9/11 was a scratch...

LIAR!!!

Mr. Hannity has been assuring me for years that we absolutely face an "existential threat" from terrorist groups. That was why we desperately needed Cheney/Bush/Halliburton to protect us, and just one of the many reasons the country cannot possibly survive another four years of the Muslim/Kenyan-in-chief.

So there.

(I'm sure his prediction of losing a major US city to a terrorist nuke has just been delayed a few years. They're biding their time, waiting us out.)

[_Gadianton]

The only "justification" for such a military is if we're actively trying to take over the world and cashing in on the spoils of war for it. Not sure this is happening. If it's not, we're not getting our money's worth.

Though I am highly skeptical of national health care working, if I had to choose between a republican who wants to spend a trillion a year on war or a democrat who spends a trillion a year on health care, even with all the inefficiencies and free loading, I'd vote for the democrat.

[_Analytics]

The pervasive American narrative is that Ronald Reagan won the cold war through the arms race—by increasing U.S. military spending in the 1980’s, he tricked the USSR into trying to keep up, which lead them to bankruptcy.

Now fast-forward 25 years. If you were leading a small terrorist organization and wanted to destroy the United States, what would you do? I know what I’d do—I’d try to destroy the USA in the same way that the USA destroyed the USSR: compel them to spend so much money they go bankrupt. Sure, destroy a few buildings and kill a few people if you get the chance. But the direct damage you cause in those attacks is inconsequential—the real way you can destroy America is to play upon the fears that Americans naturally have—make them so scared that they are willing to spend any amount of money to win “the war on terror.” By fooling the Americans into thinking it is a war that can be fought and won with expensive war technology you can defeat them by getting them to spend themselves into bankruptcy.

Of course, the military-industrial complex is enthusiastic to go down this road—there are only two things more fun that blowing stuff up. First, it’s more fun to blow stuff with bombs that literally cost millions of dollars each. Second, it’s more fun to make hundreds of billions of dollars in profits in the business of making million-dollar bombs.

So if you take a step back and realize that the actual goals of the terrorists is to destroy America by bankrupting us, you soon realize that the military-industrial complex is in fact engaged in the war on terror, but they are on the side of the terrorists.

[_Bob Loblaw]

So if you take a step back and realize that the actual goals of the terrorists is to destroy America by bankrupting us, you soon realize that the military-industrial complex is in fact engaged in the war on terror, but they are on the side of the terrorists.

We desperately need a serious review of our forces, priorities, and strategy. The huge size of the military budget is based on the notion that we need large, powerful forces designed to overwhelm a military enemy, so we buy tanks and ships and planes. Most of these don't have a lot of effect on an asynchronous war against a small, mobile group like al-Qaeda. On the other hand, China is trying to restrict our access to certain shipping lanes in the Pacific, and we can't deal with that in the same way. I don't know what the answer is, but it seems to me that our military is an anachronism.

[_cinepro]

We desperately need a serious review of our forces, priorities, and strategy. The huge size of the military budget is based on the notion that we need large, powerful forces designed to overwhelm a military enemy, so we buy tanks and ships and planes. Most of these don't have a lot of effect on an asynchronous war against a small, mobile group like al-Qaeda. On the other hand, China is trying to restrict our access to certain shipping lanes in the Pacific, and we can't deal with that in the same way. I don't know what the answer is, but it seems to me that our military is an anachronism.

Not only that, but peaceful nations need to be sharing the burden more equally. It's one thing for America to step in and help those who can't help themselves. It's another thing entirely for America to foot the bill for defending countries that have healthy economies and are spending less on defense because they don't have to.

[_Analytics]

So if you take a step back and realize that the actual goals of the terrorists is to destroy America by bankrupting us, you soon realize that the military-industrial complex is in fact engaged in the war on terror, but they are on the side of the terrorists.

We desperately need a serious review of our forces, priorities, and strategy. The huge size of the military budget is based on the notion that we need large, powerful forces designed to overwhelm a military enemy, so we buy tanks and ships and planes. Most of these don't have a lot of effect on an asynchronous war against a small, mobile group like al-Qaeda. On the other hand, China is trying to restrict our access to certain shipping lanes in the Pacific, and we can't deal with that in the same way. I don't know what the answer is, but it seems to me that our military is an anachronism.

It totally is an anachronism, and it's absolutely silly to hear in a supposedly serious debate Romney criticizing Obama for having a weak military when the truth is that Obama has grown the military aggressively in a situation where the military is in fact an order of magnitude larger than it needs to be.

Regarding shipping lanes, China is our second-largest trade partner, and we import about $400 billion a year from China, and export about $100 billion. It is utterly ridiculous to spend hundreds of billions of dollars every year to flex military muscles to somehow keep a huge trading partner from blocking trade. It would be far more effective and far less expensive to simply make trade contingent on them abiding by international law with regards to shipping lanes. If they don’t keep the shipping lanes open, we’ll simply buy our rubber dog crap from somebody else.

[_ajax18]

How many of you would agree that the U.S. needs to continue to invest in defense weaponry research in an effort to be the most technologically advanced military in the world?

How much of that trillion dollars goes to paying soldiers? I'm sure other countries save on military expenses by drafting young men and forcing them to do a year or two of military service.