• OBJECTION!@lemmy.ml
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    1 month ago

    Funny how China and Russia combined spend a tiny fraction of what the US does on the military if the US only has it for defense.

    • phoenixz@lemmy.ca
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      30 days ago

      You either know that these dumb over simplifications are disingenuous at Nestor you should really go to school.

      Yes, yes, yeah yeah, military industrial complex is a thing, but you should.also count your blessings that the US does spend what it does. As bad as the US is, as fucked up the shit is that it regularly pulls with its armies, it’s all child’s play with what, say, China or Russia would do.

      Before you start with how loving and caring Russia and China are, maybe you should ask the Uyghurs and Ukrainians about that.

          • OBJECTION!@lemmy.ml
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            30 days ago

            The point that I should lick the boots of the murderous monsters who killed hundreds of thousands of innocents in Iraq and Afghanistan and are actively arming an ongoing genocide, all so they can protect their precious quarterly profits and buy off more senators? That point?

            I hope you someday find yourself on the receiving end of what you support, imperialist warmongerer.

            • phoenixz@lemmy.ca
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              30 days ago

              No, the point is that you apparently like licking boots? So you prefer China’s rule or Russia’s?

              Understanding reality is not licking boots

              I wonder how well you’d fare under chinas or Russia’s rule. But that is the point you’re missing. I never claimed that the US plays nice, a lot of US politicians belong in jail for life.

              However.

              If China was in power (or Russia for that matter) you wouldn’t even be able to vent your frustrations, lest you are far away from high windows you can fall out off. Or maybe you just need to spend 20 years in a Chinese rededication camp?

              As bad as the US is (and yeah it’s bad, nobody denies that) the alternatives are way WAY worse

                  • OBJECTION!@lemmy.ml
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                    30 days ago

                    I understand perfectly well that you want to murder more foreigners for profit you probably won’t even see. It’s just that I hate you and everyone like you.

    • el_abuelo@lemmy.ml
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      1 month ago

      Nothing funny about it. USA has a lot more money to spend, and spends a lot of money on overseas defence - basically bases across NATO and beyond - along with maintaining a huge technological advantage against any of its adversaries.

      If you look at Russia, it spends a much higher percentage of its GDP on its military than the US - it just happens to be a relatively poorer country (so probably should focus on economic growth than aggressive foreign policy…) - since its invasion of its sovereign neighbour it has only gone on to spend an even higher share of its budget on war machines, further stunting its economic growth and long term prospects. Things the US doesn’t need to worry about as much.

      China’s spending per GDP is difficult to know given their self reported figures are largely regarded as under-reported. Some estimates put their spending at a higher % of GDP than the US as well.

      Don’t be fooled into thinking Russia and China wouldn’t be just as bad, if not worse, than the US if they were able to achieve military dominance. Make no mistake that Russia would have invaded many more of its neighbours by now, and China would have at least invaded Taiwan and likely subjugated many of its other neighbours along with taking control of a huge swathe of international and foreign territorial waters by force.

      Personally I am better off with the US having the dominion it does, and I worry for those who will start to fall into the dominion of those other fascist and totalitarian states. But I can also see the evils that the US has perpetrated in order to gain and maintain and dominion.

      None of the players have clean hands - don’t think for a second any of them wouldn’t do the same shit if it could.

      • OBJECTION!@lemmy.ml
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        1 month ago

        Nothing funny about it. USA has a lot more money to spend, and spends a lot of money on overseas defence - basically bases across NATO and beyond - along with maintaining a huge technological advantage against any of its adversaries.

        Yes, that is what I’m criticizing, thanks for spelling it out.

        If you look at Russia, it spends a much higher percentage of its GDP on its military than the US

        Comparing military spending by GDP is such a funny metric. It makes literally no sense whatsoever. Do you think countries should just keep spending more and more on their militaries as they develop, even if there is no practical strategic reason to? Do you think that countries with powerful rivals, whose continued survival depends on meeting certain level of military strength, should ignore genuine threats to security if it would mean spending a higher percentage of GDP than other countries? Complete insanity.

        The only reason to compare military spending as percentage of GDP instead of absolute numbers is because the numbers are more convenient to your argument. The country with the biggest military is the most militaristic and the biggest threat to the world. Anything else is nonsense.

        Things the US doesn’t need to worry about as much.

        Really? Because US infrastructure is falling apart. Medical debt and student loans are soaring out of control. Rents are skyrocketing. I could go on, if you like. There’s a lot of really important domestic priorities that are getting ignored so that the US can maintain hegemony in every corner of the globe.