“Defense”
Proping up the vastly inflated military industrial complex*
This 100%. MIC is social welfare for republicans though so it will only ever get worse.
Some might argue the best defense is being able to blow everyone else out of the water six times over.
Worst part is even though it probably is the best military by a good margin, it’s not very good at all if you look at this stat. It should be way better. These 10 countries combined would easily roll America. Although there will be no one left to enjoy the win afterwards
It can project power on multiple fronts in a way that no other country can match. The US has logistics capabilities that allow it to reach the other side of the globe. But you have a point. A critical strength of the US is its network of allies, a fact not always appreciated by isolationist Americans.
Yes it can do that compared to an other country. Multiple counties could probably attack on multiple fronts in a similar way the US could if not more.
Disclaimer: know nothing. Just some unemployed neckbeard in his mid 40’s trolling with Cheeto dust fingers in between rounds of WOW in his divorced mothers mouldy basement
Well, it kind of depends on how you’re measuring. Are they attacking the US on the homeland without the aid of Canada or Mexico? In that case the terrain around the US is going to be a death trap. Any troops will land on hostile shores and quickly be mired in various mountain ranges.
But ultimately I’m not sure if it’s really that interesting of a question, outside of a “what if?” scenario. Armed forces exist in the same world as diplomacy, and the US is on good terms with many of the top ten. The big hope is that there can be military alliances that are one sided enough in size that no one wants to test the water.
Sorry dude I thought I was replying to someone else who was being a dick
It’s all good. You’re not the first person that’s happened to, so I wonder if your Lemmy client can introduce a UI guide to show what comment is being replied to.
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I don’t think you quite understand or appreciate the sheer technological advantage the American military has, let alone volume. it’s not even close bro they could probably take on and defeat all of the top 10 nations even ignoring nukes
Sorry again
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Im not american, but without nukes I’m not entirely sure that would be truth.
At least 4 out of those 10 countries have nukes. Russia has more than the US alone
Oh, you didnt develop your reading skills yet. Let me rephrase it ‘If we remove nukes from the equation im not sure if they would be capable to win against usa’
Even more, Russia is doing badly in ukraine, China is a wildcard, India has like russian weapons right? They dont fair well. European countries are well prepared with high training and high tech, but probably lack resources and manpower.
I really would not discard usa so quickly.
Oh, you didn’t develop the part of your brain that dampens arrogance. You wrote:
without nukes I’m not so sure that would be the case.
This could easily be interpreted by someone on the internet reading some words from a random stranger as meaning without nukes (implying the 10 countries don’t have nukes or in the event of war nukes are off the table because of the mutually assured self destruction ), I’m not so sure.
People can’t read your mind. If you can’t form a sentence that rules out the possibility of it being interpreted in multiple ways, especially knowing people on the internet say dumb shit all the time, you are the one that needs to develop your writing abilities. Either that or don’t be a massive douche when someone interprets your reply incorrectly. You’re not perfect. You’ve just proved that on multiple fronts. Wake up to yourself and stop turning everything into a superiority contest.
Chill.
Reflect so I can stay chill
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I’m so glad medical treatment can put me in lifelong debt for this.
I’m fixing tired of this meme, let’s put it into context: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expenditures_in_the_United_States_federal_budget
BTW: The reason we don’t have socialized Healthcare is because certain party blocks it, not because we can’t afford it. If we had a single payer we would actually be spending overall less on Healthcare not more.
It’s not just the red team blocking it. The ACA was written by insurance companies. If the Dems actually wanted to push through single payer, they would be able to each time they have controlled Congress and the pres. Don’t get me wrong, red team has never been for it and are much more to blame, but the Dems carry it as well.
Reminder, Dems had a filibuster-proof supermajority in the Senate in 2009
Yep, people keep forgetting that they could have pushed it though. They just don’t want to.
I mean…yeah? They’re a big tent party, they had to compromise within their ranks to get it passed, and even with a super majority, some Dem senators are more centrist than others.
The Democrats are not a leftist party, they never have been. They’re a collection of people who aren’t conservative. But that’s the best we can get until the county’s population stops being centrist and starts voting more left.
It’s always weird watching people protect Dems as if it’s a party of uniform desires. At least half of them in office agree more with Republicans than they do with the progressive members of the same party.
I think this is what bothers me the most, yes they’re not as shit as repubs but damn…why just let them get away with being meh.
Now do healthcare and education.
Lucky I was not drinking because I would have spat it all Jim Carry style.
The US also spends more on those things per capita than other nations
Cue this beautiful chart:
Unfortunately it’s because of the for-profit system. Hungary is also getting in on the action.
On the other hand, I doubt China is spending $14,000 on one toilet seat, so the bloated US military budget probably doesn’t even convert to proportionate fighting capabilities. For example, all that money and the US can’t even manufacture enough artillery shells to keep Ukraine going against Russia and it’s tiny sliver of expenditure on that chart.
Russia, China, and Iran (the last of which isn’t even on that image) have hypersonic missiles, which effectively mean that aircraft carriers are now pre-sunk artificial coral reefs in a direct conflict with those countries. America does not have hypersonic missiles and keeps failing their prototype tests.
I don’t think they’ve been proven in any real sense to satisfactorily bypass the insane defences those carriers have. They’re boasted as sorta wunderwaffen at this point lol
America does not have hypersonic missiles and keeps failing their prototype tests.
I don’t know how big of a priority it is for them, considering the situation Russia, China and Iran have with aircraft carriers
Well, how many aircraft carriers did the US lose so far? I mean Russia just lost a shitton of military equipment fighting one of its former allies while the US made bank by rearming half of Europe, there must be an equivalent response from Russia then, if they are capable of it, right?
How much has been spent on R&D for hypersonic missiles in USA? How much was spent in Russia or China or Iran? and who has hypersonic missiles?
all that money and the US can’t even manufacture enough artillery shells
Yeah, we’re also having trouble manufacturing muskets for the revolutionary war.
Of course, spending doesn’t actually directly translate into being able to make decent weapons. Since US relies on a privately owned military industrial complex it runs into the problem of perverse incentives. Companies want to siphon as much public money as they can from the government, and that means making expensive weapons that take a long time to produce and have high maintenance costs. This ensures you have low input costs because you’re not producing much, and that you’re able to keep sucking money out of the system for the few items you do produce. To put this into perspective, it costs ten times as much to produce an artillery shell in US than in Russia, and US is still unable to ramp up its production after a year and a half of war to match Russia.
Meanwhile, the Pentagon is famous for its corruption having failed audits for 6 years in a row and is unable to account for $3.8 trillion in military assets.
All of this results in an incredibly expensive and inefficient system that isn’t actually able to produce basic things like artillery shells in large quantities. US military industrial complex is good at doing what it was designed to do, which is to divert taxes from things they’re meant for such as social services and infrastructure into the pockets of the oligarchs who own the war industry.
Yes, the US is bad, we can all agree on that. It is not a forgivable thing in a democratic country to have such an out of control oligarchy.
That said, why would the US or NATO want to ramp up production?
Look at how Russia in 2010. A major player as it had insane weapon stockpiles, nuclear capabilities and weakened but still strong alliances in Eastern Europe in Ukraine and Belarus. It had the EU by the balls through gas shipments. NATO was an irrelevant relic.
How does it look like now? It lost Ukraine as an ally, Belarus is not being helpful either. It is spending a significant portion of its weapon stockpiles on destroying a country that was one of its closest allies, while making money for the US. Every house destroyed is a contract for Blackrock, every fighter shot down is a new sale for Lockheed.
The war in Ukraine is grinding down Russia from being a major power, while the US is making bank off of it. It’s just going “Aw shucks we aren’t able to supply enough munitions to kick out Russia and stop this racket, guess you’ll need to knock out a few thousand more tanks!”
What I’m saying is that neither US nor EU are capable of ramping up production. Despite all the talk over the past year and a half, no serious ramp up in production has been seen. Meanwhile, Europe is now going into a recession and spending increasingly more money on the military is going to require more austerity which will in turn keep driving civil unrest.
Also, not sure what universe you live in where Russia is being ground down from a major power buddy. Russian economy is currently booming even according to western sources, Russian industrial production is at six year high, and Russian global trade is as big as it’s ever been. If you think Russia came out of this worse than the west then you really need to stop guzzling propaganda.
Might want to listen what a US ambassador had to say the issue just recently https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ghvaq1AosN8
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This is what we have instead of health care, and boy do we have a lot of it
Not really true.
In 2022 the US spent an equivalent amount on Medicare as it did on defense ($747 billion vs $751 billion), and another $592 billion on Medicaid. US defense spending represents only 3% of GDP, and about 14% of the total federal budget.
The largest budget item is Social Security at $1.2 trillion.
Social program spending in the US massively outstrips military spending.
So sincere question: why the fuck is it so god damn awful over there then? People going bankrupt over medical bills isn’t a thing in Europe, and your social care appears non existent…why the dissonance between expenditure and apparent results?
Surprisingly, if healthcare is governed by the profit motive instead of an actual duty of care towards people, then the people in charge of healthcare will focus more on making profits than on providing care.
Never you fear, the disparity between America and Europe will go down. Not because America will improve - god no, it’ll get worse, even - but because the capitalists, backed by fascists, are here to loot European countries and rip the wiring out of the walls as the profitability crisis continues.
because the capitalists, backed by fascists, are here to loot European countries and rip the wiring out of the walls as the profitability crisis continues
Healthcare-wise this is already well under way, at least in France and the UK.
Because our healthcare is run for profit at the behest of insurance and pharmacy cartels.
This is true but we should keep in mind:
When we say military spending, what it really means is: how much is the US government granting the military industrial complex for them to accept powering its military
When we say Medicaid (and others) spending, it is: how much is the US gov giving to medical insurance companies to allow a sunset of poor people to have some healthcare?
Those companies are intentionally setting outrageous prices and the US is happy to pay them.
It just came out that the true defense budget is over $1.5 trillion. So… higher than social security.
[citation needed]
This is disingenuous, there is legislation in place that prevents the government from negotiating the price of medicine, keeping it wildly inflated compared to other countries. The US effectively isn’t doing social spending with that margin* but just laundering money to health insurance companies, medicine manufacturers, and patent barons.
*3 to 10 times the cost you see in other countries is the common range, I think, though in individual cases it gets much higher and there are some ~1:1 prices.
Shouldn’t it be adjusting for buying power? Chinese tanks are also cheaper.
Probably complicates things. If we’re taking into account the cheapness of Chinese tanks, maybe we need to evaluate the strength of American tanks and equipment vs Chinese equipment.
Spending seems like a better way to get an idea.
Not really, wages make up a large portion of military expenditure and I don’t think there are major differences between the individual “strength” of a soldier/engineer/whatever.
As we’ve seen in Ukraine and other conflicts where US equipment has been used, it’s certainly nothing to write home about.
??? Infantry in Ukraine are able to easily take out tanks if they don’t come properly supported thanks to our anti tank munitions. This is something Russia didn’t anticipate or else they wanted have gotten so many tanks destroyed. That’s such a huge impact. Also, we haven’t even provided our newest planes to Ukraine, and still Ukraine pushed Russia back quite a bit. This war has shown how big of a difference US equipment is vs Russian.
meanwhile in the real world https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/ukraine-russia-canadian-forces-1.6443048
Lol what? This single story counts as statistical evidence or something?
No, this story is representative of many other stories and reports as anybody who actually has a clue would know.
Bah. What the hell does the Supreme Allied Commander Europe for WWII know about the military? Eisenhower should have just stayed in his lane.
That was Eisenhower, yes? Should probably cite your quote source.
Yes. The entire quote is a link to him making the speech.
Okay, viewing on the Memmy app does not show a link.
A great chunk of this money should be spent on healthcare, education and infrastructure. Instead, politicians have successfully managed to deceive common taxpayer for decades.
wonder how much of it is just yeah this 1 doler bullet is actually 10
yeah America also spends the most on healthcare and they aren’t the healthiest country on earth
one doler asprin is now 2 bajllion dolers pay up stooge
I think the companies that supply the US military charge like $50 for a bottle of water or something.
edit: in case you didn’t click the link, Assad isn’t
All of it. The US military is so bloated even the soldiers complain about the prices, and they’re not even the ones paying.
It’s still not enough! Until every red-blooded American has a big red button in their home that launches 10.000 nukes at random coordinates, it won’t be enough!
They would all get fired at Washington lol
That’s why I said random coordinates :D
I would love to see this poll of Americans actually, if you could nuke any city, where would you pick
If it was a poll, DC would win in a landslide, even for people caught in the blast radius.
Mecca, Jerusalem, Riyahd
The US is just getting ripped off by private contractors and the rest of the military-industrial complex.
This comparison caughts my attention every time. I wonder how well-spent this money really is, conceding it’s for “defense”.
USA USA USA!
You think Freedom is free.
America hadn’t fought for its freedom since 1812 at best.
1812 if I remember my history was in large part because they wanted to genocide all the natives and the British wanted to establish a nation for the natives (not out of altruism native trade was one of the only things that ever actually made money out of the Americas)
They also burned down the White House which you know critical support for the imperialist red coats on that one
The cowards preach from pedestals
With words like “courage” and “resolve”
But what they meant was “Fuck them all”
Because freedom isn’t freeNah, freedom costs a buck oh five.
This is really a bad chart, our military protects European countries which is why they don’t have to pay as much for defense
Edit: not to imply we don’t waste tons of money on boondoggles
It’s when you realize that some US Americans unironicaly believe that, that you understand how powerful the USA propaganda machine is.
That’s a regular classic sadly, along with the other banger: “our US healthcare can’t be free because we subsidize Europe’s healthcare”.
Yeah and it shouldn’t make sense either. That logic makes the US a European colony.
I’m not saying we don’t waste money on defense, and obviously a country with zero threats on its borders can afford to spend less on defense and more on health care, but this chart in particular is a bad way to convey this message
I’m not saying we don’t waste money on defense, and obviously a country with zero threats on its borders can afford to spend less on defense and more on health care,
Don’t we spend way more on health care than military? I read somewhere it is like 4 trillion per year over 4 times more than military. Honestly as sad as this sounds I don’t think an extra trillion would improve the health care system in the US. Personally I think we have plenty of money going to health care, it is just doesn’t seem to be going towards actually healing people.
Don’t we spend more because the industry is extremely inflated? But yeah if it’s something everyone needs it should be subsidized and provided as a public service
our military protects European countries
Please give me a list of enough threats the US protected Europe from to back your statement. I doubt there are enough to justify those differences, and hence your statement must be doubted until you prove otherwise.
Are you differentiating between active conflicts that the US has been involved in versus the preventative protection of it…looming?
Because let me tell you, Russia doesn’t make a stink about NATO because of Belgium…
So can you answer the question? Has there been a threat or Russian aggression into Western Europe that was averted due to US involvement? I am yet to see that.
Do you not understand the concept of deterrence through strength or are you being intentionally dense?
Do you believe for one second that Putin stops with Ukraine if NATO and the US weren’t standing in his way?
or are you being intentionally dense?
Is your argument not good enough on its own, that you have to engage in personal attacks? No I am not dense. Please keep these comments to yourself. If you can’t engage in a civil discussion, I will report you to moderators.
Do you not understand the concept of deterrence
I do understand it. Now I’d love to see a proof of the presence of a threat that was deterred due to US military budget.
Do you believe for one second that Putin stops with Ukraine if NATO and the US weren’t standing in his way?
I need to see proof to believe that Russia is a threat to the parts of Europe you speak of, and said threat was deterred by US military budget. Otherwise I will continue not believing it.
I am asking for clarification for the question - how are you taking into account deterrence? What do you accept as a sign of successful deterrence?
I want to see evidence of a real threat, with evidence that it was going to happen, but was only avoided due to said deterrence. I believe that would be the textbook definition of deterrence. Anything else is not. But I am open minded if you have an alternate definition that is reasonable.
How many historical examples of this can you come up with, across the world? I’m currently thinking that’s an unreasonable set of requirements.
In my books, having the big gun in the room is deterrence. You don’t need for someone to attempt shit for it to count as deterrence - if nobody is stupid enough to try anything at all you have successfully deterred others.
Well we in Finland joined NATO because of Russia. Same for most of Eastern Europe.
I’m quite glad US spends a shitload on defence tbqh. Way too much, but it’s not out of my pocket…
Finland joined NATO because of fearmongering. I am yet to see a real threat. Now can you answer my question? If not, then it says enough.
Once a country is involved in a conflict, they cannot join NATO. You are proposing a logical catch 22 in which countries that join NATO only do so out of fear mongering (in your opinion), and countries that actually are involved in conflicts cannot join NATO, and thus will not be protected by the US. Finally, NATO countries aren’t being attacked, so unless you recognize the value of deterrence, there will never really be a chance to provide examples that fit into the framework you’ve set up.
I hope you do recognize the value of deterrence, and I also hope you recognize someone can’t provide examples of things that were prevented due to deterrence, since they never happened.
The threat of Russian involvement in Ukraine was known wayyyy ahead of the invasion actually occurring. Ukraine tried hard to join NATO to “deter” it but they never allowed it. So yeah, they don’t deter shit.
If Russia had plans to invade Finland like they did Ukraine, we don’t know if that would have gotten them into NATO.
Which attempt to join NATO are you talking about? IIRC one was retracted by the president of Ukraine and the other was already after crimea.
What’s your reasoning behind Finland being a bad example again, beyond a “fear mongering” label that you’ve applied without explaining?
We joined because Russia attacked Ukraine. We neighbor Russia. Seemed real enough to us.
Eastern Europe obviously knows more about this than even us.
If they are so good at protecting Europe, why don’t they protect Ukraine, instead of fueling the profits of the military industrial complex? Why do they keep letting hostilities and murder happen? Sounds like they aren’t deterring threats very well.
Ukraine war proves you wrong. When the threat is real, they do not deter it.
This isn’t to mention that Finland has not faced the same circumstances of Ukraine that led up to the war there, which goes back to my feafmongering claim.
But again, if you think Finland is under the same threat as Ukraine (it’s not), the US has failed to protect it. But they have successfully made a lot of profit for military corporations.
Ukraine wasn’t in NATO. That’s the point.
If they are so good at protecting Europe, why don’t they protect Ukraine
Goalposts moved - initial claim was that the US defense budget protects european countries, not all European countries. If that was the case, even Russia would be included as needing American protection.
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having access to cheap gas we were protected from that
As a Star Citizen backer you’d be an expert on money wasting.
Lol, not denying it’s very speculative, but you should look at the recent squadron 42 tech demo and tell me if you think it’s still a failed project
Realistically our military protects the world against going anti American. We keep every nation in the world wrapped into our economy except for those we specifically kicked out like Cuba. It’s why even nations like Russia and China are so tightly wrapped in our economy that sanctions hurt them. America is the protectors of the world, by force.
- Not sure we’re as free as you think we are.
- How much is enough? $877B, seems like a lot.
I support a cap at twice a much as our nearest competitor. I believe the US is one of the safest countries in the world (regarding a direct attack on our land) due to our geographical location in the world and the fact that we have more guns than people.
I’m not sure that guarding against attacks overseas, makes us safer. I think we breed a lot of adversaries by pushing our weight around all over the world. Then we get terrorist attacks which the military doesn’t really have much control over.
I’m for a strong military but I think we overshot the mark a bit.
Largest airforce in the world: US airforce. Second largest airforce in the world: US Navy. Third largest airforce in the world: US army.
