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The Pentagon doesn’t need $886bn. I oppose this bloated defense budget | Bernie Sanders
(www.theguardian.com)
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this post was submitted on 24 Jul 2023
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Politics
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I honestly don't think that most people understand how incredibly bloated the US military budget is. Even if you accept the premise that we have to have the biggest military in the world, so much money is spent on overseas military bases that don't meaningfully contribute to our national defense. We have >750 military bases around the world so that we can intimidate other countries into doing what we want, which is both wasteful and evil. Learn more at Al Jazeera
sooooo yes you’re not wrong, but i’d argue (as not an american mind you) that also it’s a little more complicated than just national defence
overseas military bases aren’t just for intimidating other countries into doing what the US wants: they also contribute significantly to global stability… having THE world super power kinda everywhere means it’s probably much less likely that some random country is going to start shit… sure, the US gets to pick and choose to benefit itself, but it certainly contributes
and that’s not just good for the world: AS the worlds leading superpower, the US benefits enormously from global stability: from cheap trade, financing, more global budget being spent on STEM/R&D (which because of trade and financing the US almost always capitalises on somehow!)
I would argue that having only one nation in charge of policing the world's stability is incredibly unstable. Its like having a table with only one leg. If that leg suddenly fails the whole thing topples over. The whole world would benefit more from a more distributed system than relying entirely on one nation.
Of course that also means they'd have to start getting their own hands dirty, and risking the lives of their own citizens for world stability, which doesn't seem particularly likely at this point.
More to the point, other countries would have to start spending money on their militaries. Most NATO countries don't even meet the purported spending goals, and that's just for the single goal of deterring Russia. Many countries benefit a lot from America's military spending, both by being able to utilize the peace and by being able to save their own money.
Whether or not this is a good or fair state of affairs is a different question, but there are a lot of reasons why things are this way.
hey i never said it was “fair”, but the US does benefit significantly more from global stability than anywhere else… its not like they do it for selfless reasons
Well, China is spending money to expand itself. You're right about Nato though, they just want the US to do it all for them and then be the scapegoats too
Why do you think “globalists” is a scare word these days? The idea of centralizing any decision making globally would impact profits in the US.
Of course you don’t want a one-world authoritarian government, but I think the world could benefit greatly from a more organized way of distributing food for one thing.
Non-rhetorical question: Would people worried about "globalists" care if it was the US that was in charge of the globe?
Yeah probably, I don’t know though. I’m not one of them.
I think that being mindful of global fascism rising is important, but I don’t believe that any and all decision-making on a global level is that.
Also, that if a person is feverishly pro or anti globalism that they haven’t thought too much about it.
nervously watching the US go through all the stages of a collapsing empire
What other countries? The only global power that is a near peer of the US with respect to military power is China.
There are geopolitical reasons that the US is in the position it is, and while a distributed system might be nice, unless the underlying geopolitical realities change, the US is stuck at the top
Didn't keep Russia from invading Ukraine.
it did not; that’s correct! and i’m unable to list the conflicts that were prevented because of it, because, well, they were prevented
global stability doesn’t mean world peace
It did keep Russia from succeeding.
It does keep Russia from invading NATO countries.
NATO keeps Russia from invading NATO countries.
Are you implying that if the USA stopped projecting force globally NATO would continue deter aggression like it does now? I doubt that but I'm open to changing my perspective.
I am saying that the general statement about the US power keeping countries from invading is not true on its own, but that the multi country agreement that includes the US is the important part.
Sure, most of NATOs military power comes from the US, but the overall power comes from being a united front of multiple countries.
We can agree on that.
Are you claiming that the US doesn't contribute using the defense budget to NATO? Are you claiming the US had bases in Ukraine that failed to stop the Russian invasion?
Sorry for the question deluge, I just want to make sure I'm reading you right because I don't think either of those things are true...
Idk if I'm able to have an in depth conversation about this topic but I also don't want to get you wrong, you know?
No to everything you wrote.
The US military power and reach on its own does not discourage countries from attacking other countries. Defensive treaties between multiple countries does, becsuse that allows for a united front that the US is part of.
Ukraine is in a wierd position. A decade ago it had corrupt Russian puppets running rampant through the government. It was explicitly not under the US umbrella of protection.
Now, having nearby bases makes the logistics of providing aid to Ukraine much more feasible. Without them, the invasion of Ukraine might be complete, not just begun
Personally, I do not think that we should be the police of the world, and I don't want to spend my tax dollars on it.
The US military is the most efficient global logistical operation ever. Open up flghtradar sometime and just look at how many military planes are moving tons of equipment and resources every hour of every day. You don't achieve a global logistics network without those bases. To claim it's just for intimidation and wasted is laughably naive.
We don't need a global logistics network.
The existence of those bases means we can negotiate with soft power where instead we might need to make a show of force. Intimidation, aka diplomacy, is superior to actual fights.
We wouldn't need to intimidate people if we weren't all up in the business of other random countries, constantly inciting coups, etc.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_navigation
International shipping: just one of the freedoms protected by the modern us armed forces