[warchild9]

If you look at where most of the money is going

it’s headed towards non-military uses:

retirees, grossly-overpaid civilian contractors, internal “security” apparatus, foreign aid, etc.

Ships and planes cost a lot...and the time of huge fleets of either is over

We’re going through a painful period of transition in the country, from a republic to a plutocracy

And SF, surveillance tools and spies, and light internal security forces are the traditional weapons of plutocrats

/this did not start with us

[DuncanWaring]

Fifty years ago half the federal budget went to the DOD.

It's a small fraction of that now.

Perhaps the time of huge fleets of ships and planes is over, perhaps it is not.

Rudyard Kipling wrote nearly a century ago:

When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promised perpetual peace.
They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease.
But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us bound to our foe,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "Stick to the Devil you know."

Our problem is not that we spend too much on defense; our problem is that we have too many who vote for a living.