Posted on 05/13/2005 6:42:23 PM PDT by CHARLITE
The national defense budget could be cut by nearly a quarter and still leave the United States military in shape to take on all likely threats and fulfill its role in the war on terrorism, says Charles Pena, director of defense policy studies at the Cato Institute.
Furthermore, the United States is outspending the rest of the world at an astounding rate. According to the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), in 2003:
Total U.S. defense expenditures were $404.9 billion, an amount exceeding the combined defense expenditures of the next 13 countries and more than double the combined defense spending of the remaining 158 countries in the world. The countries closest in defense spending to the United States were Russia at $65.2 billion and China at $55.9 billion. The United States outspent its NATO allies nearly two to one ($404.9 billion vs. $221.1 billion). The combined defense spending of the remaining “axis of evil” nations (North Korea and Iran) was about $8.5 billion, or 2 percent of U.S. defense expenditures. Although it is impossible to accurately predict future defense expenditures, Pena says the United States is on track to outspend the rest of the world combined sometime during the next 10 to 20 years.
Pena says there are no threats from nation-states that warrant the United States maintaining a large, forward-deployed military presence around the world. A better approach to maintaining U.S. security would be to eschew unnecessary interventions abroad and to reduce overseas Cold War-era military commitments.
Source: Charles Pena, “The War on Terrorism Does Not Require a Burgeoning Defense Budget,” Cato Institute, Policy Analysis No. 539, March 28, 2005.
For text:
http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa539.pdf
For more on Security/Defense: Arms Budget:
The difference is between being able to handle all threats and being so scary we don't have to handle most threats at all.
We need to outspend the rest of the world combined. We have no real friends when the chips are down, other than Australia and Israel.
The British as well....at least their military is very very friendly to the US, especially those who I worked with in Iraq and Qatar....
What's Mr. Pena's cost/benefit analysis on preventing a nuke from going off in an American city?
Rank Country Military expenditures - dollar figure Date of Information
1 United States $ 370,700,000,000 March 2003
2 China $ 67,490,000,000 2003 est.
3 Japan $ 45,841,000,000 2004
4 France $ 45,238,100,000 2003
5 United Kingdom $ 42,836,500,000 2003
6 Germany $ 35,063,000,000 2003
7 Italy $ 28,182,800,000 2003
8 Saudi Arabia $ 18,000,000,000 2002
9 India $ 16,970,000,000 2004
10 Korea, South $ 16,180,000,000 2004
11 Turkey $ 12,155,000,000 2003
12 Brazil $ 11,000,000,000 2004
13 Spain $ 9,906,500,000 2003
14 Canada $ 9,801,700,000 2003
15 Netherlands $ 9,408,000,000 2004
16 Israel $ 9,110,000,000 FY03
17 Taiwan $ 7,574,000,000 2003
18 Mexico $ 6,043,000,000 2004
19 Greece $ 5,890,000,000 2004
20 Sweden $ 5,729,000,000 2004
Thank you for your service.
I'd add poland in there too, although there military still needs to be built up quite a bit. But their special forces are top notch.
we have a high tech military that has things like intelligence and other stuff of that nature included in the defense budget. I would love to see what the Chinese numbers would be if they combined everything...
their military is larger and much more inefficient than ours. That generally does not lead to spending less, but more....
thank you, but I was just a contractor over there...
I worked with heroes and some very very brave people...
That list is amazing to me, a young'in in the 80's. Where's the Soviet Union? Heh.. Just amazing.
Maybe that's because we have the burden of defending the entire dang world.
Hmmm; just a contractor, so we know you were in no danger, right?
Thank you for your courage. We need people like you over there, too, and a lot of people working there have also sacrificed their lives.
Taking that into consideration would likely cut down the difference in spending on pure weapons systems significantly, although there is no doubt we would still lead the pack considerably.
Just something to consider.
As an example, in terms of naval hardware (major combatant ships), over the last ten years the Red Chinese have produced 84 major new combatants in 14 new modern classes while we have produced 55 major new combatants in 6 new modern classes of ships.
Now I believe our 55 are more than a match for their 84...but the point is that over time, that gap will continue to reduce to the point where the outcome is less certain (particularly in litoral areas close to their shores) if we are not vigilant.
Sweden spends $5.7 billion on defense? I wonder what they spend it on?
Actually there are many factories producing civilian products run by the People's Liberation Army; many Chinese generals are devoid of military ability and are essentially corrupt gangsters/industrial managers.
Please list these, I suspect you're including tiny patrol craft.
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