We're 12th, dammit! 
Posted on 05/13/2005 6:42:23 PM PDT by CHARLITE
Last time I looked, we were spending more on health and pension benefits for our retired military than the entire French or German defense budget.
We can either pay for our military victories in dollars or in lives. I prefer dollars. It's one of the things that makes us the greatest and most moral nation on the planet...
We're 12th, dammit!
Read "Cry from the deep", the story of the Kursk disaster, and see what the Russian defense spending has done to their submarine fleet. It's obscene.
That's what I said, without even seeing the PDF
I am not sure of the distinction. Do they not spend funds on offensive weapons? Do they have fighter planes, long range bombers? Japan is entitled to defend its borders as any other nation. Why is their defense not military as you stated?
Except that it is all comes in an assemble-it-yourself flat pack.
For sure.
Also, dollars spent is a poor way of judging military capability. They make TVs and any other commodities in China for pennies. $50 billion spent in China on the military is like the U.S. spending $500 billion. It is NOT dollars spent, it is the ability to project force.
For example, China's navy has expanded at a far faster rate than our navy (which is actually shrinking).
How can this "brain" from CATO be so stupid as to use dollars to compare military capability from one nation vs. the U.S.? For God's sake, for the cost of one F-15, China can build ten latest generation fighters for the same amount of money. Has CATO gone stupid on us?
Juvenile libertarians.
I question a lot of Pena's positions. If I'm not mistaken, he and his CATO organization are more or less for open borders.
Silver and gold keep looking better and better as an investment.
And Japan. Agree though. Get the UN out of the US and US out of the UN. Dissolve the NEA as well.
Agreed. Our country needs to withdraw from the "One china" sham and Shanghai Communiques. Make Taiwan stronger (at least as strong as Japan militarily) and form a strategic triangle to counter China: A new SEATO. Taiwan should become part of the National Missile Defense system like Japan is. In addition to that Taiwan and Japan need nuclear weapons.
Keep the military spending (boost it back to Reagan levels). Dissolve wasteful programs like the UN, NEA, PBS etc.
Quality, not quantity!
I though it was 8 countries last year?
But we are NOT building up our force structure and readiness. We are reducing procurment on the F-22 and other weapon systems, and we are even eliminating weapon systems. We are cutting back on our military bases.
The Defense dollars are going to the war in Iraq and that does NOT help build our force projection.
Ronald Reagan spent money on Defense to build up our military capability since his spending went into new procurement, design and development. George Bush has reduced our military capability, even though total spending on Defense has increased. The problem is the money is NOT going into areas that increase our capability, it is going to fight the war in Iraq and logistics of moving supplies, etc. In fact, billions are going to other nations as bribe money (like to Pakistan) to pretend that they are fighting the war on terror.
The fact is, our military capability has shrunk under George Bush while Russia and China have increased their force projuection capability, and N. Korea and Iran have developed (or will develop soon) nukes.
...and with so much of our manufacturing moved offshore, it will take a herculean, World War II type effort to catch up and put the enemies down.
That is the whole point of what I am trying to say.
The Chinese are on a big upswing. It would be very painful at this point economically to cut their funding off, because we have engrained our own economy so much into theirs...but that pain will pale compared to what may well eventually come in terms of open conflict...anbother World War IMHO...and not just against terror groups, but against nations who ally themselves with them (China, N. Korea, Iran, Syria, Venezuela, and potentially several more).
All of that is the principle reason I wrote the fictional Dragon's Fury story.
The Japanses constitution limits its forces to a "self defense" role. They have given that term a fairly broad reading, however, with Japanese troops having taken part in 'self defense' missions in Iraq. Long range bombers and ballistic missiles would definitely be out.
Their naval (sorry, make that 'maritime self defense') forces are heavy in anti - air and anti - submarine capabilities, much weaker in shore bombardment assets. They do, however, see protection of strategic sea lanes within the 'self defense' sphere.
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