Military Expenditures as a percent of GDP

[Toad]

Naso,

Read what I wrote. Remember the other threads.

You and I ARE on the same side in this discussion.  

[Naso]

Ouch  

Ooops, you're right  

I'm so used to made nice flamewars with you that I misread your posts, doh!  

Rereading it, I agree... with you

(Oh, my... what i've said!!!   )

   

[Toad]

<S> Naso.

[Naso]

<S> Toad.  

[miko2d]

Originally posted by Naso:
Keep you finghers (sp?) out of other's land  and/or economy and maybe nobody will care to f*ck you.

 Last time I was in Italy, I have not seen any american occupation troops forcing you to buy american products or watch american movies. If you want americans out of your economy, buy Italian.

 miko

[DingHao2]

What percent of their GDP do Iraq, Iran, Libya, and China spent on their military?

[Gh0stFT]

Ding, im not sure if those countrys have an GDP at all. My gues is they spend all money they can get into military, and zero in aid (and this all even they mostly can't feed theyr own people).

[Sandman]

Originally posted by Toad:
Time to bring the troops home, seriously consider what we need to defend the territorial integrity of the US, perhaps provide a reasonably sized "quick reaction force" to help out in UN authorised events and then DOWNSIZE our military accordingly.

Our military IS downsized. Joint staff analysis shows that Army contingency deployments are 15 times what they were in 1989; the number of Air Force personnel deployed is 39% higher than in Vietnam with a fraction of the number of people; the Navy responded to 2.4 times as many crises in the 1990s than the 1980s with only 63% of the people and half the ships. The service budgets have been reduced considerably since 1985 in constant-year dollars. At the same time, defense agency budgets have increased by 70%!

Here's the juice... Including health care and other defense-wide expenses, defense infrastructure costs have increased by 264% for a force that is 40% smaller than it was in 1985.

Bringing the troops home will save you NOTHING.

[ 08-03-2001: Message edited by: Sandman_SBM ]

[Dowding]

So if your military is already smaller, but you are spending more on it, where is that money actually going?

'In return, we get insulted'. If that isn't a statement couched in self-pity, I don't know what is.  

Cheap oil and free global markets. Good investments, I should think; you don't really believe the American administration would go on with this situation if it was not intrinsically beneficial to it?

I'd like to know how willing the average American would be to carry an increase in fuel prices - which is what would happen if the oil company's had to support more of the cost in keeping market's open.

What will all this personnel do once it returns to the States? Sweep the streets?

I can see the recruitment posters:

'Join the Army - see how to really keep a street clean'

I've always thought one of the attractions of the Forces (in any country) was the prospect of foreign travel.

[funkedup]

I'm with Toad and the Nose.  

 

So if your military is already smaller, but you are spending more on it, where is that money actually going?

Dowding the military has gotten smaller but they are upgrading equipment.  They seem to be trying to have a smaller force that is more potent per-unit or per-man.

[Toad]

I disagree Sandman.

The increased deployments into hostile environments ARE way more expensive than maintaining a peacetime training posture. Particularly a peactime training posture AT HOME.

Why have we patrolled two no-fly zones in Iraq for 10 years? While France, the UK and the US declared the zones, almost the entire operation is performed by US aircraft. (The Brits are supplying a Tornado squadron but AFAIK the French haven't supplied aircraft.)
Iraq does not pose a direct threat to the US. Iraqi troops are not going to land at Atlantic city.

You think those deployments haven't raised our defense costs? Additionally, somebody is helping Iraq improve its air defenses. Costs are going to go up further, probably in blood as well as money.

The Balkans? You think THAT operation is cheaper than keeping those troops at home?
No Serb troops are poised to invade the US.

The list goes on and on. The increasing number of deployments to events that do not threaten the sovereignity or integrity of the US (human rights deployments, etc) are EXPENSIVE.

I'll wager the US contributes more to those operations than anyone. Why should we do more than our share?

Additionally, we spend of lot of money renting facilities from host countries. The government already owns and operates underutilized bases stateside. There'd be a savings there.

We pay COLA for overseas deployments that would be reduced stateside.

We spend extra money moving dependents on accompanied tours.

This list is endless as well.

Overall, we need to cut out the excessive temporary   deployments and the needless overseas troop permanent deployments.

We don't need a military this large to defend the sovereignity and integrity of the US. We don't need a military this large to do our share in international UN "human rights" operations.

[Toad]

Believe me Dowding, it isn't any kind of pity. It's simply a statement of fact, coupled to a much different emotion.  

We're spending more on the military partly because troop deployments into a combat situation are vastly more expensive than peacetime operations.

Your concern over the potential downsizing of the US military is quite touching.  

Don't worry, we have lots to do here at home. Right now our unemployment is about at the average for the last 10 years. Recently it was significantly below that.

[funkedup]

Yep I'm pretty sure US employers would be able to find something for a few hundred thousand clean-cut disciplined young men to do.  
Just imagine if all those guys were out there contributing to the economy instead of using up tax dollars.    

[Sandman]

Originally posted by Dowding:
So if your military is already smaller, but you are spending more on it, where is that money actually going?

There it is, the $64,000 question.

Here's a good place to start digging for the answer: http://www.dtic.mil/comptroller/fy2002budget/

[ 08-03-2001: Message edited by: Sandman_SBM ]

[-dead-]

China:
Military expenditures - dollar figure: $12.608 billion (FY99); note - Western analysts believe that China's real defense spending is several times higher than the official figure because a number of significant items are funded elsewhere
Military expenditures - percent of GDP: 1.2% (FY99)

Iran:
Military expenditures - dollar figure: $5.787 billion (FY98/99)
Military expenditures - percent of GDP: 2.9% (FY98/99)

Iraq:
Military expenditures - dollar figure: $NA
Military expenditures - percent of GDP: NA%

Libya:
Military expenditures - dollar figure: $NA
Military expenditures - percent of GDP: NA%

(you gotta marvel at these two - the CIA don't know how much Iraq or Libya spend on their military   <I suppose with iraq, they're more used to just checking the receipts> )

South Korea:
Military expenditures - dollar figure: $9.9 billion (FY98/99)
Military expenditures - percent of GDP: 3.2% (FY98/99)

North Korea:
Military expenditures - dollar figure: $3.7 billion to $4.9 billion (FY98 est.)
Military expenditures - percent of GDP: 25% to 33% (FY98 est.)


Taiwan:
Military expenditures - dollar figure: $8.042 billion (FY98/99)
Military expenditures - percent of GDP: 2.8% (FY98/99)

Well there you go, and remember kids, all these figures are from the CIA, so they'll definitely be factual and impartial, because the CIA would never lie to the American Public or the rest of the world.