NationStates Jolt Archive

Do you think that spending massive ammounts of money on the worlds most powerful conventional military is an asset for the united states or a liability?

What are the pros and cons, in your opinion, of spending so much money on the armed forces?

What could the money better be spent on?

What is the practical purpose of our military in the world today, and is it possible that it does more harm than good?

Definitely an asset.

Right now we're at a moderate sense of peace. So from peaceful eyes its more of a liability.

But if shit turns sour, and suddenly nations start ganging up on US, the Military would be the countries greatest asset. Plus, their more or less prepared for any type of plausible situation.

Having a competent, well trained, well equiped military can only be an asset.
The use of this asset is where the doubt arises. The liability is in the US political system, which gives direct political control over the military.

I know that in practice the UK has a similar system whereby the control of the military is politically determined, but legally the head of the armed forces is the monarch, who is not a political figure. This does tend to avoid the instigation of armed conflict to distract attention from internal problems.

The US military budget has to be excessive, because the US military pays at least ten times the amount it should for anything, except manpower in the ranks, that is.

If nations started ganging up on the US, the military power would be irrelavent, given that this action would almost have to be economic, not military. The US could not use its military firepower to force countries to drop trade embargos or to make foreigners buy its products. In addition, the US army can not be used legally within the continental US of A (why? I have no idea)

The excessive funding could certainly be better used. Get rid of most of the defecit, or provide genuine healthcafre and social security, rather than just pay lip service to these.

The prescence of a large, capable and diverse military is most definitely an asset to the United States. Throughout the years we have seen the problems that have resulted of insufficient preparedness. And this problem has cost thousands, if not tens of thousands of American lives.

We have learned from the errors of the past that the "peace dividend" is temporary, and the costs of it at the beginning of a war are far to horrible than we can imagine.

And there are threats out there, we may not be able to see them from here, but believe me, there are tremendous threats. We may view China as friendly, or Russia as decrepit and corrupt, or something that is completely outside of anyone's thoughts, but that can change rapidly.

To be able to have a strong military will make it far easier to deal with threats. And will help to keep the threats from coming into existence in the first place.

It is absolutely an asset, and in ways you might not expect.

For example*, the US is the only nation capable of power projection of "soft power". The EU nations can put money and supplies into the SE Asia tsunami disaster zone, but the US is the only power capable of putting an aircraft carrier with enough heavy lift heliocopters in the area. Russia runs a distant second, as they have heavy helos, but can't put them on the scene.

*This is one example of many possible.

Definitely an asset.

Right now we're at a moderate sense of peace. So from peaceful eyes its more of a liability.

But if shit turns sour, and suddenly nations start ganging up on US, the Military would be the countries greatest asset. Plus, their more or less prepared for any type of plausible situation.


Which countries?

And what about our economic power and especially our nuclear deterrant?

It is absolutely an asset, and in ways you might not expect.

For example*, the US is the only nation capable of power projection of "soft power". The EU nations can put money and supplies into the SE Asia tsunami disaster zone, but the US is the only power capable of putting an aircraft carrier with enough heavy lift heliocopters in the area. Russia runs a distant second, as they have heavy helos, but can't put them on the scene.

*This is one example of many possible.


But a dedicated and well armored official 'peace corp' could provide such humanitarian assistance much more efficiently.

If that was the the main utility of our armed forces, we would by no means need to spend the vast sums we do now.

The prescence of a large, capable and diverse military is most definitely an asset to the United States. Throughout the years we have seen the problems that have resulted of insufficient preparedness. And this problem has cost thousands, if not tens of thousands of American lives.

We have learned from the errors of the past that the "peace dividend" is temporary, and the costs of it at the beginning of a war are far to horrible than we can imagine.

And there are threats out there, we may not be able to see them from here, but believe me, there are tremendous threats. We may view China as friendly, or Russia as decrepit and corrupt, or something that is completely outside of anyone's thoughts, but that can change rapidly.

To be able to have a strong military will make it far easier to deal with threats. And will help to keep the threats from coming into existence in the first place.

The cold war taught us that a nuclear arsenal is what is key to preventing attack by a large foreign power, and in the last decade economic interdependence has removed any incentive for a nation to attack the US, as it would result in sure economic collapse.

Our greatest threat from china is doubtless an economic one, as it must be remembered that they finance much of what our government does by paying for our deficit spending. Among a great many other reasons, of course.

No tank division or airplane squadron can do anything about that either.

Having a competent, well trained, well equiped military can only be an asset.
The use of this asset is where the doubt arises. The liability is in the US political system, which gives direct political control over the military.

I know that in practice the UK has a similar system whereby the control of the military is politically determined, but legally the head of the armed forces is the monarch, who is not a political figure. This does tend to avoid the instigation of armed conflict to distract attention from internal problems.

The US military budget has to be excessive, because the US military pays at least ten times the amount it should for anything, except manpower in the ranks, that is.

If nations started ganging up on the US, the military power would be irrelavent, given that this action would almost have to be economic, not military. The US could not use its military firepower to force countries to drop trade embargos or to make foreigners buy its products. In addition, the US army can not be used legally within the continental US of A (why? I have no idea)

The excessive funding could certainly be better used. Get rid of most of the defecit, or provide genuine healthcafre and social security, rather than just pay lip service to these.



First you said that the armed forces were an asset, then that the money was wasted because the military has no practical use against modern threats (which are economic)

I agree with the second point completely, that the military does not make our country stronger in a world where strength is a function of finances and economics rather than conventional military might.

None of our potential enemies are vulnerable to conventional military attack.

Which said, a strong nuclear deterrant is important, but we already have one in the form of nuclear submarines with ICBMs.