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Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch
The US Military is the most global of all the militaries in the world. The American Military was designed to fight 2 major ground wars, a holding action and multiple peace keeping missions at the same time. As well they due to a lot of treaty obligations have bases on every continents and fleets and air force assets in nearly every body of water. So of course their military spending is high. Because their mission is unique and huge and diverse and complex.
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Yeah, I get that. As the global hegemon and primary upholder of the global economic order, it has to project power all over the world to ensure that order's security. Before WW2, Great Britain had the same role, and spent enormous sums on a navy the protected the world's trade while other countries (like the U.S.) got to sit back and enjoy the benefits.
But the U.S. today doesn't do this out of the tenderness of its heart - just as Great Britain didn't either. It does it because it's a trading nation that has commercial interests around the globe that it needs to protect.
Quote:
Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch
Probably if America did say screw it, we're bringing all of our troops home, we're going to concentrate our spending on the defense of America and we will not deploy for NATO or anyone else. We're going to bring home our navies in the Indian Ocean and the Med and the Seas off of Japan and leave the defense of those to those local countries. Oh and if anyone attacks the American mainland we have 5000 nukes that we're not afraid to use as part of our primary offensive strategy. They could certainly shorten supply lines and do what China and Russia do which is have less troops that they lavishly spend on they could probably cut their defense budget significantly.
However it wouldn't take long for Chaos to break out in the areas that America would abandon.
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Americans who cling to that isolationist dream are in denial about how much they rely on a secure global trading environment for their prosperity. Fortunately, the wealthy and powerful who have the decisive influence in U.S. politics are not in denial. Who do you think pushed the enormous expansion of American military capability post-WWW2 in the first place?