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US, And Global, Military Spending Summed Up In One Chart
While we previously noted the relative stability (but absolute surge) in US military spending over the past few decades, the scale of what the world's peace-keeping, red-line enforcing, hypocrisy-packed nation spends in context to the rest of the world...
Source: AFP
We previously put the US military budget in context over time...
And unless we get some serious military conflict to blame a reflation on, and if U.S. military spending were to revert to its 2000 level over the next five years, as President Obama had proposed, and the rest of the world were to continue spending the same portion of its GDP on the military, U.S. military spending as a share of the global total would decline sharply, to just under 30 percent.
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add prison spending to the chart and it's WTF, time!
If we didn't spend so much on defense those wily Canadians and sodden Mexican would be overrunning us.
LOL, it's actually the opposite, haven't met more people from Virginia (in Alberta) than the last time i was in Virginia...and they ain't here for the hockey
U.S. military spending as a share of the global total would decline sharply, to just under 30 percent.
Except... the 'official' numbers cited are pure horseshit.
http://cdn.theatlantic.com/static/mt/assets/steve_clemons/Defense%20Budg...
And what do we get for our hard earned dollars? This place is still CRAWLIN' with lucies....
Reduce spending ib MIC and the terrsts win, apparently. They hate us for our illusion of freedom.
we previously noted the relative stability (but absolute surge)
I can almost parse what she means by that,
but damn it's piss poor writing. It probably means that defense spending has not declined, while the private sector has.
True, but dishonest, deceptive, and a crazy way to look at the world. Apply the same standard to welfare or sick care, and see what you get.
@ spending:
Yeah it is the biggest, but what about the efficiency of the spending?
Lets see it is the lowest among the top 3, I suspect it is actually closer to the Czechs efficiency (the gov is quiet corrupt there and it is in NATO).
Thank you. Iraq "war costs" doesn't even count things like bullets.
How much of our defense budget goes to PowerPoint presentations? I'll bet at least 33%.
Check out Russia at a measly 5%. Wow, russia is such a war mongering country! Omg, lets rush some 'lethal aid' to poland to counter their massive military expenditures! Gelauf!
My point is that, despite our large expenditures, I'll bet we get less in terms of weapons, ammo, and boots on the ground per dollar than any other country. Wny? Because a lot of our defense $$ is eaten up by things like cost overruns, military and civilian benefits, Beltway bandits, contract churn, Congressionally mandated pork, and even social programs. As as former military (AF) officer, so I've seen this from the inside. Our system has an enormous amount of waste and inefficiency. In any non-Western country, people would be executed, if necessary, to fix these problems.
Yep. I was a consultant to the DoD for a while. Unfuckingbelievable waste out there. The DoD was all over it saying things like "we might as well spend all of this money allotted to us since we probably wont ever get another Milcon project in our lifetimes."
I can't speak for the Mexicans but come about mid January even California looks pretty appealing. I mean can you blame us?
Don't be afraid of your freedom!
http://ethanmichaly.blogspot.com/2014/04/soft-landing.html
CFR Propaganda. The last chart. This fake news simultaneously taps into your alarm over military spending and at the same time diffuses the concern by implying in the last chart that everything's fixed and on the way down. So, look through the veil: false flag coming.
HOW does the Military Industrial Complex create a flase flag to prop up the Petro dollar or World Reserve Currency status, I have not heard of any scenario that would not do the opposite. The Petro dollar is dying and there is little to do to stop it.
It's an old tactic that has worked in the past, but it won't work this time. The clock has run out.
the petro in petrodollar, is now russian
Don't forget the Fucking TSA..
China is looking for trouble...
Here was me hoping they'd be dumping the dollar next week.
And most people on this website think Russia would kick the U.S. and its allies asses if things get hot. Ridiculous. NOBODY wants a hot, massive war....especially Putin. 1. He's no monster who wants to destroy the world. 2. He knows he wouldn't win that kind of war. 3. He knows the Russian people wouldn't support it. Now if we can just get past the next couple of years with an idiot as U.S. President we might be all right.
....are you absolutely sure there's not another idiot waiting to be given the job in a couple of years, or does it all of a sudden just get so much better two years from now because some useless toad gets to wear the magic cuff links?
f.a.n.t.a.s.y
Well, there's military spending on effective measures, then there's military spending on the F22 Raptor.
Not the same thing at all.
The F22 Raptor is actually pretty effective...the F35 on the otherhand is the biggest boonedoggle in the history of Military projects.
"the Pentagon’s supposedly “all weather” F-35 Lightning II, ironically, cannot fly within 25 miles of lightning"
http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/2013/09/joint-strike-fighter-lockheed...
This is true. Many around here actually think the US would be in trouble in any kind of "conventional" war. It's an anti-US fantasy. It's likely that the US could fight the rest of the world combined to a draw in such a war. The US air superiority is just massive and would destroy the Russian and Chinese air forces in the first 24 hours. The problem the US has is asymmetrical war and governing what it overruns
How many wars has the US won lately? How many has Russia lost.....ever?
Conventional wars? All of them. Guerrilla wars...not doing as well
All of them? Really? You must have a unique definition of 'conventional war.'
Not really. Vietnam was not a conventional war. I will give you that Korea was a draw. Conventional military won in both Iraq (twice) and Afghanistan, but it was the governing afterwards and guerrilla warfare that lost the conflict. Is I that so hard to understand?
And the US never lost a major conventional conflict in Vietnam including to Chinese troops. When the enemy doesn't wear uniforms and could be anyone is when they struggle
Conventional military won in both Iraq (twice) and Afghanistan
Who was the US looking to fight in Afghanistan anyway?? I was unware of it being the Afghan military.
And US defeated Saddam sure, but they lost Iraq.
Calling both conflicts conventional wars is a real stretch.
So, taking nukes out of the equation since everyone loses. Your position is that Russia could take on the US in a ground war? That's deluded. The US would have total air superiority before the Russian Air Force got off the ground and the Russian Navy would never make it out of port. I think US foreign policy is insane, but those are just facts
Your position is that Russia could take on the US in a ground war?
Yes. US has never fought a war toe to toe unless the enemy is severely mismatched, Russia has. No chance Americans could take on Russians on Russian soil especially considering the shape of the troops at this point.
US bombed the shit out of Vietnam - not exactly a military equal - and still lost.
US troops would never, and wouldn't have to, set foot on Russian soil. Wars are fought in the air now, where the US has such an advantage it's not even a contest
Wars are fought in the air now, where the US has such an advantage it's not even a contest
US bombs Russia to hell and the Russians wave the white flag in defeat lol
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allied_intervention_in_the_Russian_Civil_Wa...
The allies withdrew in 1920.
I agree. If the US started to bomb Russia the Nukes would be comming at us in no time.
The 1941 Luftwaffe wiped out the Russian Air Force, achieved air superiority, and bottled up the Russian Fleet in Murmansk and Leningrad. How'd that work out?
I love these discussions of which socialist tyrant would win in a war with each other.
Putin or Obama.
Lemme go run grab my popcorn ;-)
Russia has generally lost 6 wars. The Muscovite-Lithuanian Wars, the Russian-Manchu Border Conflicts, the French Revolutionary Wars, the Russo-Japanese War, World War I and the Soviet War in Afghanistan.
I meant in context of US invading Russia. Russia has a very good track record of not being defeated and the US has a good (recent) track record of not winning. If Russia was aiming to invade US obviously it would be a different story.
Maybe we should define victory. Of course the US isn't going to plant a flag in Moscow. As far as completely destroying their military assets, yes the US could do that quite easily
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHoJynTAGMc
And you think Vlad would just sit on his arse and let this happen without this response
Of course not. He would place a priority call to the smoking hole formerly known as the Kremlin.
As far as completely destroying their military assets, yes the US could do that quite easily
Quite obviously not the case considering Russia would move to Nuclear immediately. If you're defining victory as military annihilation it's impossible. It would be an unconventional war and the US wouldn't win.
They also had some trouble with Finland and the Finns are only about 5 million.
"How many has Russia lost.....ever?"
They lost in Afghanistan in 1989.
The Soviet Union collapased in 1991.
Pretty lousy record in the last 25 years!
Also, its leadership lacks all integrity and has forgotten or never cared about the notion of a Constitutional republic.
You have a very naive view of war. It really does matter where the war is being fought. The US blue water navy is largely irrelevant to a ground war with Russia in Europe, which is the only place any conflict with Russia will occur. And Russia has little trade outside the EuroAsian land mass to interdict.
Modern fighter aircraft are useless without convenient bases, as are troops. And the way the US fights they all require massive logistics. Which might be fine for the US if it were fighting Russia in Germany, which it won't be, not so fine if it is fighting Russia in eastern Europe where the logistics and home territory advantage supports Russia.
The US stripped its assets in Europe to support its adventures in the ME and Afghanistan. Those assets cannot be quickly replaced.
The US air superiority is "massive" when it is fighting militarily unsophisticated countries like Libya, Syria and Afghanistan. If it attempts to fight Russia or China on their home territory it will be facing not just strong air forces but very strong anti-aircraft ground-based defences.
Because the US military (along with some allied help, no less) did so well with a handful of cave-dwelling zealots.
Cut the pork out of that budget and I doubt the comparative figures are much different.
The Russians don't have 200 staff officers dancing attendance on a 2 star general,let alone a huge overstaffed white elephant called the pentagon.Admirals geared up to re fight
Midway.Plus the Russians are fighting defensively which gives them a 5:1 advantage before you even talk about overpriced crap like the F35, and other weapons built by political
consensus, not for military need or use.
Putin might well win that kind of war, but I'd rather not
find that out.Putin and the Chinese, well............
The Russians have a tendency to survive.
Meh, true of all of us, but not relevant.
Turkeys live very well thank you, until Thanksgiving, and Russia has been over run several times..., from the East.
If you think this is all hinged on Obama, you are delusional and need to read more books. I suggest Michael Hudson, Peter Dale Scott, Ellen Brown and John Perkins for starters.
Nukes are cheap and effective.
Russia has lots of 'em, complete with delivery mechanisms.
Nuclear war is not winnable. If it ever happens, and any humans survive, in a few hundred years the names of the people will be synonymous with stupidity and evil.
"Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But now we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense; we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. Added to this, three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on military security more than the net income of all United States corporations.
This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence -- economic, political, even spiritual -- is felt in every city, every State house, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.
In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.
We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together."
-Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1960
The last statesman we had for a president.
And he was the last man who had to fight a war... .
And ever since all we have had are idealistic politicians.
And ever since all we have had are greedy, corrupt politicians.
FIFY
Nah, this guy......
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XnOnDatqENo
Eisenhower was the last decent man to occupy the White House.
Almost 65 years since Ike gave that speech. It is arguably one of THE most important speeches ever delivered by a President to the Citizenry.
He warned the Citizenry in no uncertain terms of the danger to Liberty from encroaching unwarranted influence of corporations upon a corruptable Congress and captured Bureaucracies. It is wholly regretable and rather saddening that He was so prescient and accurate in foretelling the dismantling of Liberties the preservation of which He laboured to defend and sustain nearly his whole life.
An early draft of that speech read: " military-industrial-Congressional complex"
And why didn't he make that speech at his inauguration instead of his farewell. It may have made a difference.
Military men are “dumb, stupid animals to be used” as pawns for foreign policy.
Henry Kissinger,
National Security Advisor to Nixon, 1973
And for photo ops...... Gotta have the Prez posing with 'the troops' to show his patriotism - even when he never served (like so many of late) or studiously avoided service (cough... 43... cough).
EVERY politician who votes for war should have their own children serving in the front line - or better yet, as with Kings in the wars of the past - the President himself should be at the head of his troops
Yeah why don't you spend until you drop....dead literally.
Once Google weaponises cars with their remote car programm, this will start to get evilly bad all over.
First they weaponised the planes by turning them into drones and that is large distance but with cars it will be close combat.
In fact, anything that can be activated and controlled from a distance is a weaponised device. And that's pretty scary if you see everything is so easy to transform.
Like a week ago, I was surfing minitake and you could for example buy switches you could activate with you iphone, pad, android for a few bucks turning everything you want in a remote controlled device.
The true Welfare Queens. And the leadership literally does drive around in Escalades while pulling in nice six figure salaries and pensions that the average "civilian" would die for. Of course that's chump change for these guys. The price tag on a typical armored vehicle would make the Cadillac dealer blush.
And the militarized police are no better. I went down the beach today and saw probably 10 cops driving around in brand new vehicles. One in particular was in a tricked out Yukon. This is Florida, mind you. Not a lot of snow here that requires a high end 4x4, and across the state in Daytona people routinely take their Hondas out on the beach. At one point I saw him take off and floor it. At first I thought he was on his way to harass someone, but no. He was just having fun. Why not beat on it? He doesn't own it.
The militarized police are far worse than the federal mercs in many ways.
The only enemies to repress and incarcerate are the Citizens within the jurisdiction.
The only fines that can be levied are levied upon the Citizens of the jurisdiction.
The only contraband available to confiscate is the property of the Citizens with the jurisdiction.
The only way to perpetuate status and insure compensation and benefits is to tax and/or fine, divest and/or confiscate from, and repress and incarcerate the other Citizens within the jurisdiction. ...their own Neighbors.
Here, on the eve of Easter itself; this seems regretably apporpriate and instructive:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1IQicmIiXM
Yep, Soviet Union collapsed. The military budget should have been reduced accordingly. It wasn't. Since the US got its butt kicked in Vietnam, the military budget has increased five fold. And for what? the Middle East countries that are dawn-to-dusk sand? LOL
We never got our butts kicked stupid hippy, the leadership just chose to up and leave after a clusterfuck of "engagement bullshit".
Guess you can't cope with knowing that this is how the military is viewed by the ruling elites
Military men are “dumb, stupid animals to be used” as pawns for foreign policy. Henry Kissinger.
Wars aren't won or lost.
Money is made.
-- Wars aren't won or lost --
The secret revealed. "Winning is irrelevant: it's PARTICIPATION that counts." That's part of the conditioning program in American Public Schools. Perpetual war feeds the Machine.
- Major General Smedley Butler
this is what makes this current situation in eastern Europe so dangerous.
there is a clear decline in western influence and ability to manipulate the rest of the world politically and economically and it's becoming almost impossible to tilt things in their favor.
and that decline is picking up steam and now even the very bedrock of western economic superiority, the mighty petrodollar is at risk.
desperation, or at least a new found sense of urgency perhaps is starting to settle in, this is evident by the absurd lengths to which DC is going to paint Putin as the raving lunatic invader madman hell bent on re-conquering all of eastern Europe. the above charts tell us that Washington has does still have one last card to play, one final ace in the hole to either regain the dominate global initiative or if they can't, leave it in such a state that nobody else will be able to either.
those who acquire great power and vast influence over the affairs, thoughts and actions of men learn to fear only one thing...
losing that power.
do you really think the delusional, psychopathic culture in Washington could ever feel safe, could ever deal with the idea of existing among nations of equals?
if you have any doubt just look at the way they treat us.
Amen
Replace governments with open source software.
I wonder how it would look, not based on currency adjusted relative costs, but based on labor adjusted relative costs. Admittedly, All governments have graft and corruption, but the raw labor anod overhead rates of of thie different countries varies greatly. My guess is that it costs 1/10 for China to produce a tank, drone or aircraft carrier as it costs the US. I also bet that China is paying less than the $180,000/ea in salary for its troops, when the US is paying that PLUS massive overhead to the connected crooks for its mercenaries. (I guess the US learned nothing from Rome)
There is no doubt that the US is getting much less for its money than the rest of the world and as result the % of total spend is a ridiculous measure. It means nothing.
Has anyone put out an honest comparison of military spending, the U.S. vs. the world?
I don't think our military budget counts nuclear weapons research, maintenance, cleanup, and production, Veterans Affairs, the Treasury Department's payments in pensions to military retirees and widows and their families, interest on debt incurred in past wars, or State Department financing of foreign arms sales and militarily-related development assistance. Neither does it include defense spending that is not military in nature, such as DHS, counter-terrorism spending by the FBI, and intelligence-gathering spending by NSA.
Actually, all the countries in GREY (except Russia, UAE, and Brazil) have small budgets because the U.S. has treaties with them promising security in exchange for bases or fly-over rights. Look at NATO, the U.S. has financed it for decades so those countries military are symbolic.
it is remarkeable that
1) russia spends so little
2) saudi arabia spends so much and does so little directly in syria . liveleak videos show them using their weapons to put on great 4th of july displays. insane videos
3) japan and germany both 'peaceful' conquered and CURRENTLY OCCUPIED countries from world war 2 spending so much.
i think the numbers really don't do the story justice.
on one hand you COULD interpret the numbers and the current financial sitution to predict the USA is preciptiously pursuing empire and about to lose its ability to project force should a major currency war ensue and result in a situation where a shortage of oil in the u.s and a spike of interest rates causes internal instability , like in russia, that upends military spending regardless of how the civil distrurbance is handled.
OR YOU could read the situation to reflect an empire that is gearing up to use germany and japan as buffer countries in ww3, because the money is all bullshit and ww3 is obviously in the works with a plan by the united states to ramp up domestic oil and gas production in order to guarantee the limited conflicts engaged by the u.s. are so overwhelmingly one sided victories, that the world is not faced to confrotn and nuclear attacks on the major cities of imperial power. both the west and east are spared and the real losers are the worlds poor.
its obvious the west has major problems, russia LOST the power once retained by the soviet union to project force but retiains unmatched strategic dominance over the LARGEST soveriegn land mass in the world. and that the chinese probably dont' give a rats ass about the western pretensions of global government as anything but a silly facade for bloodless imperial trade negotiations . china clearly setting the terms for trade in the east, with america simply and awkwardly failing to stop the trade advances of the chinese by way of organizing the shangai cooperation council of 5 being the obvious new BLOCK for organizing the CHINESE world order without the dollar/pound/euro/yen axis.
How much of the Saudi spending is a subsidy of the US defense industry or proxy spending in support of US interests?
a·sym·met·ri·cal (idiocy)
This is a propoganda piece. Black budgets have existed and grow within each nation and beyond borders serving transnational interest groups jockeying for their supremacy (the 'breakway civilisation' comes to mind). These black budgets service privatised military operations and sequestered technology not necessarily available or known to most of national military defence services. Money is siphoned from government departments through multiple sets of accounting 'books' and computer systems controlled ultimately by private corporate contractors.
Western national defences are being weakened/purged/compromised by internal decrees; anti-western sentiment being fomented with a mix of legit and false flag activities; meanwhile the world is being re-arranged via trade/treaties/financial & tax regulations/etc towards a globalised melting pot.
Its interesting to note that Putin lamented the demise of the soviet union in 2005 as reported by BBC etc, he's slowly re-gaining land mass. Joel Skousen does have an interesting perspective on Putin's hand in engineering the Ukraine crisis. (Its worth keeping an open mind during events because its often much later before we can put the pieces together as to which of TPTB were playing games).
Slowly the balance of power is being shifted we are perhaps still just in the early stages of what will transpire over the next few years. It will take time for a BRICS-type axis to be built into a real power house but we're already being weakened as western nations to enable it.
(is the breakaway civilisation also being weakened? Unlikely, they hold secret tech, resources & infrastructure over a global range - secretive ranches, bunkers, military outposts with undisclosed weapons and experiements, separate private travel facilities and god knows what else whilst we're pointed to look at our navels for global warming, terrorist "threat" based money & security controls and anti-special interest group rights theatre - no one genuinely gains liberty from all this shit in the long run).
The coming economic shocks will provide an interesting observation point - who gets weakened and who gets shafted? Who grows and strengthens over time? How do twists in 'reversal of fortunes' appear and serve propoganda memes that become clearer with the passing of time (I do not mean via conveniently timed 'leaks' but real pains-taking research and documentation.)
Saudi Arabia > France and Britain?? wtf?
Tells you all you need to know why Mr. Putin has a free hand in Eastern Europe.
Our war spending is a shame on us all. What terrible things we do to each other in the name of "King of the Mountain". War is a fools errand.