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Tuesday 17 August 2010
America's Runaway Military Spending

But why should anyone want to cut the U.S. military budget?

One reason is that—with $549 billion requested for basic military expenditures and another $159 billion requested for U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan—the record $708 billion military spending called for by the Obama administration for fiscal 2011 will be nearly equivalent to the military spending of all other nations in the world combined.  When it comes to military appropriations, the U.S. government already spends about seven times as much as China, thirteen times as much as Russia, and seventy-three times as much as Iran.  

Is this really necessary?  During the Cold War, the United States confronted far more dangerous and numerous military adversaries, including the Soviet Union.  And the U.S. government certainly possessed an enormous and devastating military arsenal, as well as the armed forces that used it.  But in those years, U.S. military spending accounted for only 26 percent of the world total.  Today, as U.S. Congressman Barney Frank has observed, “we have fewer enemies and we’re spending more money.”

Where does this vast outlay of U.S. tax dollars—the greatest military appropriations in U.S. history—go?  One place is to overseas U.S. military bases.  According to Chalmers Johnson, a political scientist and former CIA consultant, as much as $250 billion per year is used to maintain some 865 U.S. military facilities in more than forty countries and overseas U.S. territories.

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