In only 12 months, the the amount of our tax dollars dedicated to the US Military will
match the aggregate military budgets of the
worlds other 191 countries.
That implies a military expenditure of nearly a TRILLION US dollars -- including budgets for Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as the 'standard' military budget.
Its report - 'The Defence Industry in the 21st Century' by PwC's global aerospace and defence leader Richard Hooke - adds that "the US is in the driving seat", raising the prospect of a future scenario in which it could "dominate the supply of the world's arms completely".
Although the article focuses on the implications of the defense industry in particular, the implications to the world order are blindingly obvious.
In 2003, the US military budget was $417.4 billion in 2003 - 46 per cent of the global total. That translates to the rest of the world's (ROW's) total budget at $907.4 billion -- and that's in 2003 dollars, not 2006 dollars.
Much more below the fold...
Even at the close of the Clinton Administration (2001) the US military budget was
larger than the combined budgets of the next 26 largest military budgets in the world.
And what about the US budget compared to Afghanistan, Iraq and North Korea? Well, let's see. The US spends (again, these are 2001 figures) nearly 305 times as much on our military as North Korea spends on theirs. The multiple is slightly better for Iraq at 283 times. And Afghanistan?..uhhh? doesn't seem to have a military budget. So that would make the multiple 396.1 / 0 = "undefined" in math-speak. Okay, so Afghanistan's military is "undefined". No worries. "Undefined" enemies fit nicely into Bush's "undefined" wars waged with "undefined" evidence.
And what about the world's nuclear powers? The various budgets (in billions): Russia - $60, China - $42, Britain - $34, France - $25.3, India - $15.6, Israel - $9.0, Pakistan - $2.6, North Korea - $1.3. Hmmm. What kind of technology can Pakistan and North Korea have with such miniscule budgets. Indeed, if they can threaten the world with such puny pockets, why should we be spending an enormous $396.1 billion? Think of what only $100 billion could do for education and health care.
Anyway, to address the claim that we spend little on the military in terms of "percent of GDP", let's see where we rank.
(Note: GDP and Military Spending are in billions of 2001 US Dollars.)
Country ~ Military ~ GDP ~ Mil/GDP
Saudi Arabia ~ 27.2 ~ 191 ~ 14.2%
Russia ~ 60.0 ~ 620 ~ 9.7%
U.A.E. ~ 3.9 ~ 42 ~ 9.4%
Israel ~ 9.0 ~ 105 ~ 8.5%
Luxembourg ~ 0.9 ~ 15 ~ 6.1%
Kuwait ~ 2.6 ~ 45 ~ 5.8%
North Korea ~ 1.3 ~ 23 ~ 5.8%
Singapore ~ 4.3 ~ 98 ~ 4.4%
United States ~ 396.1 ~ 9,255 ~ 4.3%
Ninth place! We rank 9th in the world in terms of military spending as a percentage of GDP. Needless to say, that's an incredibly high ranking to be complaining about. So you can see that the right-wing crybabies have no idea what they're talking about (as if you needed me to tell you that). But wait. There's more. What does not show up in the US budget is the amount of money invested in the US military by other countries such as Japan and Saudi Arabia. Once these numbers are added in, our ranking climbs still further.
You can see above that Saudi Arabia has a huge military budget relative to it's size. Does Saudi Arabia have a huge standing army with cutting edge technology? Hardly. What it does have is US military personnel ordered to crush anyone who dares threaten our base supply of Middle-Eastern oil. The Saudi's, known to you and me as "terrorist-funders" and "Bush business partners", also share in the expense of maintaining US troops there.
There is little doubt that much of these funds would be better spent on domestic priorities and intelligence capabilities in order to raise both our level of domestic security and our standard of living. Nevertheless, as long as the "leadership" of this country has its priorities focused on enriching the defense and oil industries, such a commonsense move is out of the question.