By Tom Kando
Read this and cry: According to the annual report of the Stockholm Peace Research Institute,(SIPRI), the world’s governments spent a combined total of $1.46 trillion on defense in 2008. Despite the worldwide recession, defense spending rose by 4% from 2007 in real dollars, and by 45% over the past 10 years.
Military spending declined briefly after the end of the Cold War. However, it underwent a gigantic increase after 9/11. Under President Bush, US military spending rose to the highest level since World War Two.
The US share of world military spending is 42%. The war on terror has also caused other countries to increase military spending.
Other rising regional superpowers are also contributing to the steady increase in world military spending. In 2008, China became, for the first time, the world’s second most powerful military power. Last year, China’s military budget rose by 15%, to $$46 billion. Over the past 19 years, China’s military budget has increased by more than 10% every single year.
The world economic recession has no impact on the amount of money countries devote to defense (NRC Handelsblad, June 10, 2009).
I suppose this calls for some comments. But what is there to say? Some will argue that the numbers prove America’s exceptional culpability (42% of the world total). Others will say that this is as it should be: There are terrorists and other bad guys out there, so we have no other choice than to defend ourselves and to be strong. Someone has to be the world’s cop, right?
Then there is the euphemistic fraudulence, unmasked long ago by George Orwell: Nowadays it’s always called “defense,” right? A century ago, governments were at least a bit more honest. It was called the Ministry of War, not the Ministry of Defense.
Calling aggression self-defense is old hat. Hitler was only the best-known practitioner of this, as when he justified the invasion of Poland by claiming that Poland was attacking Germany.
Orwell’s future governments went a step further, calling them Ministries of Peace. But we are already there. Countries nowadays engage in Police Actions, they dispatch Peace Keeping Forces, and they fire missiles called “Peace Keepers.” The killing of hundreds of women, babies and other non-combatants is called collateral damage.
And another thing: The countries which can afford it the least are the ones which spend the most on the military. Here are some rankings, from the World Fact Book:
Middle Eastern countries spend the highest percentage of their GDP on the military, namely between 9% and 11%
Israel is also high: 7%
Next are a host of African countries: 5% to 6.5%
China: 4.3%
The US and Russia: about 4%
France: 2.6%
Germany: 1.5%
Most other European countries: 0% (Iceland) to 1%
Japan: .8%leave comment here
6 comments:
Yeah, it's freaky to compare our military budget to other nations' budgets, especially when you discover that, in fact, ours exceeds the SUM of all of theirs combined! Talk about overkill... But what surprises most Americans even more than this is when you show them a comparison of what we spend on military compared to what we spend on other programs. True Majority has a colorful pie chart and bar graph that puts it into perspective. Here's the link:
http://www.truemajority.com/csba/priorities.php
"In contrast to the $463 billion spent by the Pentagon bureaucracy, look at what we're spending on federal programs that politicians often describe as too expensive:
$38 billion on K-12 education;
$50 billion on children's health insurance;
$13 billion on humanitarian foreign aid;
$6 billion on job training;
$2 billion on renewable energy research;
$8 billion on the Environmental Protection Agency."
Per TrueMajority.com (that's Ben's site, of Ben and Jerry's ice cream): "When presented with these facts, two-thirds of Americans would change these budget priorities, shifting funding, as we propose, away from the Pentagon and into programs that benefit communities and families." The problem is that the commercial media keeps this information hidden. Why? Well, did you ever notice that the most frequent advertisers on the main TV channels are corporations like Boeing? "Defense" (..so Orwellian, as you point out..) is HUGELY profitable, and linked inextricably to commercial media.
If the electorate is left in the dark about this, the Pentagon can continue to exploit our tax dollars. Call your Reps!
I am shocked! How can this information be made public? I for one am going to post a link of this on facebook to instruct all those young party goers about what's really going on. Perhaps it will take a tiny drop out of the ocean of ignorance? Thank you Tom and Jan.
I am always upset about the poor conditions of America's roads and highways. We need to be investing in our roads and freeway systems. Also reallocating federal monies to community programs for the poor and needy is important. Of course I am a democrat and fight for the underclass in America.
The statement "Under President Bush, US military spending rose to the highest level since World War Two." is misleading. Defense spending as a percent of GDP was between 6-9% during the Vietnam war and as high as 6% in the 1980's. It has been around 4-5% in the past few years of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.
I appreciate anonymous' comment.
I am not sure that I agree with your numbers. I have seen different ones. 6% during the 80s (Reagan)looks awfully high...
You are right that as a % of GDP, we spent more on the military during the Vietnam War than we have during Bush, so the statement that Bush raised spending to the highest level since WW II is incorrect, at least in relative terms (although in absolute amounts, the statement might still be correct).
Not that it's a good excuse, but the statement came from the Dutch article I was quoting. I should have taken exception to that part of the article...
Tom
Re: Reagan defense spending, see chart at http://www.heritage.org/Research/Features/BudgetChartbook/Defense-Spending-on-the-Decline-Despite-War-on-Terror.aspx
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