I'm under the impression that if the USA doesn't maintain a significant level of military superiority, it will quickly find itself under duress from myriad sources.
This is a path which once you start down, you're somewhat committed to in perpetuity.
> I'm under the impression that if the USA doesn't maintain a significant level of military superiority, it will quickly find itself under duress from myriad sources.
Is England under duress? Is France under duress? Are the Dutch under duress? Is Spain under duress?
Most importantly, at what point do we ask ourselves what it is that we are even defending? 50% of the population making less than 5 richest people?
> Is England under duress? Is France under duress? Are the Dutch under duress? Is Spain under duress?
Those countries were under duress for years during the Cold War, and were protected by the U.S.'s massive military spending during that time. And given that Russia recently annexed part of a sovereign country, those times may be back.
Right, but Russia spends less than one tenth of what we spend on defense. Certainly the Western World can scrape together enough to defend itself from Russia. They took Crimea and Eastern Ukraine because they knew no one would do anything. I think they know where the lines are drawn, and I don’t know why those lines cost the United States $550-600bn per year to maintain.
First, unofficial estimates of Russia’s defense budget are about $70 billion: https://www.rt.com/business/russia-increases-military-spendi.... Second, Russia doesn’t pay soldiers US salaries. Russia’s purchasing power parity (PPP) GDP is 2.6x higher than its exchange rate GDP. Applying that same factor to Russia’s defense budget results in $182 billion. Third, we quite reasonably don’t want to maintain mere parity with our enemies. We want a decisive if not overwhelming advantage. That costs exponentially more money. It’s like Intel’s spending on fab R&D. Intel spends 6x as much as TSMC and 4x as much as Samsung. That buys Intel a well under 50% advantage in fabrication process over those companies. Or airliners. In constant dollars, the 777 cost twice as much as the 747. The 787 cost another factor of two more. For 4x the cost, improvement in fuel use per passenger mile is under 40%. It would be amazing if the less than 3x (real) difference in spending gave us even a twice as capable military.
It's easy to avoid duress when you share an ironclad alliance with the dominant military superpower in the world.
A useful perspective to look at the military budget through is: consider that outspending by multiples every other military power averts wars (because a WW2-scale war with the US would be suicidal). What's the price you would put on avoiding a war at that scale?
This is a path which once you start down, you're somewhat committed to in perpetuity.