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Comment by SpaceRaccoon | Hacker News Reader

Yes, funding a $600 billion military industrial complex [0]. Just think, your complete yearly taxes were probably almost enough for a single JDAM [1] which was then dropped on Iraq, in a war where 13% of all civilians were killed directly by US-led forces [2], and many more in the chaos that ensued from the invasion.

But you love it.

[0] - https://www.nationalpriorities.org/campaigns/military-spendi...

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joint_Direct_Attack_Munition

[2] - https://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2012/jan/03/iraq-b...

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The problem with that isn't taxation, it's voting in people who approve that spending.

UK tax payer here, so the specifics are different, but I have no problem paying my taxes. We have decent free health care, a capable and I think 'right sized' armed forces for our needs, competent policing and security services and my children get free education. If any of those things were not true I wouldn't necessarily want my taxes to be reduced, I'd want the problems with those services to be fixed.

I found https://uk.wikibudgets.org/w/united-kingdom-budget-2015 a few days ago.

I had assumed the defense budget was larger, it was a nice way of displaying the information.

"I think 'right sized' armed forces for our needs"

The UK armed forces do seem a bit top-heavy and our record when it comes to procurement is, by most accounts, appalling.

Right-sized? You have almost no tanks anymore, and the ones you do are 80's era. The Royal Navy is a shadow of a shadow navy. The RAF is woefully under-equipped to protect against Russian incursions.

Maybe they are not worried about the Russians but about other "under the table" threats where someone might shoot first.

I agree. The outrage is how taxes are spent. If my tax dollars are used poorly then it's difficult to feel good about paying them.

Couldnt upvote you more.

Its called "chain of numbness". Chasing doesn't murder innocent Iraq children; he is far from it but by aiding financially the army that does murder, are his hands truly clean?

The thing is, taxes don't really pay for the military. We have a huge deficit. It's all on the credit card.

The $600 billion figure is misleading when compared to other countries, as it's not adjusted for cost of living, cost of countries we trust (and therefore buy arms from) also having a higher cost of living, etc.

Why precisely is having the worlds largest military bad? Do you think it doesnt add any value? It seems theres a lot of people outside of America who'd like to see it shrunk for very bad reasons.

Why not keep the military and solve our problems without it? We need it to be safe now, and until we've already solved our problems, we'll still need it.

Obviously it doesn't always work well and it definitely causes problems, doesn't mean we should get rid of or even reduce it.

Having the largest military in reserve? No problem with that, personally.

Having them used as they are now and deployments in the recent past, not so much.

A large military "in reserve" becomes stagnant, and unable to operate in new real world conflicts. Look at the Vietnam war, or the current conflict in the Ukraine. Tactics change, and large militaries bent on keeping their swollen budgets in tact are poor at responding to emerging threats.

My point is that these smaller conflicts (albeit mostly misguided) are useful to guide and reform strategy, tactics and spending.

So we should kill a couple of hundred thousand people every decade or so to keep our game up? Seems pretty indefensible. I'd rather invest a much smaller amount of money into honest red team war gaming.

I said they're useful, I don't agree or advocate the strategy. Like it or not (I do not) small regional conflicts teach valuable lessons that cannot be learned in training, or during "war gaming". When the enemy possess weapons or tactics that you have not seen used, or demonstrated they cannot be integrated into a war game. Look at the upgraded armor, drone usage, IED detection/suppression, sniper detection developed for and used in the middle east. This barely existed (maybe in concept) before the conflicts of the 00's. Similar lessons are being learned in the Ukraine right now (counter drone operations, active tank armor, electronic warfare/signal jamming etc.)

The bad is there is an opportunity cost of dollars spent. And the US could likely still dominate global firepower rankings at half the current spend, meanwhile this saving could significantly improve the education or health system with that money. Or reduce the tax burden on people. Or simply bank it to reduce the debt and burden of repayment for future years. Lots you could do with hundreds of billions.

Some people would disagree with you. I believe military and defense spending should actually be one of the only role of governments. Leave healthcare and education to industry. Let the free market decide the curriculum, teachers salaries, and come up with innovative ways of teaching. I see no reason Khan academy shouldn't be allowed to teach our children. Since when did it become common place to allow a government to come up with a path of study, and make it mandatory to send your kid to for 13 years? As governments slowly accept more and more social programs, the government balloons. Value produced slowly stops representing capital. In germany, where social programs are abundant you get a lot of leeches on the economy. Very long unemployment timeframes, with reltively good pay, Full health coverage, unlimited sick time if you have a doctors note. In a system that can be "gamed", there will be a large amount of people who do so.

I don't believe there are systems that can't be gamed. Given that assumption it's probably better to decide policy based on actual results. In places where social programs are abundant you have fewer suffering individuals, it seems healthier to count that as a win and not get hung up on the (truly rather small) percentage of people potentially gaming the system.

Seems like the comment you're replying to is fine with our system that can be gamed by those at the top but is afraid of gaming by those at the bottom.

I think thats pretty unfair of you and it doesnt seem like thats what they were saying actually

Education, absolutely.. it'd be a drop in the bucket regarding healthcare, without IP reform.

The US operates on the principle that it must outspend the next 2 countries in military spending. It's an insurance policy in case say, Russia and China team up against the US.

Which is madness, of course. Because spending twice as much doesn't necessarily mean Americans see twice the value. I can easily spend twice as much on a worse car than my neighbor owns.

"the US could likely still dominate global firepower rankings at half the current spend"

True, but just winning a war or conflict is not an ideal outcome. Overwhelming advantage not only prevents conflict from occurring, it also assures that casualties are low in even low intensity / regional conflicts.

I think people argue not with having the largest military, but with having military expenses which are 3 times those of China and 10 times those of Russia, and with the rest of the big countries being US allies.

I agree with you completely. There are so many unknown benefits that we gain with having such a large military that its very hard to calculate. Also, one of the worst things that could ever possibly happen in a war is being evenly matched. If one country (or group) isn't completely superior in every way, the war becomes a meat grinder and lasts longer than it should have.

I disagree that we need as much military as we have now, in order to be safe.

You could definitely be right but I don't think I know enough to say

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