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Comment by toomanybeersies | Hacker News Reader

Reducing the number of military veterans who become cops would be a good place to start.

I disagree strongly with this actually. The police shouldn't be a military force and shouldn't act like it but, at least in terms of the Army, rules of engagement taught to soldiers are a lot more focused on de-escalation and proper response to force than what most police officers receive.

I just think you need to filter out the nut-jobs that think they're Rambo and view the streets as a warzone.

I agree with the premise that American soldiers are taught and display a more rigid rules of engagement abroad but I would be interested to see exactly what kind of ex-soldier becomes a police officer.

My suspicion is that the kinds of soldiers who become problem police officers are the soldiers who didn't actually face combat abroad. I imagine it's the kind of soldier who fantasized about front-line service but wasn't quite cut out for it for one reason or another and they've directed their disappointment about that into being an abusive police officer.

Actually yea - I can't deny that your proposed person is pretty likely to go into policing after serving in the military. But I do think that people with a strong sense of civil service would also be likely to follow that path, people (generally speaking) aren't going into the military for glory - a lot of folks do it out of civil obligation and another large slice is there since it's a good way to get some economic mobility.

That said, yea, glory hounds would make really scary police officers.

Generally, the kinds of cops that become whistleblowers, or are fired for insufficient brutality, are veterans.

The archetypical "warrior cop" is a non-veteran who likes military imagery but has no experience with military discipline or subordination.

Rules of engagement depend on where you are, who you're fighting and who is watching. Turns out that the US doesn't enforce any RoE in its borders, and you can use all the brutality and shiny weapons that you want against people living there with little to no oversight at all.

Reducing the number of military veterans period would be a good place to start. The USA does not need a massive standing peacetime army/navy/airforce. There's a real human cost too -- we kill more of our own soldiers in accidents than in actual combat.

Cut personnel in each branch by half, significantly consolidate bases, and modestly increase pay for the people who remain.

Then, redirect the enormous savings to actually useful jobs programs. Build roads instead of running around in circles in rural Alabama/North Carolina for four years.

Active military suicides are also more common than combat deaths.

https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2013/01/14/169364733...

If not the US, then who? Trump, for all his faults, was spot on about the Europe's lack of fiscal participation in NATO. They were enjoying the privileges of what you described without ever worrying about the need for protecting it because the US was footing the bill. If it wasn't for NATO, do you really think the Baltic States would still be free from Russia today? And what about the Pacific islands? Nobody is stepping up to the plate to protect the sovereignty of those countries, something they themselves aren't capable of doing against a force like China.

Europe's 'lack of fiscal participation' in NATO only looks anemic when compared to the United States, which alone outspends the entire rest of the world, combined, on its military.

Europe's not going to afford to carry out a successful land invasion of Russia anytime soon, but if that's the level of defense spending Trump was looking for, I'm glad he was told to pound sand.

NATO was never about invading another country. It's purely intended to be a defensive pact (the whole Kosovo incident in the 90s notwithstanding). And that wasn't exactly Europe's response to Trump. Defense spending by European nations had been increasing since 2014 but a number of countries still did not meet their internal agreed-upon goal of 2% of GDP.

Most of Europe was already on track to hit 2%.

Trump wanted to raise it to 4%.

the United States, which alone outspends the entire rest of the world, combined, on its military.

Not true. The popular comparison is the US spends about as much as the next 10 countries combined. US is ~38% of the world's defense spending.

https://www.pgpf.org/chart-archive/0053_defense-comparison

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_...

As a percentage of GDP US defense spending is near its post WW II low.

> Not true. The popular comparison is the US spends about as much as the next 10 countries combined. US is ~38% of the world's defense spending.

In other words 4% of the world's population and 40% of its defense spending. Fucking jesus these feel like silly numbers to discuss -- the USA's military dumbassery puts Rome to shame. The latter collapsed because of its over-reach (well, unless you attended a conservative seminary, in which case it was clearly the "lack of morality on display in the Roman bath houses" or some such similar Very Serious Sociology/"Church History" That's Definitely Not Just USA Christian Nationalist Ur-Fascism.)

4% of the world's population

Economy size to defense spending is probably more a relevant ratio than population. 23% of the world economy, 38% of defense spending.

Defense spending is near all time lows. It didn't collapse the country in the 50s when it hit 11.3% of GDP. It didn't collapse the country in the 60s when it hit 8.6%. It didn't collapse the economy in the 80's when it hit 5.7%. We at sitting just over 3% now. If really you are worried that 3.4% going to cause the country to collapse, you can rest easy.

https://cdn.factcheck.org/UploadedFiles/DoD-GDP-chart.png

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