It has been shown time and time again, if you are weak, it will be taken advantage of.
It is far far far cheaper to spend the money to have a strong military, than to get into an actual shooting war with someone who thinks they can take advantage.
3-5% of GDP vs. all the death, destruction and reduction of GDP (50%?, 75%?, all of it).
Is that possible?
Part of the reason the U.S. military is effective is because we are constantly involved in some conflict somewhere.
Russia's military is an embarassment right now and it's obvious they are out of practice.
They are out-gunned, because Ukraine is being helped by NATO.
Russia was robbed by Putin, and the military was casualty of this corruption.
1983 - Grenada
1991 - Gulf War
2001 - Operation Enduring Freedom
2009 - Troop surge in Afghanistan
Each generation must re-remember where we are at now--at the edge of self extinction. Lessons from a pre-nuclear age cannot guide us.
What if the USA had taken half its military budget over the last 20 or 30 years, a huge amount, and used that money to do good works around the world? Wouldn't that make it much harder for any state or non-state actor to organize an attack? (E.g. "You want us to hate America? But they just built the school my child attends... Maybe I'll support the guy who wants to open trade talks instead")
But they've taken that money and waged war against people who you can hardly blame for feeling like maybe the West isn't so great. The harder you fight against "Terror" the stronger it gets.
Of course I've vastly oversimplified it, but it just seems like a tragically wasted opportunity.
The easy rebuttal: they're using their schools to indoctrinate our kids into their culture. I mean... this is an argument that is already made today against similar programs instituted by several major global powers (e.g., China).
You can also easily make hay of the mere insinuation that much of the world is in a state where it "needs" to be helped by foreign powers--this is essentially one of the main justifications behind colonization.
as we have right now with Russia.
another aspect: EU is doing great job improving new member’s economy and standard of living but after 10 years or so people forget why their country is in better shape and take it for granted. or worse - some politicians might claim that without EU country would be even in better situation.
so.. I don’t think that spending money on random people will make them like you.