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Comment by wing-_-nuts | Hacker News Reader

It's not our 'job' to be the world police. We've been effectively subsidizing social spending in LATAM and europe for decades now. Other countries would simply have to increase their defense spending as necessary to keep themselves safe.

I don't think there is any role for the US military beyond defending US soil. I'm tired of propping up our bloated military industrial complex on the premise that we are solely responsible for world peace.

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I doubt you'll find anyone who believes that it's ideal that the US is solely or primarily responsible for world peace, but it is an important role that we play. Further, not only is it morally reprehensible to allow the world to fall into chaos on the basis that "we ought not have to" as we retreat within our own borders, but it violates our own self-interest--as our partners fall, we become weaker economically and militarily, which leaves us vulnerable to attack.

A shared responsibility for world peace probably looks more like "more involvement from our NATO partners" (which we're actually beginning to see now that Europe is waking up to the fact that their peace is a property of NATO protection rather than some foregone conclusion). It decidedly doesn't look like the US dramatically shrinking defense spending (the US only spends 3% of its GDP on defense and that's on track to fall to 2.7% by the end of the decade), but more likely having our partners increase their own contributions and involvement.

Last I saw we spend 3.7% of our gdp on defense, and most of our allies are spending like half that much. Must be nice to spend on your populace while you rely on uncle sam to have your back.

I do not believe we should be going deeper into debt for other nation's national security.

We cannot decouple our own security from that of our allies, but yes, they should shoulder more of the burden.

Europe disarmed massively after WW2, understandable if you look at scale of the damage that was done. That left the US as the bouncer (street name: NATO) for the West, an arrangement that's probably by and large worked, some questionable misadventures on foreign shores notwithstanding. WW2 is no longer relevant and Europe should rearm and share the defense burden, even Germany. Ideally there'd be no defense burden at all, and a defense budget of $0, but if you neglect it then, even in enlightened 2022, you get raped and pillaged c.f. Ukraine.

I hope you are prepared for many more russian and/or china backed regimes in africa/se asia. This would put any ressource extraction/trade from these regions in the hands of Putin/Xi.

Expect some unforeseen problems at the most unfortunate economic moments.

If it doesn't happen to US citizens on US soil, it's not our place to directly intervene with boots on the ground. We can manage international relations with diplomacy and trade.

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