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Sounds good at first, but remember, the U.S. just spent around around $3e12 on wars in the Middle East, developing all kinds of technology along the way. Some of it has to be surveillance tech like this. Even a small fraction of this number would pay for a lot.

I wouldn't be so sure, especially since 9/11/2001: http://projects.washingtonpost.com/top-secret-america/articl...

well, China manufactures all America's stuff. I will leave it to you how the Soviet-era threat of Nuclear bombs compares, to an American, with the threat of not getting any more stuff.

This is a common misconception. The US is the world's largest manufacturer: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_the_United_States#Ma...

Now, it's true that as a percent of GDP, China is the largest manufacturer. But per capita it is either Japan or Germany (depending on which charts I was looking at), with US not far behind.

(Unfortunately as the world's largest national economy, a beggar-thy-neighbor export policy doesn't work so well for us.)