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Comment by sarchertech | Hacker News Reader

Sure the US benefits by giving arms to Ukraine, or having bases in other countries.

But that has nothing to do with the topic at hand which is market dominance for some industry.

>Boeing DOD contracts

This is probably the closest comparison to what China is doing. But it’s still not the same thing because the US buys equipment from Boeing, they don’t just give them direct subsidies.

The equivalent would be if China awarded Bambu a contract to provide 3d printers to schools.

To the extent that the US pursues policies that help defense companies. They don’t do it in order to help those companies compete in foreign markets. They do it because they want those companies not to go out of business for national security reasons, or because they want those companies to provide domestic jobs.

The US does other shady things, but spending massive amounts to help domestic companies outcompete foreign companies in foreign markets isn’t one of them.

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Oh I agree. The US is not doing the same thing as China at all.

China is spending its money developing manufacturing of goods the world wants. It has targeted markets and the govt is spending money in those markets. The markets they have chosen have huge economic and political value.

By contrast the US has chosen to spend its (govt) money on the military. Because, you know, national security.

The US is spending just as much money as China, but focused on different areas. Your complaint (if there is one) is that China chose different markets and didn't "play the game" (as the USSR did) and base their economy on flashy weapons.

Since the collapse of the USSR in 1990 its not clear to me why US spending on military continues to grow. It's not fear of attack; there is no threat to the US itself. It has to be a desire to project power and influence.

And yet the very limitations of that goal have been exposed in 18 months. The dismantling of USAid (or more accurately the manner of the dismantling) has destroyed 75 years of goodwill. Coupled with punitive tarifs (which are paid for by US consumers) they make the US an unreliable trade partner.

Then the war in Iran showed the very real limitations of the military. To be fair they're currently being lead by incompetence, with no clear goals or strategies. But it reinforces the point that all that military money is wasted when even simple conflicts are lost. And it further drives home the limits of that power projection in unpopular conflicts. A lesson, it would seem, the US wishes to re-learn all the time.

China it seems has different ambitions, and a very different strategy. And I get why you might not like that, because maybe (just maybe) their strategy is the smarter one in the long run.

In terms of PPP, China spends about 60% of what the US does. And looking at the trend over the last 15 years, that number will overtake the US fairly soon.

> Since the collapse of the USSR in 1990 its not clear to me why US spending on military continues to grow. It's not fear of attack; there is no threat to the US itself. It has to be a desire to project power and influence.

The exact same thing is true for China. They can’t be afraid of attack. They have the 3rd largest nuclear arsenal and the 2nd or 3rd most powerful military in the world. Yet they keep growing their military.

> The dismantling of USAid (or more accurately the manner of the dismantling) has destroyed 75 years of goodwill. Coupled with punitive tarifs (which are paid for by US consumers) they make the US an unreliable trade partner.

We have an idiot in the White House. Even when I (very rarely) agree with him on things like tariffs are useful for preventing foreign state sponsored companies from wiping out important domestic industries, he implements them in the most inept way possible.

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