Who are generally required by law to spend most of those dollars on American salaries and American-made products. Thus funneling them into the economy.
This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.
The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities. It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some 50 miles of concrete highway.
We pay for a single fighter with a half million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people.
This, I repeat, is the best way of life to be found on the road the world has been taking. This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.
These plain and cruel truths define the peril and point the hope that come with this spring of 1953."
-Dwight D. Eisenhower, in his "Chance for Peace" speech
Of course, this assumes economic stimulus is really the main reason for military spending, which is probably not how the people in charge of these programs see it.
The F-22 costs $150,000,000 per plane [1]. The price of a bushel of wheat is $6.52 [2]. This means that a single F-22 costs ~23,006,134 bushels of wheat.
A bushel of wheat can produce ~100 loaves of bread weighing 1.5lbs each [3], meaning that each F-22 costs ~2,300,613,496 loaves of bread.
The US military has built 187 F-22 planes [1], meaning that it has exchanged the ability to create 430,214,723,926 loaves of bread for a warp speed death machine. Put another way, the US military could provide a loaf of bread to every man, woman, and child on this planet(!) once per week for 62 weeks for the same price as its fleet of F-22s.
The next time someone talks about world hunger as some sort of intractable problem, just remember that we are actively choosing to allow people to starve and die in order to build ever more efficient death machines.
[1] - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Martin_F-22_Raptor
[2] - http://www.indexmundi.com/commodities/?commodity=wheat
[3] - http://www.answers.com/Q/How_much_bread_can_be_made_from_a_b...
I'd wager that it is far less expensive to do this than to build planes to attack an enemy where the costs of these planes is not conducive at all to the value of destroying this enemy and obliterating any progress towards paying off our debt.
You got what I was hoping people would take away, which is that we look at groups around the world being radicalized, turning to oppressive religion and wonder "why? what makes them do that?", and maybe one piece of the puzzle would be asking what sort of reaction these people would have if we gave everyone in their nation food for a year instead of taking a large portion of the world's total resources and expending it on war machines which we then use in their homeland.
How hard is it to convince a majority of people that buying more death machines is a good use of their money?
Now how hard to convince a majority that feeding the world is a good use?
Now how hard to convince them that building schools is a good use?
I'll just remark that the answer to that last is why Afghanistan was controlled by the Taliban in the first place (after the warlords the US supported bickered amongst each other for a while).
-The cost to produce a loaf of bread is $0 above the raw wheat cost
-The cost to distribute a loaf of bread to all of humanity is $0
-A loaf of bread is sufficient to healthily sustain a starving person
I mean yeah, even if the final number was 20% of your "math", it would be a lot of bread. But the answer to world hunger isn't "let's take all the F-22 money and use it to make bread!"
This is pretty interesting, and a great way to look at it.
With this amount of money, and math above, you could feed every person on Earth about 3 and half years.
[1] http://www.philipmetzger.com/blog/affordable-rapid-bootstrap...
[2] http://www.philipmetzger.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/09...
On the other hand, there is already much more than enough food in the world - at least so far, despite huge population growth - so the problem is not that the world would need more food; the problem is allocation and distribution of food. Shortly, lack of market access.
And most big famines are not even about people not being able to afford food as such; they are political.
From your example, Apollo, I'll jump to another example: the best-known modern famine in Ethiopia, 1983-1985. There was local drought in northern Ethiopia, but the government was actually exporting food. The government extracted food from producers so that they themselves had to buy their own food, and at the same time the same government restricted the movement of people.
There was plenty of aid sent, but it was sent to the government that had partially caused the hunger in the first place.
In 1985, Ethiopia had a population of 41 million. Now it has a population of 88 million. And they are not particularly hungry, and this does not even require a lot of money from the Apollo program. But it requires more stable political circumstances in Ethiopia (and things have looked somewhat better after the Soviet-backet government fell in 1991).
But yes, it's a tremendous expenditure of treasury.
I am not particularly huge fan of military development, but it would at least advance mankind, just giving away free bread will only move it closer to the doom.
If you want to make youself really weep, have a look at this graph http://www.china-mike.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/world-p...
If it really did not do the job, have a look at this fine comic http://www.stuartmcmillen.com/comics_en/st-matthew-island
In a sense, we can suspect that, if the F-22 is never used, then maybe it has, thus, done its best possible work -- would be enemies were afraid to attack us where the F-22 could ruin their attack.
Could a plane far ahead of its candidate opponents do that well at avoiding a war? Under some fairly realistic circumstances, yes.
Suppose for the sake of the argument, we assume that the US should have fought Gulf War I (I tend to think so, e.g., Kuwait was invaded and Saudi Arabia was next on Saddam's hit list; Gulf War II, hmm ...? YMMV). So, with this assumption, in Baghdad Saddam had spent a huge bundle on anti-aircraft means -- radars, guns, and missiles. Okay. Sorry, Saddam, for all those millions, you didn't get 10 cents worth. Why? Because Lockheed had developed the F-117, and it flew into the Baghdad anti-aircraft means and supposedly never got even a single scratch.
Lesson: Given the assumption that Gulf War I was to be fought, we really, really like the F-117.
The F-22? No doubt there are scenarios where its superiority would be similar.
Broadly it appears that the US has military planners sitting around evaluating what potential enemies might be able to do and, then, coming up with military R&D programs to keep the US ahead. Then, if the stuff the US develops is sufficiently superior, say, like the F-117 or the SR-71, then the chances of actual shooting go way down and the superior US weapons in effect did the best we could hope for.
Now, for the cost of an F-22, likely that is heavily for just its crucial attribute -- being way ahead as technology. So, pay super big bucks for the F-22 #1 and much less for #2, #3, .... Or, what's crucial about the F-22 is not that we have built some airplanes but that we have created some highly superior technology, that gets used in some real airplanes.
Or the F-22 is part of a technology race where, like for the F-117, the US wants to win, against any and all competition. I hope we do.
Uh, in Gulf War I, Saddam's planes? Soon enough they saw that getting off the ground and heading to the Americans was a fast way to a smoking hole and, thus, just took the back way to Iran and parked. Not a chance. Saddam's planes didn't have a chance.
In Gulf War I, supposedly the US had more injuries from rest and recreation than from enemy action. Now if we have to fight a war, then that's how we want to fight it.
Or, once General Schwarzkopf was asked what happened to those many thousands of Iraqi soldiers out in the Iraqi desert defending against an attack from Saudi Arabia? The answer: "They are still there.".
Uh, there was one more: Saddam had a lot of Russian tanks. Maybe they were really good tanks, maybe tough and rugged. Their gun could shoot a mile. Ah, but then there was the US tank: Also tough and rugged, likely more so than for the Russian tanks. With a gas turbine engine to permit especially fast speed for a tank. Then we get to the really good stuff: (a) The US tank could see through dust, fog, and in the dark (infrared, etc.). (b) The gun on the US tank could shoot 2 miles. (c) The US tank could shoot while moving while the Russian tank had to stop to shoot. Hmm (a)-(c) -- guess what happened in the US-Iraqi tank battles? Remember that the Iraqi tank could shoot only 1 mile, and the US tank could shoot twice that far. So, by the time an Iraqi tank was in range to shoot, it was already dead.
So, how'd the US tanks be so much better? Sure: Technology. Much of the cost of the US tanks? Technology R&D and not just metal work.
"Tony Stark: Well, Ms. Brown. It's an imperfect world, but it's the only one we got. I guarantee you the day weapons are no longer needed to keep the peace, I'll start making bricks and beams for baby hospitals."
and
"Tony Stark: They say that the best weapon is the one you never have to fire. I respectfully disagree. I prefer the weapon you only have to fire once. That's how Dad did it, that's how America does it, and it's worked out pretty well so far."
The R&D costs far exceed the actual production costs and on a side note it is interesting and pleasing that lots of this R&D eventually makes its way into consumer products likewise how technology from racing (esp. Formula 1) makes its way into consumer vehicles as well.
That being said, another way to win a war against a technologically superior foe is just as the article suggests, being willing and able to win the battle of attrition. Example: U.S. Sherman tanks vs. German Panzers and Tigers. However, it is our unwillingness to sacrifice lives that has led to these R&D breakthroughs so one could argue that we have in fact won by finding ways not to lose. Although, just like what the article states, if we lose a war because we're not willing to win the war through attrition then the war didn't serve any real purpose at all.
The biggie point was, the US didn't want to kill that many people in Iraq or Afghanistan. Instead a main goal was to help them get a good constitution, elections, elected government, government of laws instead of something else, freedom of speech, the press, assembly, religion, have well trained police, etc., roads, schools, hospitals, move into the 20th, maybe the 21st century, become a good member of the nations of the world, etc.
Why that goal? Because the US does not want to be seen as an imperialist or colonial power or an occupying force. Instead US policy since WWII has been to help US security by having other countries be democratic with strong economies hoping that that combination will keep down shooting.
Indeed, after Gulf War II, W was against doing a lot to occupy and govern Iraq and, instead, stated that "The Iraqi people are perfectly capable of governing themselves." Well, not exactly "perfectly"; maybe after some civil wars, etc.
Well, for the cases the OP mentioned, that US goal of democracy, etc. flopped.
Why flopped? In both cases, Islam had more power to run the place than anything the US brought unless the US just killed a lot more people, likely most of the Mullahs. The US didn't want to do that. Could the US have done that? Sure: Easily. Just push some buttons. Trivial. But would also kill a lot of dogs, cats, women, children, peaceful people, etc., say, like the US did in WWII fire bombing cities in Germany and Japan, or, say, like Germany did in their bombing of London, Warsaw, etc.
Actually one broad lesson is that actually freedom of speech, the press, assembly, religion, etc. is often much less welcome, sometimes even in the US, than the US founding fathers assumed! The core of such freedoms is that people need not conform. Alas, a too common response to differences from such freedoms is to pull a trigger or plant a bomb.
Saddam said that we'd have a heck of a time keeping Iraq together -- we're learning that now. Saddam did keep the place together, but he borrowed from the Stalin playbook. The US thought that that was cruel -- it is. But maybe more Iraqis have died per month since Gulf War II or I than before it.
Maybe what Joe Biden often said would be the right stuff -- partition the place into separate regions for Sunnis, Shiites, and Kurds. With some irony, one interpretation of what is going on now is just that.
In Iraq and Afghanistan, the Mullahs are not much afraid of US weapons because they know that the US would be reluctant to kill enough Afghans to make those weapons defeat the Mullahs.
But for someone like a Saddam who wants to have a big army, air force, etc. and invade their neighbors, as in Gulf War I, the US can win in six weeks of bombing and 100 hours on the ground.
For any country that wants to use nuclear weapons, the US still is awash in weapons only "have to use once".
In Viet Nam, the situation was similar but otherwise somewhat different: The US could never find anyone to support in Saigon who could also get enough support of the people of South Viet Nam.
But in Viet Nam, the US could have won there, too: Just be willing to kill a lot more people. Sadly, a lot more, even a lot more than we did kill, which was sad enough.
When my HP laser printer quit, I got a Brother printer. It's terrific, and it's made in Viet Nam. Good for Viet Nam.
I never understood just why the US had so much trouble in Viet Nam: We should have been able to have sat down with Ho and cut a deal: The US will give you a lot of stuff, darned near anything you could want in products, technology, universities, medical care, development loans, roads, bridges, hydroelectric facilities, telephones, good trade agreements, South Viet Nam, etc. if you would just quit going to Peking and Moscow for free lunches and trash talking the US. Should have been a good deal for both sides.
For Iraq? Just sit down with Saddam and make him an offer, personally, one on one, he couldn't refuse.
For the German Tiger tanks, from all I've understood from the history, the US managed mostly to avoid the Tiger tanks in tank to tank battles. Instead: (A) We avoided those tanks, e.g., during the Normandy invasion, due to US air superiority, the Germans had a tough time even getting Tiger tanks to Normandy. (B) Otherwise in Europe, the US killed Tiger tanks heavily from the air, e.g., from P-47s. (C) Otherwise, say, in North Africa, the US used artillery. In the Battle of the Bulge maybe the Tiger tanks were low on fuel.
Maybe the Tiger tanks were in a "battle of attrition" tank to tank battles with Russia at Kursk.
Broadly in conventional war, win the air battle, and the rest is routine and not in doubt. That's what the US did to both Germany and Japan and to Saddam in Gulf War I. And that's what the Battle of Britain was about: Germany knew that they had to win the air war before invading England, Germany was not able to win the air war against the British -- mostly because the German planes did not have enough range.
And, in short, winning the air war is the purpose of the F-22 now.
My apologies. At last, the record is set straight!
It's by no means perfect, but military spending has greatly benefited spaceflight, AI, public health (aid after disasters, advanced prosthetics), etc.
The hole idea that 'lets make war and we will probebly get some side benefits out of it' is not substainable, we could have any arbitrary goal and dumb money on the problem and we will get side benefits.
Have you ever actually met someone in the military, or does your knowledge come from movies and TV? The vast majority of Americans don't meet the military's standards; our officer and enlisted corps are some of the most employable people in the country. They're smart, capable and dedicated, precisely what one wants in employees.
Why funnel efforts and capital into military instead of funneling the same into producing infrastructure, consumer goods, and advancing science? Yes, both are contributing to "the economy". One is creating collective value, the other is enriching military contractors and creating an incentive to wage war.
Because that's socialism, if not worse.
People funnel money into the military because they are afraid of terrorists and whatever else is the flavor of the month.
Ok, I know it's to "protect and defend out interests", but those interests are in somebody else's backyard and bedroom
Do you know any individuals who personally decided to funnel money into the military? It's an insatiable beast fed by political breakdown and cronyism.
What drives people to make the stupid choice is a different subject entirely.
In reality... the door to your home has a lock on it, right? Think about the materials and effort that went into the design, manufacture, installation, and ongoing operation of that lock. Are those "wasted"? After all, it doesn't actually produce anything new! In fact, its entire purpose is to sit there and impede the flow of resources... which would otherwise flow towards people who think they can utilize them more effectively...
For a more naturalistic example, what about your body's immune system? A big portion of your body's "budget" is invested in mechanisms for finding and destroying other organisms, ones which have done quite a bit of their own work to build themselves up. Do you honestly weigh the Staphylococcus economy equally to your own?
At no point did he say it was disproportionate to the nation's wealth (or dirt-supply.)
Rather, his post argues it shouldn't happen at all.
But, we can assume:
1. That Petersellers has grown to adulthood with a remarkably naive understanding of human nature.
2. Believes that the industrial and design capacities of modern nations are such that we could conjure effective weapons faster than a strike could be effectively delivered.
3. That they meant their statement in a somewhat more bound form.
Since 1 & 2 seem either unlikely to be held, or to be held by a mind that hasn't been convinced by the other arguments / observations it would have come across to the contrary, the latter seems the most useful context to interpret their remarks in. The others would either be mistaken assumptions or remove the point of talking to them.
In your analogy, it's clear to me that the US is better suited for that status than any of the other realistic candidates.
My point was not that no-one could justify an extreme of door locks but that I could not. If someone wants to try and justify an extreme of door locks, they're welcome to do so. But merely noting that we all do some thing, or that someone has to have done the most of it, is not such a justification even by analogy.
Additionally, your analogies don't really fit with the behavior of the US and how it utilizes its vast military resources. We aren't acting defensively, we are instead acting very aggressively and overthrowing governments who we perceive to be our enemy.
Maybe my initial statement wasn't very clear: I'm not for a 100% reduction in military costs, as I think it can provide an insurance benefit when used defensively. But in the context of the discussion, regarding the funneling of trillions of dollars into the machine: that level of spending is incredibly wasteful, unnecessary and even harmful when you consider the negative side effects that have arisen from our brazen use of these resources.
What you seem to be missing is that military expenditures beyond self-defense are mostly inefficiencies. Squandered money and efforts and potential all because our form of warlords are siphoning off trillions of dollars from our economy and collective efficacy. It's really not any different than the same thing warlords to in the places you think of when I say warlord like Somalia or Afghanistan or the DR Congo; just far more sophisticated and devious in their effect.
End result is the same, whether bombs are in the storage or are not in the storage - all we see is a locked storage door anyway.
As a bonus - no one gets killed by the bombs.
Sigh... This Keynesian story never ends...
I don't think wars would end if we stopped spending money on the military.