Reconstruction for the USA
Ryan Avent asks what would happen if for just one year we spent as much on infrastructure investments as we do on the Department of Defense:
With that kind of money you could entirely build out a national network of true high-speed rail. One year’s worth of defense spending gets you that. Which makes one wonder: where are all the economists, wringing their hands over cost-benefit analyses of these defense expenditures? Does anyone doubt that the net benefit of $100 billion spent on high-speed rail is easily higher than that for the last $100 billion spent on defense? Have a look at this if you’re unsure.
And while the gains to new investments in infrastructure (and not just in transportation) would be large, it isn’t as though we lack critical needs. What was the cost, human and economic, of the I-35 bridge collapse? Of the Metro crash and resulting limitations on service? Of the Bay Bridge shutdown? And of course, investments in infrastructure constitute positive contributions to the economy, which ultimately strengthen our ability to direct resources toward defense. Aimless defense spending, on the other hand, may well make us poorer and less secure.
Ryan’s link was to my post comparing America’s 2007 defense spending to other countries:
Under the circumstances, I think it’s clear that the marginal dollar spent on defense has a very low value. And of course though Ryan’s thought-experiment is a fun exercise, you couldn’t build out a national HSR network in one year no much how much money you spent. So the real point would be something like if we took 10 percent of the defense budget and re-allocated that to infrastructure, we could have a national HSR network in ten years. And we’d still be spending over triple what our nearest rival spends.
Something worth noting is that for a hegemonic power suffering from slow-but-steady (but very slow) relative decline, wasting money on national security expenditures actually erodes our hegemony. Meaningful U.S.-Chinese security competition is a generation or two away. By that time, money that was spent in 2009 on fighter planes or nuclear submarines or transportation infrastructure in Afghanistan isn’t going to be doing us any good. By contrast, spending money on preschool in 2009 does improve the U.S.-Chinese balance of power in 2049—investment in early childhood education pays enormous dividends, but it takes a long time to turn tiny babies into productive adults. And transportation is just the same. The construction of heavy rail mass transit in Boston, New York, Chicago, and Washington was extremely expensive but has paid consistent dividends for decades and if properly maintained will continue to do so forever.
I can’t vouch for the authenticity of the quote, but someone told me he heard a Chinese official tell him “over the past decade you’ve spent $1 trillion on Iraq and Afghanistan, we’ve spent $1 trillion building the future of China.” I don’t really think we should view that contrast in a paranoid light, but if you do want to take a paranoid view of the American national security situation it makes a lot more sense to worry about that than to worry that someone in a cave might build a bomb.
70 Responses to “Reconstruction for the USA”
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November 3rd, 2009 at 12:18 pm
Who has been a bigger enemy to the American people: AL Qaeda or the US Government?
Discuss.
November 3rd, 2009 at 12:27 pm
Interestingly, my sense is that up through Nixon or so, American conservatives/Republicans were generally on board with this idea (that we needed to invest public funds in things like education, infrastructure, and so on to maintain our competitive advantages). Not coincidentally, perhaps, it was with the adoption of a politics of resentment as the GOP’s defining characteristic that they seem to have lost this attitude.
November 3rd, 2009 at 12:28 pm
Matt, just can it with the Orwellian “defense spending”. It’s *military* spending.
November 3rd, 2009 at 12:40 pm
What Jason L. said @ #3. I’ve been complaining about this on this site for some time, so I might as well complain again.
November 3rd, 2009 at 12:41 pm
it takes a long time to turn tiny babies into productive adults
If we just have enough will and commitment to getting the job done, we can get those babies turned into productive adults faster.
November 3rd, 2009 at 12:42 pm
Spending money on things military related is patriotic. Spending money developing our country, economy, and infrastructure (human and physical) is Communist. And Hitler. Duh.
November 3rd, 2009 at 12:43 pm
The answer to that question is that little or nothing would happen. In 2005 Bush signed a nearly 300 billion dollar highway bill. That’s nearly half the Defense budget of 2007. Anybody know what happened to all that money? Me neither. Mr. Avent is sorely ignorant.
November 3rd, 2009 at 12:46 pm
Under the circumstances, I think it’s clear that the marginal dollar spent on defense has a very low value.
Surely that value approaches zero, or is negative, given the fact that money doesn’t grow on trees, and there will always be better uses for it then spending more than is necessary for a strong defense.
Matt, just can it with the Orwellian “defense spending”. It’s *military* spending.
What difference does it make? I’m aware of the negative implications of Orwellian language (namely, that it’s misleading). But I think it’s common knowledge that “defense spending” involves things likes military salaries, nuclear weapons, tanks, etc.
November 3rd, 2009 at 12:47 pm
For a lot of kids, joining the military is a way up and out of their current troubles. So de-funding the military might rob them of that opportunity.
Of course, it’s a damn shame that the best path for these kids involves a significant risk of getting blown up. It might be more useful to restart something like the Civilian Conservation Corps, which was pretty military in structure (no risk of being accused of forming lefty indoctrination camps). An organization like that could take 16- to 18-year-olds and steer them toward civil engineering, green energy technology, or what have you.
November 3rd, 2009 at 12:51 pm
“Spending money on things military related is patriotic. Spending money developing our country, economy, and infrastructure (human and physical) is Communist.”
There ya go.
And when someone sets off a bomb in a US subway or crashes a plane into a US building because our military killed his wife and kids, let’s all be sure to wring our hands and whine “why do they hate us???”
November 3rd, 2009 at 12:56 pm
Don Williams: Who has been a bigger enemy to the American people: AL Qaeda or the US Government?
Hands down, the U.S. Government, particularly since the assumption of power by the far right ‘conservative’ movement. It was, in fact, US intervention in the Iraq-Kuwait issue — the stationing of a huge US military force on Saudi “holy” soil that apparently was the original cause celebre of Al Qaeda, and after 9-11, the absolutely criminal US invasion of Iraq granted Al Qaeda and other Islamic radicals yet another tool. Bush was, in fact, probably the best ‘friend’ Al Qaeda ever had.
So, the better part of 8 years later, here we are, deeply in debt, our economy on the edge of collapse, thousands of US dead, tens of thousands wounded or disabled, perhaps as many as a million non-military Iraqis dead, four million Iraqi common people displaced, and, coming soon, yet one more gigantic — this one totaling nearly $700 billion — “defense” (read: warmongering) appropriation. It’s inexcusable.
The US government has become, over the last thirty years at least (and probably more), the consummate global rogue. My worst enemy, the planet’s worst enemy, is the US government — in the form of a scant majority of her congress which has been bought and paid for by a corporate cabal which cares nothing for anything other than profit and power, the current “owner” of a government which cares nothing for anything other than wealth and the power it can purchase.
Never thought I’d live to see the day, but here it is.
November 3rd, 2009 at 12:56 pm
Jasper, it makes a difference because it is frankly dishonest. We aren’t spending on “defense.” The last “defensive” war we fought involved the Japanese bombing one of our territories (not even an actual state).
When you start with a dishonest charicterization of a topic It makes honest discussion impossible.
November 3rd, 2009 at 1:07 pm
shooter, I’m pretty sure that was the Transpo Approps bill that Congress is considering extending at the moment, so that $300B was spread out over several years. Ryan is talking about $680B in a single year, which is obviously a lot more money. Stop calling people ignorant.
November 3rd, 2009 at 1:08 pm
By contrast, spending money on preschool in 2009 does improve the U.S.-Chinese balance of power in 2049—investment in early childhood education pays enormous dividends, but it takes a long time to turn tiny babies into productive adults.
Have you ever considered thinking bigger? Pre-K programs are nice, but the benefits often evaporate by the middle of elementary school. With the kind of money we’re talking about, we could fund versions of the Harlem Children’s Zones all across this country. At $5000 a child, with $10 billion, you could enroll 2 million children a year.
November 3rd, 2009 at 1:13 pm
# shooter242 Says: Anybody know what happened to all that money?
Well shooter, it went to fixing roads, building new roads, etc.
From wikipedia “The $286.4 billion measure contains a host of provisions and earmarks intended to improve and maintain the surface transportation infrastructure in the United States, including the interstate highway system, transit systems around the country, bicycling and pedestrian facilities, and freight rail operations.”
Unfortunately, since this was a creature of the Bush whitehouse and repiglican congress, lots of money was wasted on expanding automobile infrastructure and not nearly enough went to public transportation expansion and infrastructure, but the money went where most transportation money goes, to road repairs and expansion.
> 2 minutes of teh google. Was that so hard?
November 3rd, 2009 at 1:14 pm
We can afford single-payer health care. We can’t afford not to repair our infrastructure. But the people making the decisions can just move to another country after they finish destroying ours. They have enough loot.
November 3rd, 2009 at 1:19 pm
What the Chinese left unsaid was that the $1 Trillion the US has spent in Iraq and Afghanistan was borrowed from the Chinese (who just received a large oil concession in Iraq BTW). The Chinese get interest on that Trillion and oil from our efforts.
This is how superpowers / empires decline – they waste money — lots and lots of money — on bling that, at the end of its days, didn’t really mean a thing in the whole scheme of things.
November 3rd, 2009 at 1:20 pm
“over the past decade you’ve spent $1 trillion on Iraq and Afghanistan, we’ve spent $1 trillion building the future of China.”
And probably incurred a trillion or more in future environmental cleanup costs as the country focused on export growth. Also, Matt, you tend to focus on procurement programs in thinking about defense spending, but about 65 cents out of every defense dollar is spent on pay, benefits, or just moving people around and keeping the lights on. It’s very expensive to run a big, well-paid American military even if we spend very little on building new equipment every year.
November 3rd, 2009 at 1:22 pm
The trick will be turning the Military Industrial Complex into the Infrastructure Industrial Complex. Pieces need to make it to most/all congressional districts. That shouldn’t be too difficult considering our vast infrastructure deficits.
November 3rd, 2009 at 1:35 pm
The defense spending graph is dramatic and irrelevant. A quick glance at Wikipedia shows that the US spends about four percent of its gross domestic product on defense spending, which is a touch more than Russia and a bit less than Greece.
But the column does bring up a good point. We’ve been carrying most of Europe for too many decades now, allowing those countries to spend their money on lavish social welfare programs, secure in the knowledge that Uncle Sam will rush to their defense when some tyrant threatens them. Time for the EU to grow up and defend themselves.
November 3rd, 2009 at 1:36 pm
Spending too much is never enough for infrastructure, but I was intrigued that neither Yglesias or Advent seems interested on what we spend on it now. I did find this CBO study on infrastructure spending from 2006
http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/85xx/doc8517/08-08-Infrastructure.pdf
Unfortunately, this only brings us up to 2004, but I thought it was quite a comparison to defense spending
Infrastructure Defense Year
$312 $544 2004
$319 $484 2003
$317 $422 2002
$306 $366 2001
$290 $359 2000
This is in billions of dollars and doesn’t include private infrastructure spending because I couldn’t find any data.
China may have spent $1 trillion on this over the last 10 years, but according to the CBO, we spent over $1.5 trillion in this five year period
November 3rd, 2009 at 1:39 pm
In 2005 Bush signed a nearly 300 billion dollar highway bill. That’s nearly half the Defense budget of 2007.
That was $286.4 billion over six years. That is information from the same article you linked to. No google necessary. So, no, that is not half the defense budget of 2007. More like 1/12 the defense budget. Just sayin’.
November 3rd, 2009 at 1:39 pm
Re the distinction between “military” spending and “defense” spending . . . in the case of the US, at least currently, the vast majority of our spending appears to be for “offense” masquerading as defense.
November 3rd, 2009 at 1:40 pm
And probably incurred a trillion or more in future environmental cleanup costs as the country focused on export growth. Also, Matt, you tend to focus on procurement programs in thinking about defense spending, but about 65 cents out of every defense dollar is spent on pay, benefits, or just moving people around and keeping the lights on. It’s very expensive to run a big, well-paid American military even if we spend very little on building new equipment every year.
Well you know what they say, a billion here, a billion there and pretty soon it adds up to real money.
November 3rd, 2009 at 1:41 pm
$300billion spent over 4 years is equal to half of $600billion spent over 1 year!
See? Our children is learning!
November 3rd, 2009 at 1:42 pm
Gmorbgmibgnikgnok Says:
For a long time, the service for training + tuition has been the only social spending program that conservatives support. Now that the getting killed or maimed quotient has gone up it is not such a great opportunity. Since spending on education/training makes a lot of sense for the long-term viability of the country, decoupling such spending from the military service element should not be a deal-breaker.
November 3rd, 2009 at 1:45 pm
Why should military spending bear any particular relation to GNP? Does it take 10 times as much money to defend a GNP 10 times as large?
November 3rd, 2009 at 1:47 pm
It is precisely in the ‘defense’ industry where fascism coalesces in the USofA, where the State and the CorpoRat agendae completely intersect, mutually reinforce, and augment each other.
Ike was persuaded by advisors to leave “congress” off his famed “military-industrial complex.” But that would be the very definition of fascism in the “national security” state: the unbreakable amalgam of the military might of the State within the KorpoRat structure to manage it and profit from it, and the congressional complicity in the name of “jobs back home.”
It’s brilliant! Gotta admit it…
November 3rd, 2009 at 1:49 pm
The National Defense Highway system started in the 1950’s by Dwight David Eisenhower was funded through the Defense Department. Military spending does not have to be on toys for the brass.
November 3rd, 2009 at 1:57 pm
I think James @29 has the solution: find a way to fund a “National Defense HSR” system through the DoD.
November 3rd, 2009 at 2:11 pm
To steal from St Ronnie:
The military/intelligence apparatus of the US Government is not the answer to our terrorist problem, the military/intelligence apparatus of the US government IS the problem.
We are spending trillions in Iraq & Afghanistan encouraging young Muslims to become not just terrorists, but terrorists who direct their anger & violence at the US and its citizens.
November 3rd, 2009 at 2:23 pm
@30: Railroads actually used to be of crucial strategic importance in moving men and supplies. During the Civil War. Now they’re too vulnerable to be effective in that role (although to be fair, the same might be true of roads).
We cannot afford an infrastructure gap!
November 3rd, 2009 at 2:26 pm
Maybe they could fund the HSR out of the defence budget – like the support Boeing gets…
High-speed tanks come to mind (-:
November 3rd, 2009 at 2:57 pm
This is a useful point. All those idiots complaining about how cutting the fighter programs will erode our air superiority with respect to China look like complete idiots when you bring this kind of stuff up. The obsession with the next 20 years basically ignores the fact that we’re just screwing ourselves when it comes to the next 100.
November 3rd, 2009 at 3:02 pm
Well, % of GDP does offer a meaningful measure of affordability. What measure(s) would be more meaningful? Amount of coastline to defend seems anachronistic in these times of intercontinental ballistic missiles. Per capita, perhaps?
I don’t know. Another quick perusal of Wikipedia shows a dramatic decrease in defense spending as a percentage of total budget outlays in the past 60 years, from a high of well over 60% in the early 1950s to about 20% now.
But, again, I agree with the main point of the column: let’s cut defense spending. Let’s yank our troops out of the four bases in Germany, the two bases in Italy, the three bases in Spain and Portugal, and the the five in the UK. That ought to shave at least a few percentage points off of military expenditures.
Time for the EU to move out their parents’ basement.
November 3rd, 2009 at 3:02 pm
@33 – while high-speed tanks sound terrifying, it would make some sense to bring Raytheon, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, the rest of the arms dealers in on a high-speed rail project; like it or not, they’ve got some powerful friends.
I’d imagine Boeing could figure out how to build really expensive trains.
November 3rd, 2009 at 3:08 pm
Dear Mr. Wang,
That was the equivalent of knowing you’re going to heaven because the bible tells you so. In short, it means bupkis. Want to try again?
November 3rd, 2009 at 3:11 pm
Quite so. It’s also true that there are some 704-odd overseas bases. We could close more than a few.
November 3rd, 2009 at 3:13 pm
@NikolasM FTW
November 3rd, 2009 at 3:22 pm
@19 NikolasM nails it
“The trick will be turning the Military Industrial Complex into the Infrastructure Industrial Complex.”
How can we insure that parts and suppliers for solar panels, rails, bicycles, wind turbines, bridges (to somewhere), trolleys, and hybrid autos are spread thinly across all congressional districts?
November 3rd, 2009 at 3:22 pm
THE MONEY PIT!
Just who is the worse enemy of the American-Israeli Empire, well the answer is, it is it’s own worse enemy. A few, well more than a few years back there was a movie called the money trap about some poor guy that got fished by his spouce into buying a Vermont fixer upper, and it turned out to be nothing more than a Money Pit, the more you thew at it the more it took.
Well, the Empire is now that Money Pit the more your thow at it the more it seems to need. China [IS] the New Empire, we gave the Empire to [2040], a lot of fellas especially one who wrote a book on it the Fall of The American Empire [2020], only one decade away, a short [10] Ten years, and then there is the pesky Mayan thing about [2012]. But the American-Israeli Empire [IS] in rapid decline.
Think about it this way, we had a chance in our many travels to go to Newport, Rhodes Island and they have a set of Mantions that were build by the wacky rich of another era and never spent more than [6] Six-months in total. The State of Rhodes Island than took them over, to give tours to support the cost of their [VERY HIGH] maintenance. You just can’t tourist your way out of the high maintenance of the Empire, it can’t be done.
The Empire will be broken into new Republics The Republic of Alaska, America [The Confederate States/The United States],The Republic of California, “Republic of Cascadia” [Northwestern separatists envision a "Republic of Cascadia" carved out of Oregon, Washington and the Canadian province of British Columbia.], The Republic of Hawaii, The Republic of Texas. Or, some version of this determined by the Dreamers, Thinkers, and Workers of this Era, us old Ponders may or may not be around to see it but the map of North America will be changed.
“over the past decade you’ve spent $1 trillion on Iraq and Afghanistan, we’ve spent $1 trillion building the future of China.” That was actually a quote from the head of The Peoples Republic of China’s Bank, they think decades as the Empire thinks quarters of a year. The Red Chinese when I was there treated me just fine, but it is China [Our Land] first, and they do have a very sore point with the Empire about Nationalist China and advance arms begin sold to them by the Empire, and the Spy Ship in the Southern China Sea in their Sphere of Influence, on, and lets not forget the history since the Boxer Rebellion, all bad.
Bottom line the American-Israeli Empire can’t afford it present or future maintenace, Infrastruct Gone, No Nuclear Power Grid System, No Advance Rail Systems, No Oil, No Minerals, No Jobs do to [NAFTA],No long term plan, and the short term plan is to print dollars that have no value, and send Marines to do the job of Empire Nation Building at the End of a Bayonet, along with jacking someone elses Resources for Empire Markets, and that isn’t working out at all.
The Empire has [10] ten year max.
Hercule Triathlon Savinien
November 3rd, 2009 at 3:27 pm
And I think the way to do it is to encourage “defense” contractors to diversify. Lockheed Martin is already making a killing at speeding and red light cameras here in Maryland. Can they not also build the bridges and rails? Honestly, I would not have a problem with the same corporations feeding at the infrastructure trough instead. If you are going to award huge, no-bid contracts to well-connected companies, at least they can build useful stuff.
November 3rd, 2009 at 3:41 pm
Matthew’s mistake is in assuming there will be a 2049 at all. The outlook for climate change, ocean acidification, peak oil, etc., all suggest that “a generation of two” from now, there’ll be nothing left for the US and China to fight over.
November 3rd, 2009 at 4:39 pm
Yes, I’m completely that a national high speed rail network could be built in the next 5-10 years, under budget, with a minimum of delays, and completely free from congressional meddling. Plus, everyone get’s a pony.
November 3rd, 2009 at 4:41 pm
Yes, I’m sure we could built a wonderful, green efficient national high speed rail network that came in on time and under budget without violating a single local or national environmental law and completely independent of congressional pork barreling. Plus, everyone would get a pony.
November 3rd, 2009 at 4:44 pm
[...] by ieJasonW on November 3, 2009 Just read a great post at Yglesias’ blog about federal domestic spending vs. defense spending and the effects on [...]
November 3rd, 2009 at 4:59 pm
Roader wrote,
But the point here isn’t affordibility, or, in simpler terms, cost. Rather, it’s what’s necessary for an adequate defense, or in simpler terms, benefit.
The amount of military spending we need to adequately defend our nation should be based on the military threats faced by our nation. One measure of a threat posed by a potential enemy is the size of his military. The appropriate measure there (apart from issues of efficacy of the force configuration, the procurement process, the costs of “labor” in the form of soldiers) is the amount spent, not the fraction of GDP spent.
Put another way, using your example of Greece: to “defend” ourselves from Greece, we don’t need to spend 4% of GDP even if Greece did.
This should be obvious, which makes your initial posting on this sub-topic bizarre.
November 3rd, 2009 at 5:07 pm
Budget wanking and governmental-distrust snark aside, it’s always bugged me that we don’t have a rail system as nice as Europe’s, especially given that we’re (supposed to be) one unified country and they’re a conglomeration of nations that tried to destroy each other twice within the last century.
November 3rd, 2009 at 5:15 pm
Agreed. Maybe we could tie it to social justice i.e., we will give military aid to our allies only after they spend N percent of their GDP on defense, where N is roughly the percentage we spend on defense.
November 3rd, 2009 at 5:48 pm
liberal wrote:
True. That’s what we pay the federal legislative and executive branches to do. And historically the amount spent rises and falls dependent on the level of military threat, real or perceived. Matt’s article pointed out the many wonderful things taxpayers could buy if we reduced military spending. I just pointed out that military spending is at historic lows based on one measure, % of GDP, and asked if there were other, more relevant measures we could use.
I agree that your example of spending 4% of GDP to defend ourselves against Greece is bizarre. However, % of GDP is perfectly appropriate when talking about defending ourselves from potential military threats like Russia and China. It’s how Reagan won the Cold War; we just out-spent them.
November 3rd, 2009 at 5:55 pm
A quick glance at Wikipedia shows that the US spends about four percent of its gross domestic product on defense spending, which is a touch more than Russia and a bit less than Greece.
A quick glance may show that. But a more in-depth analysis reveals that US spend something like $1 trillion per year on the military, which equates to a number more like 7% of GDP.
November 3rd, 2009 at 6:02 pm
Roader wrote:
But the column does bring up a good point. We’ve been carrying most of Europe for too many decades now, allowing those countries to spend their money on lavish social welfare programs, secure in the knowledge that Uncle Sam will rush to their defense when some tyrant threatens them. Time for the EU to grow up and defend themselves.
No. Note that the above diagram by Matt is selective: it includes only a few countries.
Here is a better, overall diagram.
As you can see, the EU can defend itself with 40% of America’s spending. Please let the myth die that Europe doesn’t spend on defense.
November 3rd, 2009 at 6:14 pm
Don’t forget our last president’s vision for the future. Hydrogen cars! Back to the Moon! Or you can Google China’s current plans for 8000 miles of high speed rail by 2012, under construction, and 16, 000 miles by 2020.
November 3rd, 2009 at 6:30 pm
The irony is that it is (many) Americans who need to stop lying to themselves about how the rest of the world needs their defense spending.
November 3rd, 2009 at 6:42 pm
Also further down the page from the circle diagram, there is a bar diagram of spending similar to Matthew’s, but there are many more countries in it. It is misleading regarding Europe’s spending though, because Europe’s spending is chopped up into many little pieces.
November 3rd, 2009 at 7:19 pm
Bengt Larsson wrote:
Well, that’s the problem, they can’t defend themselves. If they could, they’d toss our troops and military bases out on their ear.
The 1999 Kosovo bombing campaign is a case in point. The EU had a petty tyrant they needed to get rid of, and who did it turn to to get the job done? It was the equivalent of us asking France for help to quell an armed uprising in North Dakota.
Maybe the EU will wake up when Iran starts threatening to lob nuclear missiles their way.
November 3rd, 2009 at 7:30 pm
Well, that’s the problem, they can’t defend themselves. If they could, they’d toss our troops and military bases out on their ear.
Idjit. Europe and America are in a military alliance, remember? Why should we throw them out, from our perspective? You are welcome to take them home, have been since the Clinton administration.
As for Kosovo, there is a way as seeing it as over-eager intervention. It wasn’t a threat to the EU, per se. You see European countries have done enormously many interventions, and we know it isn’t usually as easy as it looks to the uninformed.
November 3rd, 2009 at 8:20 pm
I was living in Spain in the 80s when a very hot issue was whether Spain should continue to permit US naval bases. Popular sentiment was largely against. US was pushing hard to keep them there.
It’s stupidly uninformed to imagine that US bases in Europe are there just as a matter of European weakness. It’s also stupidly naive to imagine that ordinary US voters can do much to reduce US mil spending, unfortunately.
November 3rd, 2009 at 9:20 pm
Bengt Larsson wrote:
Yeah, when Rumsfeld announced plans to close German bases and move the assets and personnel to Poland, Germany had a cow. Turns out that US military spending accounts for a percent or two of Germany’s GDP; closing those bases would have thrown hundreds of thousands of Germans out of work. And we’re still there.
The German intervention into Poland, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, Norway, et al. come to mind. No, it wasn’t as easy as it looked. Twice in one century did you have to call on us “idjit” Americans to bail your sorry asses out.
I don’t see that much has changed in EuroLand since WWII. Really, it is time for Europeans to move from childhood to adulthood.
November 3rd, 2009 at 9:33 pm
It’s hard to believe Americans aren’t loved all over Earth, isn’t it? I suspect that this:
Yeah, when Rumsfeld announced plans to close German bases and move the assets and personnel to Poland, Germany had a cow. Turns out that US military spending accounts for a percent or two of Germany’s GDP; closing those bases would have thrown hundreds of thousands of Germans out of work.
isn’t true, either.
November 3rd, 2009 at 9:52 pm
German mayors push to keep US military bases
14 Feb 09 | The Local: Germany’s New in English
The mayors of Mannheim and Heidelberg who visited Washington this week to rally support to retain US army bases in the southwestern German region say there’s a chance they might succeed.
Kurz and his Heidelberg counterpart Eckart Würzner fear the closure of the bases will deal a blow to the Rhine-Neckar region’s economy. Würzner said he estimated the region will lose an estimated €35 to €45 million through the move.
http://www.thelocal.de/national/20090214-17431.html
November 3rd, 2009 at 9:52 pm
Which hegemony? You cant destroy the world more than once.
And right Bengt at #60, that story about those US military gdp/employment effects in Germany is completly made up.
November 3rd, 2009 at 10:47 pm
I don’t see that much has changed in EuroLand since WWII.
I see that some small-dicked uneducated Americans still act like they personally won both world wars.
November 4th, 2009 at 6:02 am
Roader (59): “Turns out that US military spending accounts for a percent or two of Germany’s GDP”
Roader (61): “Würzner said he estimated the region will lose an estimated €35 to €45 million through the move.”
German GDP is 3.6 trillion Euro, so comment 61 doesn’t exactly back comment 59.
November 4th, 2009 at 8:15 am
Isn’t that partly how the Soviet Union collapsed? Spending all of their money on defense instead of turning around their economies?
November 4th, 2009 at 3:28 pm
[...] in Daily life, Government, Military at 1:28 pm by LeisureGuy Very interesting post by Matthew Yglesias: Ryan Avent asks what would happen if for just one year we spent as much on [...]
November 5th, 2009 at 7:09 am
[...] via Matthew Yglesias » Reconstruction for the USA . [...]
November 5th, 2009 at 12:04 pm
First, I am biased since I spent 20 years in the military. Secondly twice in my career, I was deployed from home for 6 month periods over the Christmas holidays (’81 and ‘82, ‘90 and ‘91). Third, I worked for the Department of Defense and my focus was reviewing government acquisition programs for fair and reasonable cost based on industry standards for similiar type work. The #1 priority for the U.S. Government is to provide for an adequate defense. The problem is the definition of adequate, prevent another Pearl Harbor, 9/11 or a nuclear war with equally equipped capabilities (recent Cold War). One football coach stated that the “best defense is a strong offense”, that is the military’s focus. As for comparison to China, it is an apples to oranges comparison. Their strength is based on number of soldiers, our’s is based on technological superiority so we do not need the number of bodies. It is like treating your house for cockroaches, you can stomp them one at a time, or you can spray your house and kill them all at once. Stepping on them is cheaper than spraying, but will take a lot longer and you might not be successful. The negative aspect is that if a country does not regard human life as valuable, they will keep throwing bodies at you until they win. The U.S. values each individual soldier, sailor, airman, and marine and will spend anything necessary to give them the best possible chance of survival. The military does not have a death wish, we do not want to fight wars, but if our leadership decides to send us to war, we want to have a chance to survive and come back home. Everyone wants to take from the military budget, feel free as long as you can say that you have walked in the military’s shoes and have earned the right. If you have not earned that right, you have the right to voice your opinion because of the military that has sacrificed to give you that right. You even have the right to bash the military. All that I ask is that you treat Military Spending at the same level of any other government spending program and not focus on the military as the place to cut budgets. All of us are in this together, whether or not you have served in the military. It is all about sacrifice for the better good of the country, how many can say that they have sacrificed. Yes I pay my taxes also so that does not count as sacrifice. Please pardon my diatribe as it is long winded. By the way, I voted for Bush Sr, Clinton twice, Bush Jr., and almost voted for Obama. I look not at political agendas, but whom I feel is the best person to lead our country. I consider myself an “Inderepublicrat” with some Libertian leaning in the mix. And yes, I have earned that right, it was not given to me.
November 5th, 2009 at 10:41 pm
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November 9th, 2009 at 2:22 am
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