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US military is a bigger polluter than as many as 140 countries

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Re: US military is a bigger polluter than as many as 140 countries

#121

Post by hwillis »

bsaul wrote: post #94
Circuits wrote: post #70

Our military (US) and military budget is just another cold war era echo which has been propagating for far too long. There are so many alarmist media outlets in this country who 'make their steak' off of fear mongering (looking at you FOX news) and what's more unfortunate is the general public's seeming endless supply of naive assent too their ideals and tactics. It isn't the US governments fault the military industr…

it’s funny how most people forget that every single american president since georges bush junior has been elected on the promise of reducing us’s involvment into foreign countries ( i’m old enough to remember people accused him of being isolationist), but have all been prevented to so by external events. With the rise of China and its exponential military spendings, do you think that decreasing us military budget wou…

> With the rise of China and its exponential military spendings, do you think that decreasing us military budget would be a wise strategic move ?

The budget is essentially unchanged[1]. The value of that budget has increased exponentially because the value of Chinese currency has increased. China has not directed any more of its resources to its military.

Even more foolish is acting like the Chinese military is capable of threatening the US any time soon. Like fuck, at least we still kind of fight proxy wars with Russia; we do nothing of the kind with China. China is totally incapable of force projection outside tiny pacific islands. China is the only nuclear country that has a "no first use" policy on nukes. They have a single aircraft carrier, compared to the US' eleven. The US has as many carriers (which are the single dominant mode of force projection) as the rest of the world combined.

The US military is so absurdly oversized that we would benefit strategically by spending the money on R&D or the economy instead. Until such a time as the US expects to literally fight China, Russia, and the EU at the same time, the military is massively excessive.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_budget_of_China#/medi...

Re: US military is a bigger polluter than as many as 140 countries

#122

Post by zanny »

jjoonathan wrote: post #97
bsaul wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it’s funny how most people forget that every single american president since georges bush junior has been elected on the promise of reducing us’s involvment into foreign countries ( i’m old enough to remember people accused him of being isolationist), but have all been prevented to so by external events. With the rise of China and its exponential military spendings, do you think that decreasing us military budget wou…

I don't. I'm surrounded by people who take our position in the world for granted and don't see any problem with gutting our military, though.

If the US only holds its economic ground at gunpoint I don't feel justified living my dainty American lifestyle thanks to boots to the throat of peoples around the world.

Europe endures and prospers without threat of violence or economic imperialism by bomb across the globe.

Re: US military is a bigger polluter than as many as 140 countries

#123

Post by brlewis »

ryanmercer wrote: post #75
brlewis wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>you have to balance that against not preventing instability around the world You are absolutely right. This statement is as true as saying you have to balance eating lavish restaurant meals 7 nights a week against letting your children starve. Completely true. However, if you're currently eating lavish restaurant meals 7 nights a week, the direction you need to go in toward balance is obvious. Would you support redu…

>Would you support reducing U.S. military spending from 2-3x that of China (the 2nd highest spender), to 1.5x? China is currently constructing 2 new aircraft carriers (they have 1) with as many as 3 more planned by 2030 based on intel out there. From 2001-2006 they built at least a dozen new classes of ships, putting 60 more into the water. They have at least 10 known new ships/subs coming online with some being cons…

> China is currently constructing 2 new aircraft carriers (they have 1)

Could this be in response to the U.S. having 11? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_current_ships_of_the_U...

Two of which are in the Pacific now? https://www.navy.mil/navydata/nav_legacy.asp?id=146

Re: US military is a bigger polluter than as many as 140 countries

#124

Post by zanny »

bsaul wrote: post #94
Circuits wrote: post #70

Our military (US) and military budget is just another cold war era echo which has been propagating for far too long. There are so many alarmist media outlets in this country who 'make their steak' off of fear mongering (looking at you FOX news) and what's more unfortunate is the general public's seeming endless supply of naive assent too their ideals and tactics. It isn't the US governments fault the military industr…

it’s funny how most people forget that every single american president since georges bush junior has been elected on the promise of reducing us’s involvment into foreign countries ( i’m old enough to remember people accused him of being isolationist), but have all been prevented to so by external events. With the rise of China and its exponential military spendings, do you think that decreasing us military budget wou…

The answer to an aggressive and militant China would be the same answer to any upstart nuclear power threatening the world - we have already seen how effective sanctioning Russia has been in the wake of their aggressive imperialism stints in the past decade. So successful as to inspire them to try undermining US elections to get an apologetic administration in place to remove said sanctions.

Sanctioning China economically though is a moralistic move. It has real absolute costs to the US economy, and such sanctions would need the broad consensus support the Russian ones did - if you don't punish aggression unilaterally and in global unison then the aggressor still has inroads into the global economy to ease any impact.

It is never a solution to spend several hundred billion more dollars on weapons of war that are wholly irrelevant to any legitimate threat of conflict with any other nuclear power. They only serve as a dick measuring contest of how much of your economic productivity you can wholly waste before your economy collapses. That is pretty much exactly how the Soviets fell, and the US is too egocentric to realize its going down that road too.

Re: US military is a bigger polluter than as many as 140 countries

#125

Post by xwdv »

jjoonathan wrote: post #97
bsaul wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it’s funny how most people forget that every single american president since georges bush junior has been elected on the promise of reducing us’s involvment into foreign countries ( i’m old enough to remember people accused him of being isolationist), but have all been prevented to so by external events. With the rise of China and its exponential military spendings, do you think that decreasing us military budget wou…

I don't. I'm surrounded by people who take our position in the world for granted and don't see any problem with gutting our military, though.

I used to get enraged by people who simply want to gut the military, but after a while I find it’s hard to blame them.

We have lived under the protection of the US Military for so long that most have forgotten what a world would be like without it. Eventually you begin to believe that if the military was simply gone things might still be the same, or perhaps even more peaceful.

But they’d be wrong. They simply have no idea what others will do for power.

Re: US military is a bigger polluter than as many as 140 countries

#126

Post by ryanmercer »

brlewis wrote: post #123
ryanmercer wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Would you support reducing U.S. military spending from 2-3x that of China (the 2nd highest spender), to 1.5x? China is currently constructing 2 new aircraft carriers (they have 1) with as many as 3 more planned by 2030 based on intel out there. From 2001-2006 they built at least a dozen new classes of ships, putting 60 more into the water. They have at least 10 known new ships/subs coming online with some being cons…

> China is currently constructing 2 new aircraft carriers (they have 1) Could this be in response to the U.S. having 11? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_current_ships_of_the_U... Two of which are in the Pacific now? https://www.navy.mil/navydata/nav_legacy.asp?id=146

>Could this be in response to the U.S. having 11?

Or could it be in response to them being very effective platforms for patrolling territorial waters and even providing cover for coastal regions? And because China has 9,010 miles of coast?

Re: US military is a bigger polluter than as many as 140 countries

#127

Post by flyinglizard »

the_af wrote: post #118
flyinglizard wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is nothing special about 2019 though. For Americans, the US war machine was always something vague and remote that sucks in money and spits out veterans who need to be taken of. However for many of those who live outside of USA, overseas where the US military operates, we understand that power vacuums are very potent and if not for US, some other country will fill the void, with soft or hard power. It’s not jus…

> "this era of Pax Americana, spanning WWII until today, has been, more or less, heavenly. Free trade and democracy have been sprouting everywhere" No, not for those of us in Latin America where US-propped brutal dictatorships -- trained in the School of the Americas -- have left scars which have not yet healed. It was a Cold War playground for the US, and little to do with democracy (though free trade, which does no…

You conveniently forgot to mention that the "Cold War playground" was between USA and USSR, it wasn't USA's alone.

Re: US military is a bigger polluter than as many as 140 countries

#128

Post by arcticfox »

hwillis wrote: post #121
bsaul wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it’s funny how most people forget that every single american president since georges bush junior has been elected on the promise of reducing us’s involvment into foreign countries ( i’m old enough to remember people accused him of being isolationist), but have all been prevented to so by external events. With the rise of China and its exponential military spendings, do you think that decreasing us military budget wou…

> With the rise of China and its exponential military spendings, do you think that decreasing us military budget would be a wise strategic move ? The budget is essentially unchanged[1]. The value of that budget has increased exponentially because the value of Chinese currency has increased. China has not directed any more of its resources to its military. Even more foolish is acting like the Chinese military is capab…

As much as I like carriers, in an actual war against a true world power, they seem irrelevant to 21st century warfare. They would be so easy to take out with any type of guided weapon, much less the hypersonics that are coming online.

Re: US military is a bigger polluter than as many as 140 countries

#129

Post by zanny »

flyinglizard wrote: post #85
PaulHoule wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to be a fan of Noam Chomsky and think that the U.S. was a negative force in the world. I can point to plenty of kneecapping and bad policies. However in 2019 I see the rise of authoritarian states such as China, Russia and their "fellow travelers" and I think that freedom is very much at risk. Green Party activist Howie Hawkins, for instance, goes to rallies where they want to see NATO demolished but when Russ…

There is nothing special about 2019 though. For Americans, the US war machine was always something vague and remote that sucks in money and spits out veterans who need to be taken of. However for many of those who live outside of USA, overseas where the US military operates, we understand that power vacuums are very potent and if not for US, some other country will fill the void, with soft or hard power. It’s not jus…

The broader issue is that, while most would consider the alternative power vacuum bad, American imperialism and projection is obviously not the optimal way to organize global society.

The UN is wholly inept and incapable with a security council that overrules decisions and is composed of both democracies and dictatorships, but in theory you would want to have organizations akin to it that could maintain nation state power balance and avoid the propagation of further empire or subjugation between states. Having this one nation beholden largely not even to its people but to its richest dictate global morals and ethics between societies is an oppression of its own, even if the alternative is recognizably worse in the current state of affairs.

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