The Economist: The World's Biggest Military Spenders by Population • Hacker News Board

Re: The Economist: The World's Biggest Military Spenders by Population

#31

Post by Retric » Tue, Jun 09, 2009, 10:23 PM UTC

anamax wrote: post #29

Retric wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"NATO's mandate is to provide a common defence for the European and Atlantic areas." The simple truth is most of the US military spending is domestic in nature. Historicly military benifits (heathcare, education etc.) vastly outweigh spending on classical peacekeeping missions. Toss in R&D which has little to do with defending our allies and the numbers just get silly. "As of 28 February, 2009 1,454,515 people are on…

> "NATO's mandate is to provide a common defence for the European and Atlantic areas." Does anyone seriously think that said Atlantic areas includes the US side of the Atlantic? (I do think that the Brits would help on the US side of the Atlantic.) We can argue about whether the US military would be as large as it is without the NATO committment, but that doesn't change the fact that said committment is part of the r…

Canada is also in NATO and sends troops on NATO missions.

When you look at US military spending as a fraction of it's GDP the US is not that insane. We just spend more as a fraction of our GDP than most rich nations. Which is not really a rational choice when you look at world wide threats.

PS: The Parties of NATO agreed that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all. However, the French withdrawal in 1966 suggests it was less important than you might expect.

Excluding the US from both NATO and world number: NATO members account for 40% of worldwide military spending. Including the US it's 70%.

Re: The Economist: The World's Biggest Military Spenders by Population

#32

Post by ivankirigin » Tue, Jun 09, 2009, 11:00 PM UTC

J_McQuade wrote: post #25

ivankirigin wrote: post #8

The US's dominant roll in NATO makes this graph misleading. For decades, Europe has essentially had a subsidized military through alliance with the US. They complain about increased US influence, but it's actually directly caused by who is defending whom.

Well, ignoring the rather loose way in which we (the west) have been using the term 'defending' in the last few years, I would agree that these figures may well be a bit skewed - similar graphs breaking down exactly what the spending is used for would be far more useful. For example, I don't have the figures, but I would assume that the USA spends an awful lot more on military R&D than the nations here in Europe, and…

I was mainly referring to the Cold War. It isn't really up for debate that the US outspent Europe to build up and counter the USSR.

R&D doesn't make up a big part of defense spending. I'm not counting things like the F22 as R&R.

Re: The Economist: The World's Biggest Military Spenders by Population

#33

Post by rfreytag » Tue, Jun 09, 2009, 11:08 PM UTC

yhnbgty wrote: post #11

rfreytag wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China spends more per dollar of GDP on the military - very interesting.

China'a GDP is a bit of an estimate. For any country with a large internal market and a central government the GDP figure isn't very useful.

You must be thinking of GNP which has been supplanted by GDP >preciselyI think the CIA factbook probably does not totally rely on the PRC's reported GDP (which I agree are likely suspect).

Re: The Economist: The World's Biggest Military Spenders by Population

#34

Post by holograham » Wed, Jun 10, 2009, 12:38 AM UTC

The US number is misleading, many innovations come from military spending that improve civilian life as well. i.e. the internet

Re: The Economist: The World's Biggest Military Spenders by Population

#35

Post by lamnk » Wed, Jun 10, 2009, 10:33 AM UTC

ivankirigin wrote: post #18

lamnk wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't Europe helping out the US in Afghanistan ? Can you cite a source stating that US is defending Europe ?

I'm told coordination efforts with, for example, inferior air forces, are often more costly than doing it alone. Compare it to coordination efforts between, say, Microsoft's marketting department and a local food blogger. They don't operate using the same methods. Ohh, and US defending Europe, the best example: the cold war. It was decades of US military buildup largely to ensure they could invade or nuke eastern Eur…

It's true that US bases in Asia/Europe helped those countries in some ways. However the intention of the US is not to defend them, it defends itself first.

Re: The Economist: The World's Biggest Military Spenders by Population

#36

Post by eru » Wed, Jun 10, 2009, 10:52 AM UTC

halo wrote: post #24

gehant wrote: post #13

There is no way China is only spending $85 billion. They've been fudging numbers on military expenditures for years. ...apparently if we look the other way, it'll go away.

In the context of percentage of GDP per person then China is probably much higher.

Percentage of GDP suffices. Otherwise you will be multiplying and dividing by population.