Does America have a war base economy?

Paco Dennis said:
Your idea would be true "if" war wasn't systemically necessary. BUT, the U.S. economy isn’t just "partially" war-based—it’s structurally dependent on perpetual war spending, arms exports, and global military dominance. The system is designed to require conflict, whether hot wars, cold wars, or manufactured threats (China, Russia, terrorism). Without it, the economic dislocation would be catastrophic—which is why no administration, Democrat or Republican, ever truly disarms.
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We don't 'truly disarm' because it would be our final act of suicide.
 

Paco Dennis said:
@Bob Sorry bout that reply...totnado just was sighted near here and it is tense. Your right in that it is not a completely war base. We have many other resourses, but our economy would fold if we cut into our war budget. It is like other mass changes humans need to make. Eating right, adjusting to new tech, inequality, education, and global warming.
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No worries. We will always have a military budget the same as other countries who may not even be at war. I suppose one could say that every country that has ever existed has had some measure of their resources go into defense, and therefore no different than ours. It just comes down to percentages.

As mentioned, our percentage is around 3.5% of GDP, which reflects the U.S.'s global defense commitments and priorities. That being said, 96.5% of our GDP is not spent on the military. During peacetime, the military budget has traditionally ranged somewhere between 2 to 3% of GDP, which is still more than other countries.

Like other countries, even in peacetime, a military budget is never going away. It's just a part of economics. Whether one considers it a war-based economy is subjective I suppose.
 
Don't forget that the post WWII bribe to inherently belligerent nations was that the US would take on the bulk of policing the non-Soviet world.

Now that the US is beginning to bow out of that role, they are pitching a fit because they've spent that money elsewhere while living on the backs of American workers. They'd love to paint this as something else but economists know different.
 

It is no secret that we are in proxy wars with Russia and Israel's enemies. It costs Billions of $$$ to keep these wars going. It is a huge drain on the economy you would think. So why is it important to have such a costly military budget?
 
The sensationalized billions of dollars in military aid that we provides is for the most part money that has already been spent.

Most of what we provides comes out of existing stockpiles of weapons and equipment that is rotting away and would need to be replaced at some point.

Most of it is delivered by existing military personnel using existing ships and planes.

The real cost comes if and when we choose to replace those things with new stockpiles of modern weapons and equipment.

IMO the debt that we have chosen to carry is the greatest threat that we face but none of us seem to have the will to step up and pay the bill.
 
mrstime said:
Khrushchev once said one day Russia would take America and not one shot would have to be fired."

Actually he said the US would raise the red flag over themselves. I believe Trump and the Nazi will hurry that prediction along.
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It is the socialists, not the conservatives, who will hurry that prediction along --ever delighting the socialists.
 
Aunt Bea said:
The sensationalized billions of dollars in military aid that we provides is for the most part money that has already been spent.

Most of what we provides comes out of existing stockpiles of weapons and equipment that is rotting away and would need to be replaced at some point.

Most of it is delivered by existing military personnel using existing ships and planes.

The real cost comes if and when we choose to replace those things with new stockpiles of modern weapons and equipment.

IMO the debt that we have chosen to carry is the greatest threat that we face but none of us seem to have the will to step up and pay the bill.
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The idea that military aid is 'already spent money' is misleading. Those stockpiled weapons and equipment were paid for by taxpayer dollars—your dollars—and now they’re being sent abroad instead of being liquidated, repurposed, or used to reduce our own national debt.

Other industries—healthcare, infrastructure, education—don’t operate on this kind of fiscal negligence. If a hospital stockpiled medicine only to give it away later, taxpayers would demand accountability. If a city built bridges and then shipped them overseas instead of maintaining its own infrastructure, people would be outraged.

The national debt is indeed a crisis, and the refusal to acknowledge the real cost of perpetual military aid (both in immediate spending *and* long-term replenishment) is a big reason why. The bill *is* coming due—either in future taxes, inflation, or austerity—and pretending otherwise won’t make it disappear."
 
Warrigal said:
This mirrors my thinking. The US, as early as the Great War, has made money selling armaments and equipment to other countries.
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Australia is a major arms exporter as well. Other arms exporters include France, Germany, Israel, Belgium, the UK, China, Russia, and the list goes on and on and on.
 

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