Thursday, May 31, 2007
U.S. Defense Spending: Myths and Facts [W. Thomas Smith Jr.]
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Wait: Before your eyes glaze over. This is great stuff. Nothing brainy. No numbers crunching. Just spoon-fed facts and simple figures related to U.S. military spending that you might not have considered.
Each video — less than two-minutes-long — explains and debunks a specific myth about defense spending.
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For example, National Security Analyst Mackenzie Eaglen says:
... Americans draw parallels to World War II spending and that of today. But if you look at the numbers, they actually show that — as a percentage of gross domestic product — U.S. Defense spending peaked during World War II at over 34 percent of GDP. Today that number is actually, roughly four percent. ...
Eaglen adds:
... a lot of Americans think that defense spending is the largest share of the federal budget. When in fact this is not the case. ...
But the question remains, do we really need to spend four percent of GDP on defense?
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Military Analyst James Carafano says:
It's a myth to say that after we begin to draw our forces back from Iraq or Afghanistan, that we're going to be able to take a peace dividend, that we're going to be able to cut military spending.
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Our military has done a remarkable job in the long war: They've gone everywhere we've asked them to go. They done everything we've asked them to do. But that's worn on the troops and their equipment. Helicopters are wearing out at five-times the rate that was anticipated. Trucks are wearing out faster than anticipated. So, we're going to have to re-invest in the military to get it ready to go again.
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We don't know when the next 9/11 is going to happen or when there's going to be another requirement for our military forces. We have to make sure our troops are ready to go day-in and day-out ...
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Watch and learn.
Editor’s note: Please see this note.
05/31 07:50 AM
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