Theory I from
wiki
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Originally Posted by wiki
The 2005 U.S. military budget is almost as much as the rest of the world's defense spending combined [5] and is over eight times larger than the official military budget of China. (Note that this comparison is done in nominal value US dollars and thus is adjusted for purchasing power parity.) The United States and its close allies are responsible for about two-thirds of the world's military spending [...]
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and
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Originally Posted by wiki
2003, the United States spent about 47% of the world's total military spending of US$910.6 billion, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.
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Just so that you see, the cost of a nuke is nothing compared to what is actually spent...or thrown out of the window I would say.
Freez, since you are playing the devils advocate I will ignore the following statement (but don't worry I know that we usually agree on things like this, but then the reply to your post would be less fun...):
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Originally Posted by freeztar
I think most people would agree. I certainly do.  |
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Originally Posted by freez
1. There's a reason it's called the Department of Defence, rather than the Department of Offence.
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You can lay it out as you want, but this department can and does also create situations which force them to defend, so I would say it is wrongly called. Going to Afghanistan (I know not many agree with me here, there is a big discussion I had with Modest somewhere here) was just revenge, claiming to be defense and creating offence which implied the need for defence again. Same with Irak, it was the defence of what? Against weapons of mass destruction? It was just plain offence tried to be sold as something good, because it ended some bad regimes...all I can say to this if this was the reason why did they wait so long to react (taliban and saddam where in power already for more than a decade), so it is just a good excuse.
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Originally Posted by freez
If we layed down our guns, other countries might view this as a weakness and attempt to take over the US.
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This is the reason I am in favor of abolishing all world armies, but have one really democratic world-army (not like UN where there is veto-right) which could intervene when and where needed. There studies made on armies like this, it would cost worldwidely only a few hundred billions and could be really high-tech...
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Originally Posted by freez
2. Wars can help fuel an economy. It keeps lots of people employed.
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Building a space station, good educational system, cleaner energy, etc. with that money not invested in armies would also create employment. This is not really an argument for me, there is no reason why technicians building the casing of nukes cannot build the casing of space stations as well for example or the army physical condition trainers cannot be sports trainers or ... So also the argument that the new employments are not compatible with the old ones does not really hold; sure, there would be some people needing re-schooling, but not a big % of the peole working now somehow for tha army.
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Originally Posted by freez
3. Terrorism dictates that we must actively combat those that wish harm to other people, regardless of nationality.
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If you create terrorism by your foreign politics (by going to Irak and Afghanistan for example, or by creating Guantanamo bay) it is quite a logical consequence that you will have to fight terrorism. Why combat? Why for example not giving the independence many of the terrorists groups want (eg. ETA,Tchetchenia,...)? Why not talk to each other to find compromises? For example I never understood, why Jerusalem can not be both the main city of Israelian and Palestinian state...instead of talking, they just bomb each other and since Israel is a state it is called defence and Palestinians actions called terrorism (since they are not really a state)...but the result for the other side is the same in both cases.
Also, many terrorists do not wish to harm other people, they often just think that terrorist attacks are the only way to reach their goal (and in their view it justifies it
). So there is actually no way to combat (I mean with an army) terrorism, as long as the reason for their cause is there they will fight, the more you repress by force the more violent the terrorist attack will get. Can you tell me about one example where an army has ended a terrorist movement? Why is getting worse and worse in Israel?
The only way to end a terrorist movement is to take the reasons away, just look at Ireland, it has stopped when both sides eventually sat down and created a government together...
Ok, now I have to go back to work, looking forward to the replies, I really like to discuss politics and the (not-)usefulness of the army (see my signature)
