As I stated, you US can no longer afford to fund the global defense umbrella for our allies. Our economy is declining under massive debt, which will raise debt servicing costs from the current $400 billion a year to over $800 billion in a decade. Debt servicing costs are the third largest item in the federal budget after entitlements and defense. We will no longer be able to afford guns and butter and the politicians will choose butter. Just as the Briish could no longer afford troops East of Suez, the US global defense role will decline. It is inevitable.
Our allies must do more or this will become an increasingly dangerous world with countries like China trying to fill the vacuum. Canada is an example of a country that could do more, but isn't.
> Of course, when you have the US taxpayerChiComs picking up most of the tab, you can afford to have a virtually non-existent military so you can afford your socialized medical care. There. Fixed it. Truth in Advertising.
You have your facts wrong again. China holds about $1.5 trillion of our $11.4 trillion national debt, hardly picking up the tab for our defense.
The US taxpayer has been picking up most of the tab for the security umbrella for our allies. Unlike the Chinese who hold a real debt instrument and will be paid interest on their holdings and can cash them in to get back their money, the US taxpayer will not see a penny of its money back. That's the difference.
> Our allies must do more or this will become an increasingly dangerous world with countries like China trying to fill the vacuum. Canada is an example of a country that could do more, but isn’t.
If you look at the US warfare model you can probably see why. Nobody can afford to wage war like that: not even the US.
The War on Terror is asymmetric, and the terrorists have huge leverage on a cost-per-casualty basis. The war is on their turf — so they don’t even need to pay travel costs — and their equipment cost is peanuts.
How much does an Apache helicopter cost? And how much does the surface-to-air missiles cost to shoot it down?
How much does a HumVee cost? And how much does an IED cost to blow it to smithereens?
How much does a single jet sortee cost — one that drops napalm and kills, say, 20 terrorists?
Who can afford to wage war on that basis? The US can’t. What chance does Canada or New Zealand or the UK or Germany have of affording it if the US can’t?
These desert ruffians don’t really need to be killed with half-million dollar bombs, surely. But that is the US warfare model.
> You have your facts wrong again. China holds about $1.5 trillion of our $11.4 trillion national debt, hardly picking up the tab for our defense.
Actually, my facts are spot-on.
I was picking on the ChiComs because they are funding about a third of this year’s operating DEFICIT so far — which is a different thing to your national debt. (As you will know, the national debt is an accumulation of many years of deficit financing)
On that basis, I venture that the ChiComs are almost certainly funding this year’s military opex, and probably also this year’s military capex as well. And if not the ChiComs, then some other lender.
Who can afford to wage war like this? Asymmetric warfare waged in this fashion will surely ruin the United States.
So why would Canada want to do something like that?
Their model has tended toward peacekeeping instead: as a Nation they have deployed on nearly every peacekeeping mission worldwide since the UN was founded. Their rationale is obviously to keep the peace so that war expenditures can be avoided. So far, not a bad strategy.
New Zealand follows a similar model: we cannot have a large army even if we wanted one: we’re the size of Chicago. We can afford what the City of Chicago could afford, max. And so we don’t have alot of expensive kit: can’t afford it.
But what we do have is a superbly trained military equipped to fight in the South Pacific theater. And we have elite forces trained to the highest standard in the world, capable of fighting in all theaters. And both are always deployed somewhere.
That is what Chicago could afford, so that is what New Zealand has.