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I don’t feel comfortable with advising any country that they must increase their defense spending. Who exactly is the threat? But I DO agree with Trump that given the premise that NATO is neccessary and good (a premise I utterly reject) then the members should pony up more and be more responsible for their own protection. But overall I see the US and other governments as basically criminal money-laundering enterprises and arms contracts are a vital cog in that machine. As a youth I was quite the hawk — more was always better. But now I see the bulk of defense spending as the means by which politicians get and stay elected (among many such means).

[But now I see the bulk of defense spending as the means by which politicians get and stay elected (among many such means).]

Defense spending is a lot like insurance. It will seem like a waste until a time that you need it. Then you won’t have time to ramp up spending quickly enough to meet the threat. We’re fortunate to have oceans on either side. Even so, after decades of spending 1% of GDP on defense per year, we spent 2 years of economic output (200% of GDP) fighting WWII. Because of decades of starvation budgets that short-changed both training and equipment, we also lost 400K men, despite getting into the war only after the Axis powers had already taken significant losses (Japan from fighting China, and Germany from fighting Russia), and fighting a smaller fraction of Axis forces than other Allies that were literally involved in life-and-death struggles.

Note that the defense budget is only 10% of total government spending. And it’s the one item that government has always spent money on, because it’s necessary for the protection of the nation. https://www.usgovernmentspending.com/total https://www.usgovernmentspending.com/defense_spending