Fred Fiske in Agreement on the Absurdity of the Military Budget

On public radio in Washington, D.C., Fred Fiske identified the absurdity of the U.S. Military Budget. His statistics agree that the military budget is superfluous and should be the area targeted for cutbacks. Based on this information, my recommendation would be towards the WCCI mentioned in the previous blog.

WAMU 88.5
Many consumers, businesses, and universities have been finding ways to put a lid on spending during the recession. Senior Commentator Fred Fiske says if the government is looking for a place to cut back, it should look no further than the military.

Fred Fiske
With all the talk about budget deficits and our horrendous national debt, you don't hear references to the fact that the amount the United States spends on defense equals the combined military spending of all the other countries in the world. No patriotic American would want to endanger our country, however, in view of the fact that our crippling deficits present a very real threat to our stability and opposition in the world, I would like to present to you some facts about our military spending.

Of 195 countries in the world, only 19 have no U.S. military presence. Of a total of 1,690,000 personnel, more than 550,000 are posted outside our borders. In 1938 we had 14 military bases oversees; today we have about a 1000. We have soldiers in East Asia and the Pacific, in Sub-Saharan Africa, in Canada, Brazil, in all the countries of Europe, in the former Soviet Union, and 2000 stationed in the Americas. Let it be said that 271,500 military personnel are stationed in Afghanistan and Iraq. We could understand why those numbers are high. Why we need soldiers in Australia and New Zealand, in Mozambique and Botswana, in Costa Rica and Uruguay is another story. It's easy to understand our military presence in may parts of the world where U.S. interest may be in danger, but why they are vital in many other countries is a mystery.

The figures I have presented are from the U.S. Department of Defense, the Office of Management and Budget, and from the budget of the American government. They've been published in American History Magazine.

Analysts have said that the U.S. faces no military threat from any nation in the world. The dangers we face are economic and ideological. The nation threatening our leadership position in the world is China. China's share of world military spending is 8%, the U.S. share is 48%. All of Europe spends 20%, our sometimes adversary Russia only 5%. My guess is that most of this growth took place following World War II when we were protecting military supply routes, and during the Cold War with the Soviet Union when we feared Communist subversion in many parts of the world. The threat is gone, but the troops remain. Like bureaucracies generally, I suspect the numbers just kept growing. We had large surpluses and nobody wanted to appear soft on defeense. Now, however, when we're considering whether we can afford national healthcare and whether we should cut other programs, wouldn't it be wise to assess the necessity and the wisdom of our worldwide military spending?