Rather, I'm talking about the kind that kill people. Here's our current cycle of doom:
1) US people pay taxes. Around $680 billion a year goes to our military expenses. This amount is around 45% of the entire world's budget for military expenses. (http://www.globalissues.org/article/75/world-military-spending)
2) The US spends some of that $680 billion on the development of new weapons so that we can keep a technological edge. Private companies are generally the ones hired to do the research.
3) Private companies say, "TA DA!" as they present their new and improved killing machines to our government. The government admires their newfound edge.
4) Private companies realize that selling the technology to other countries would be financially beneficial to them. They act on this realization.
5) Militaries and militant states around the world end up with the technology designed to give the US the edge. This technology is used to maintain corrupt governments. It is also used by countries hostile to the US.
6) The US loses its edge and begins to get nervous.
7) Go back to step one and repeat.
(http://www.globalissues.org/article/74/the-arms-trade-is-big-business#Thearmstradeiscorrupt)
I am all for paying taxes, and I love what a government can do for people, but this is absolutely ridiculous. I'm proud of using our money to help people in our country and around the world, but we are spending a lot of money to provide people new ways to kill each other.
While I am on the topic of arms and the US shooting itself in the foot (pun intended), let's talk about our past decisions to supply arms and military aid to countries. A clear example is our great support of Saddam Hussein during the Iran-Iraq War. We gave them weapons, military training, and other forms of support that gave Hussein the ability to become the oppressive tyrant he was after the war. Obviously, we didn't really think through what we were doing because we clearly had no understanding of who Hussein was or the possible consequences of our actions. I think we get it now.
Except, we obviously don't really get it. Just today I was watching the news, and I saw that people were derogatorily calling Obama wussy and indecisive for taking time to consider how to react to the current situation in Libya. There is a large group of people who want to give weapons to groups trying to remove Qaddafi from power, and they also want to send in military to help the people. Have we learned nothing? We know very little about the factions who are involved in this process, yet people are condemning those who want to take time to make good decisions and gain understanding of the situation.
This post doesn't even begin to discuss our unhealthy military relationship with the Middle East, but my brother has a pretty nice post about that here. I hope that this gives you something to chew on.
4 comments:
But Karen, if our budget is only 45% of the world's, that means we can't take THEM ALL on! And that, my naive sister, is a THREAT to our national security!
Anyway, of course I agree with this post. However, I like our military research budget, just because research seems to be the part of the military budget most likely to (accidentally) actually help out society.
You silly bean.
Good point. I'm glad that some good things result. However, would it perhaps be more efficient/better to just reduce our military budget and pay other types of researchers to directly find ways to aid society? I guess that this would be controversial though. Oh constitution writers! They probably didn't anticipate that we'd be spending billions on our military (since that, of course, is clearly constitutional) but that we'd flinch when considering spending money to better society or help those trampled by the rich.
That is a separate story, though.
I think I'm just as non-fond of the military research budget as the military budget. NSF research funding and DOE research funding go to general science, but how many non-weapons-related research projects funded through the military? I'm actually asking; I'd be interested to know.
@Max- Online we found that non-weapon related areas include disease prevention, prosthetics, surgical techniques, and safety gear. However, sometimes the research that they do to create weapons can be applied to other areas, too. Matthew is pretty confident that he has heard of different materials being created for weaponry but then used for other things.
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