The Stagnant Working Class

[EricHiggin]

Pemalite said:

EricHiggin said:

The question would be how much to cut and where exactly? Just look at the American military, and what it's done for the world overall since the world wars. Many of these first world countries can only operate as they now do, because of the overall peace the American military has kept for the most part. How much should they cut? Half? More? Only American defense or defense overall for the 'world'? If another country needs America's help and they can't respond in a worthy manner, is that worth it as long as Americans have better healthcare at home? Maybe America needs to charge other countries more for protection, which very well could lead to those countries having to cut into things like healthcare for their people to pay for it.

The American Military is highly bureaucratic and extremely inefficient with what it spends it's cash-flow on.
Plus... They aren't leveraging cost-saving measures via modernization in manufacturing and automation...

Which is the advantage China has going forward, extremely cheap workforce and they just underwent their own industrial revolution, so they can get more military capability per buck than the USA can.

The USA needs to leverage it's technical prowess and make cost reductions across every sector of it's military economy... They don't need to specifically cut spending, they just need to make it more efficient so they can get more per taxpayer dollar.

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The Flipside is... Does the United States actually need a $600-$700 billion dollar a year military bill? What would it mean if it was half that? Would it mean they would need to work their diplomatic ties with other like-minded nations such as the British, Japan, South Korea, European Union, South Africa, New Zealand, Australia, swathes of South America.... And so on? Because combined, those like-minded nations will always have more capability than even a rising China who is set to overtake the USA anyway.

Should the USA charge other nations for protection? One could argue it already does... Especially if the benefit is trade... Or in our case, we actually train, support, feed, house and work with American soldiers on our soil, our intelligence agencies provide the Americans with information... And save them a buck that way. And vice-versa... And we provide a platform for the Americans to counter threats in the Pacific region and secure resources for wartime.

Nations have actually been developing such ties for decades... And there are various strategic reasons for that.

I mean, Australia doesn't need the USA to remain relatively safe, invading such a inhospitable continent of this size is a logistical nightmare anyway, hence why the Japanese didn't do it, but there are benefits to working together.

The problem with politics is that it's not as stable as something like the military. Politics may work here and now, but a change to leadership of a nation is all it takes to change things drastically in some cases, and that happens often enough. Not often do countries develop and stockpile world changing weapons like nukes. The main point is we don't know the future, and neither of us can make a really strong argument as to what will or won't happen as of now, let alone if you start making significant changes to certain sectors.

With a weakened American military, will that persuade other nations to focus more on their own military to catch up or eventually surpass? If they start to catch up, do things change or does America just stand around and watch healthier and happier for that moment? Tech may be more efficient if it can't easily be taken out by the enemy, but what if the enemy develops something to easily take that tech out? Your budget to counter is much lower now and your immediate defense is then dumber tech and people again anyway. Does America dare rely more on the rest of the world for military matters when in the past it tended to be America to the rescue?

There are just way too many unknowns, and safety typically trumps everything else. There was a documentary about WWI and WWII that I watched years back, that mentioned some European scholars were tasked with analyzing WWI and how to prevent another war of such magnitude. They eventually felt strongly that they understood the underlying problems behind it all and how a second world war could likely be avoided going forward. Apparently the papers even printed stories about this, but likely as propaganda to make the European people feel safe. Even though they worked with European Governments using their idea's, WWII happened anyway. 

Australia would likely be fine unless things got way way out of hand, but even in that case, how would you feel if elsewhere in the world, people were suffering because of war, when it would have been likely not to have happened, or easily stopped by America if they had remained on course as they are presently? Would you say the fact that Americans had better healthcare makes up for it?

I'm not saying I'm right and you're wrong, I'm just saying I think serious caution needs to be at the forefront and baby steps taken to a future that fits more in line with what you're describing. Which is much easier said than done, especially in a world of I want what I want now and expect it asap.