Have you fallen for the "Military spending is bad" meme?
Do other countries not realize we, The United States, protect them from attacks with that money?
Makes you wonder who is pushing for cut down on military spending and resorting to memes like this to influence "normies" one of two options:
1) Liberals who have no idea what they are talking about.
2) Enemies of the States who want to hurt America using propaganda to influence thought and reason within our country.
We are perfectly capable of protecting ourselves. You pretty much protect the whole world though except a few countries.
hmmm... I wonder...
>spend more on military
>Geopolitical threats are deterred, or if they are not sufficiently deterred you at least have the kit to fight them with
>spend more on public "education"/left-wing brainwashing
>schools are still a cross between day care and prison and getting worse
Citation: the state of California
>Makes you wonder who is pushing for cut down on military spending and resorting to memes like this
Dumb leftists who make their judgments on feels instead of logic. No need to invent conscious conspiracies when unconscious ones already explain everything
>"Military spending is bad!"
We have a massive military industrial complex. I don't mean that in the conspiracy meme way; I mean it in the fact that individual companies, like Lockheed Martin or Northrop Grumman have contributed more to defense tech in the last 50 years than the entire European aerospace/defense industry.
Aerospace engineers are among the highest paid professions in the country, mostly because aerospace firms get a huge chunk of the budget. Let's say we pay a lot for an F-35, more than is needed for just the F-35, that means that Lockheed puts that money back into its company. They can put that excess money into funding other advanced research programs that are unprofitable; they can put that money into higher wages for engineers or hiring money, for fucks sake, they can even put it into share buybacks which boosts the values of American pensions and employees' stock holdings, basically an indirect way of increasing their wages.
The only people who don't like this are, as you said OP, liberals with no clue of what the military does and enemies of the state.
It's funny how liberals crusade against high defense budgets, yet also preach that "government" invented the internet. Government didn't invent the internet, the fucking military invented the internet. The military has been and will continue to be at the forefront of most technological advancements.
One is necessary, the other is a luxury and arguably a detriment
That said I think military spending is too high.
In our current limitless spending climate, arguing we spend more on x than y is idiotic
We don't just throw away what we spend on the military, we sell the weapons and systems to other countries for a profit. Also a bulk is used for research and job creation through manufacturing. Education is a waste
>at war with 1.8b terrorists
>educating roughly 80m, some of whom pay for themselves
Bombing goatfuckers is a bargain compared to educating niggers.
>Geopolitical threats are deterred
If you increase military spending too much you look threatening so you give a reason to geopolitical neighbors to arm themselves. Especially when you are one big bully. Every country needs a proper army of their own, but nobody needs a world police or an interventionist country that stages wars for the corps.
>Aerospace engineers are among the highest paid professions in the country, mostly because aerospace firms get a huge chunk of the budget
So they are welfare queens leeching on the public purse - really makes ya think!
>but nobody needs a world police or an interventionist country that stages wars for the corps.
That country would disagree, because it is acting in its own interests
>protect them from attacks
We said the same to Latin countries
Dont be so silly, the US is an imperialist country that imposes his doctrine with economic sanctions and if that doesnt work they will park a nuclear reactor filled with bombers in front of you
>its own interests
Whose interests again?
The military invented the internet with their funding. I want more.
The interests of your hypothesized interventionist country. You don't think they do it for everybody else, do you?
Military
>kills muslims
>protects homeland
>helps control riots and protests
>rescues people in distress that the local agencies can't
>disaster relief
>budget is extremely scrutinized every year whether you believe it or not
>creates millions of jobs
>money is spent on American products and goes back into local economy
>creates highly skilled workers to release back into American infrastructure
Education
>won't even pay for your child's lunch
>"lunch"
>won't pay for your textbooks
>teachers unions
>fraudulent spending on useless studies and feel-good classes
>creates SJWs and contempt for your fellow man
The choice is pretty clear
They don't do it for the others. But they sure don't do it "for the country" or its citizens either.
When the state is a tool of control that serves money and a nationless elite the state must fall.
eternal chinks
But that's not even an American tank, is it? It looks like a British IFV to me.
Nothing wrong with this, especially when bunch of worthless "feminism studies" types of degrees are considered education
Go pick up a rifle and make it happen then, Mexicoanon. I'm waiting.
>education is a luxury
>education is a detriment
American education, folks...
Protip: the foundation of effective defence is a competitive economy.
>RT telling the US to spend less on Defense
Brussels is too far from home. And Spaniards have the government they chose. Can't oppose the masses, even Hitler knew that.
I don't know about the US, but in Germany defence spending is a federal matter while almost every educational spending is state and local matter.
>Enemies of the States who want to hurt America using propaganda to influence thought and reason within our country.
The current US federal government does that. Have you ever considered that they are the true enemies of the American people and that they use the military and police to "influence thought and reason within our country"?
>ut that's not even an American tank, is it? It looks like a British IFV to me.
It's an upgunned export version of a British recon vehicle, the FV101 "Scorpion 90"
The Brit ones have a shorter and smaller gun with no muzzle brake. I think they ended up converting them into FV107s.
A M E R I C A N E D U C A T I O N
>Protip: the foundation of effective defence is a competitive economy.
Which has exactly nothing to do with our "education" system. Our system is pretty much Junior Prison with a side dose of ultra-left indoctrination
it's all in your governments interest.
Do you honestly the senate and the white house give a single fuck about Europe and the rest of their "allies". No it is just a tool to strengthen your countries position in the global society and a protection method for required resources.
Also your military industry earns a good load of crash which also benefits congressmen and senate members, who get financial "support" from lobby groups
Nice protection by killing Gadaffi and opening the flood gates to Europe. Also nice protection by killing Saddam and trying to kill Assad for your kike overlords, which created all the refugees in the first place.
If it was up to me, I'd leave NATO immediately, build 100 German nukes and remove your entire army from Germany. Especially your cancerous 24/7 spying on every citizen, especially our government.
>Which has exactly nothing to do with our "education" system.
>a competitive economy has nothing to do with education
I guess that's why the subsistence agriculture sector in Africa is just booming.
Yeah, your education system is fucking SHIT (like most of your country tbqh) but that doesn't make education a luxury.
I like how these faggots just compared the military spending with the Department of Education budget who does fucking nothing since most of our education is run and maintained by the individual states themselves.
Plz no more budget cuts.
My job consists of shooting guns, blowing up doors, jumping out of airplanes, PT 2-3 times a day, and deployments are starting to ramp up again.
We'll be able to have our 3rd (white) kid soon if I can stay in the military.
>I think they ended up converting them into FV107s.
They were converted to Sabres, which are like FV107 Scimitars but with a smaller turret and a coaxial changun.
Sabres were retired as well though around 2004 (not enough room to fit radio and sight upgrades really), and only Scimitars remained
our education system is the best in the world, unless your poor
What is with the European obsession with tankettes anyway? Scimitars, Wiesels, it never ends.
We do spend too much on military spending.
The problem with this education slant is that "education" is just leftist brainwashing. Our education system hasn't actually done it's job properly for decades by now. We want to pay these people more money for utterly failing at preparing 2 generations of Americans for the world ahead.
>Australia doesn't understand the concepts of funding and opportunity cost
Lel
desu our goverment is cancer aswell. I am afraid years of zionist propaganda have turned european militarisim into ashes. It would needs a hard culture war to get our tradtitions back in the local mainstream.
Because they are a qt
Using light armor for recon is pretty widespead, user. Don't you use LAVs for that job?
And the Wiesels are just weapon carriers, like an armed Humvee
>le "there are more important things we could be spending our money on than the fucking foundation of our economy and society in general" meme
Yeah, ASLAVs. But they're not tankettes.
I get what their role is, I just wonder why Euros go for tankettes whereas everyone else goes for armoured cars. Is there something particular about European geography that favours the tankette?
We don't need that much of an army, just a good defense force plus a strong and developed martial culture. Hell, even gun culture does the job. Who the fuck would ever attempt to launch a land invasion on the US? They would be massively fucked.
I mean at some point you reach critical mass for spending money on education. You never really do for the military. Eventually bloated budgets in public education go to stupid shit like a new scoreboard for the football team every two years or more fast food options in a cafeteria.
I remember growing up in a richer public school district and there was a program called Robin Hood that took a portion of every public school district that had over a certain amount and gave it to the poorer districts. These poorer districts immediately spent the money on the most asinine shit, improving their sports programs and parking for their venues while forgoing spending on teachers and education entirely. They continued to underperform in education, which meant that no one wanted to live there because of the bad schools, which means they remained poor from lack of tax revenue, which means they kept getting free money from richer school districts forever.
Unregulated spending on public education ends up giving tablets to students who "lose them" every month but always manage to buy new sneakers or video games while they are on the free lunch program the school provides impoverished families. Unregulated spending on the military gives you cell phones and the internet.
That was literally my argument you shitcunt
My diverging point was that it's arguable if *the state* funding education is helpful, or the state funding education to such a level
If you weren't aware our spending on education per student outpaces everyone and yet it's still shit
The argument that education is a luxury goes to the fundamental nature of a state, which is that education funding exists only after your state is able to exist in the first place via defense funding
The second argument, that funding education is a detriment goes to the argument that it is better done in the private sector and/or excessive taxation for no apparent result has opportunity cost in the form of lower taxpayer purchasing power
Attacks from who?
We need another global conflict
I want flying cars and jetpacks
>That was literally my argument you shitcunt
Yeah, calling education a fucking luxury immediately lends itself to the nuanced position you now describe.
>the state is only able to exist via defence funding
Yeah, and defence funding is drawn from tax receipts that come from a competitive economy.
North Korea spends a quarter of its GDP of defence and couldn't stop a wet fart because its GDP is fuckall and its population is illiterate peasants.
Education is not a luxury. If your country can only afford ONE THING, make that thing education.
>but what if we get invaded
Without education you can't defend yourself anyway.
>it is better done in the private sector
l m a o.
Typical Americans. "We fucked it up hardcore, guess we better ignore the rest of the fucking world that gets it right and just pretend like if we can't do it nobody can."
>If you weren't aware our spending on education per student outpaces everyone and yet it's still shit
Oh gee, I guess that says something about Americans in general, doesn't it? You get the government you deserve.
America will never be more than what it is because Americans made it that way, they like it that way, and they'll resist every effort to change it. Come to terms with the fact that your country is a neo-feudal garbage pile that exports insecurity and trails corpses and coagulated blood behind it. You probably won't be happier but at least you'll be honest.
Our government is a puppet regime of traitors of the USA and nothing else. In any truly sovereign Germany most of those who hold political power today should and would be shot for treason. They don't deserve to even breath. The pain and anguish you see in Merkel's face is testimony to this fact. They are corrupted souls to the core and degenerate apparatschiks.
But I don't think it will happen either. Germany will become third world tier, as the USA, with the mass immigration. And China will rise to world leading power and unify and control all of Eurasia. The worst nightmare of the USA will come true.
If we will be better off as a colony of the chinks? I don't know. If we don't degenerate completely, it will come to a new cold war. But this time even worse. Because Chyna will be stronger than the SU.
>guess we better ignore the rest of the fucking world that gets it right
how many australian universities are in the ivy league?
We have more top 100 universities per capita than you do, pal.
If we become third world, we can try to take over parts of our country and start killing the Shitskins. Prepare!
> yes goys, let the american military protect you from ever straying from our usury and jewish banking, they're patriot freedom fighters!!
rekt
>easily lends itself
In conjunction with the rest of my post it does
>from a competitive economy
It doesn't automatically follow that a state education grants you that economic power. One argument is that it's actually the other way around, and a better economy allows for a better education, especially in developing countries.
>uses north Korea as an example
Retarded, and assumes north Korea isn't actively fucking with other-than-state attempts at education, which is my point
>education is not a luxury
Relative to defense it is. It certainly enhances your ability to defend if you have a better economy though
>without education you can't defend yourself
You're conflating fundamental government theory with modern practicality. Right now nobody could compete with the United states regardless of their education. On a fundamental level, defense came first.
>ignore the rest of the world
And you're ignoring history. The fact remains that our private sector does it better under what we permit our government to control. You're dismissing this point out of hand
>the rest of the post is meaningless trash
You Australians must be upset the Canadians stole your position as worst shit posters, that was trying really hard
Yeah but the most complex thing tyrone can do is crack, not F-fuckin-35
>per capita
Your arguments around defense are premised under having a competitive economy that has nothing to do with per capita, and then you appeal to a per capita argument to assume superiority
The concept of diminishing returns seems to elude you as well
Chinks are the kikes of the east.
Fucking rice merchants.
Your graphic only includes federal spending. Education is a state and local issue, not a federal issue. No where in the US Constitution is Congress given broad authority over the education system.
Total government education spending in the United States is set to total $1,071.4b in 2017.
You don't actually protect anyone but your economy completely relies on this level of military spending and projection. I don't mean just the military industrial complex, you can do things economically no one else can because your currency is backed by your hegemony.
>you don't protect anybody
Remind me how defense spending in europe is anywhere near enough to actually defend themselves
Or any western nation for that matter
You don't anticipate war because of the nature of a global hegemony
I'm fine with spending lots of cash on the military, except that they seem to be shitting a lot away and we have shit that needs doing at home.
I'd rather the military do more with what they have than keep shoveling more cash their way.
The bridge I have to drive over to go to work not collapsing is more important to me than blowing up only 500 goatfuckers in bumfuckistan instead of 1000.
A lot of Military spending goes to college for a lot of recruits right? Also you get an education and training inside the military, depending on your placement.
we should give the military control of schools and initiate a conscription program like the finns
>this entire fucking post
Mother of God.
Are you actually arguing that being dumber leads to a more competitive economy?
>b-b-b-but state education doesn't make you smarter
No, AMERICAN state education doesn't make you smarter. Get it right.
>North Korea is a retarded example
Why? Because it proves how fucking stupid you really are? North Korea is a fantastic example - they spend a huge amount on defence and can't defend themselves because they have no high-tech industry at all. They've been struggling to make nuclear ICBMs for decades - tech that is 60 fucking years old.
>On a fundamental level, defense came first.
Wrong. US security was historically supported by the US's huge industrial base. Guess what is required for industrialisation, user.
If the US had never educated it would never have industrialised.
Wrong again. user wanted to engage in a tangential argument about how Australian education was not superior to the US when it obviously is. It has an objectively higher return on investment.
>having a competitive economy has nothing to do with per capita
But it has everything to do with productivity, which is a per capita metric.
It's a shame because you're obviously relatively intelligent but the shithole bombed out education system you had to suffer through seems to have stunted your growth. And speaking of diminishing returns, consider this: if you invest only in defence and not at all in education, infrastructure, or anything else, how effectively do you think you will be able to defend yourself? And what does every other aspect of society (including defence) depend on?
Education.
Without education you have nothing. Any short-term gains you make in security will be lost in a matter of years. That's not a path to sustainable competitive advantage.
Tanks tend to cost more than textbooks
You braindead victim of the Common Core, there would have been only small local conflicts if it hadn't been for your constant interventions. You're now destroying Yemen to please the Saudis,you're the one to blame escalation in Syria and war-mongering on our border. How the fuck Russia with 2% of global GDP threatens the EU with 15%? France, GB have nukes. Why then NATO don't protect the EU border from Muslim invastion DeShawn?
>Remind me how defense spending in europe is anywhere near enough to actually defend themselves
That depends on the spending of the aggressor. Defend themselves against who? Russia and ISIS? Denmark? The US creates boogeymen to justify it's spending which is in fact economically motivated. Russians have tried to play the civilized game with the rest of the world lots of times, they were ready to disarm MAD at one point. Without divisive US propaganda and nation building the Russians and the middle eastern authoritarians would have been dealt with in a civilized way.
>are you actually arguing that?
No, you just lack comprehension
>bbbbut state educations doesn't make you smarter
Again misunderstanding opportunity cost
>north Korea is a great example
Yea, against the strawman you're arguing with. They quash any legitimate education, let alone private education. It's a terrible analogy
>guess what is required
You really don't understand what the word fundamental means.
>if the us had never educated
I've never disputed that education enhances defense. I'll remind you that you're arguing with a strawman
>it is objectively better than in the US
In a conversation about defense & education it isn't objectively better. The fact that we have the vast majority of the top schools lends more to our defense than a flimsy per capita claim.
>return on investment
Nobody would dispute that. My point is limited to seen vs unseen opportunity cost, and defense. Yours is what is on a tangent, trying to warp the thread about defense and education to a mere quality of education per person argument.
>productivity
Which has nothing to do with the end result of defense, relative to what non-perishable capita evaluations would add
Put it this way, would it be more useful to defense to produce the absolute best education to part of your economy, or a better on average, yet not nearly the best education to all of your economy? And then factor in parts of the population that might as well be primitive.
>education
Your appeals to the importance of education are preaching to the quoir. Nobody would dispute it's importance. What I've disputed is what it could be, and how defense spending is fundamentally more important.
Perhaps I would also add that defense spending is and has always been most important, but limited to necessity. You need a certain amount of defense and then above that is meaningless, whereas education doesn't seem to have such a cap.
I'm not arguing that what we are doing is proper dipstick
The effect is the same whether or not what we are doing is proper
Kill yourself
Here is the quick rundown:
I'm pretty sure everyone here is aware of the concept of spheres of influence. Right now America controls controls influence within Europe and the Sunni Kingdoms of the middle east, likewise Russia has influence over some of the old soviet bloc states and the shia populace south of its border (China having a smaller sphere in SE Asia and various African states). Each of the countries within these spheres have their own smaller spheres of influence (e.g. Germany over Europe, Saudi Arabia over the middle east, Kenya over east Africa..etc.), making these nations important local powers. However these local powers primarily exist because the Superpower in charge allows it.
Back during the days of imperialism the plan had always been to have a very large army that keeps those under its influence in line, and these countries would quite readily use this force to get rid of any possible threats to their power. However post-WW1 a new problem emerged: War became very costly. Every nation had weapons that could bring unprecedented amounts of destruction against all their enemies, so nobody wanted to get involved in minor skirmishes directly. NATO supports the mujaheddin to stop the soviets, Warsaw Pact supports north Vietnamese to stop American encroachment, China supports ZANU in order to establish Chinese communism in Africa instead of the soviet ZAPU. This became the new normal: don't get involved yourself but allow your pawns to die for you.
This however became a new problem emerged: how do you get a local power to not try and usurp power from those that rule it? The Saudis, the Emiratis, the Jordanians all want to push their Wahabi ideology on to the human race, and have actively used America's support of those regimes.
1/?
>you now: nobody would dispute education's importance
>you then: education is a luxury
Looks like I won.
See ya, senpai.
>bitchingabouthegemony.aiff
>...
>Have you fallen for the "Military spending is bad" meme?
Well, how much do you have to spend to defeat Vietnam?
You honestly think the world would be playing this nice without a hegemony effecting things?
You honestly think spending virtually nothing on defense would be possible if america suddenly stopped existing?
Again, I'm not praising the virtues of hegemony or the us necessarily, that's a seperate argument
Military spending in the US is actually only about 5% of GDP. Putting us in about 7th place in the world.
>bullshit chart
We spend more on education than defense.
The mere presence of our military keeps the peace. No one wants to start shit because there's always the possibility of the US getting involved.
>doesn't understand the word luxury has more than one use
Luxury, as in less than *absolutely* necessary, or, as in you can seemingly spend an infinite amount on it
You just don't understand what fundamental entails, education today has become vastly more important than in the past, and is only getting more important
Trying to tie it to raw spending or state spending (the point of the thread) is retarded and absolutely a luxury in the sense that we can afford to waste billions on no results
You're either a fockin empire and buy more fokin planes
Or you're a belgium and sit around jacking off in your pretty campuses
>shitpost like a retard and fail to get across the nuance of your opinion
>blame other people when your poorly communicated ideas are interpreted as they're written
Also, implying education is not absolutely necessary to effective defence is fucking wrong, as you have admitted.
Education is absolutely necessary to effective defence. It's not a luxury in any sense of the word except for your arbitrary and meaningless definition which you have dreamed up purely to avoid being wrong and which has no application outside this argument.
>You honestly think spending virtually nothing on defense would be possible
Perhaps the European countries would spend a lot more but that only means they are exploiting your position now, not that you really provide net security with your policies. I said you don't protect anybody. I don't think the effects of your actions are protective. They don't add to anyone's security, not even yours. How exactly the world would look without US hegemony is hard to model but yes I honestly think it would work out well. My problem is not with military spending directly or even US hegemony but how it's used, the most destructive agents seem to be the intelligence sector.
This was kind of tolerated throughout the cold war as these extremists were detrimental to the Soviet ideology. However no local power will ever be satisfied as being just a local power. The Sunni monarchies paying out all these wahabi preachers to spread their ideals ended up allowing for extremism to flourish across the Arab world (Israel didn't allow them to have pan-Arabism so everyone switched over to the only thing more powerful than Israel itself, Allah). During the antebullum 90's, post-Yugoslavia but pre-9/11, America's defence spending decreased as they had mastered the art of paying third party actors to do their bidding (Osama took care of the rise of Ba'athism, Israel kept Iran in line and the only thing Bill Clinton had to ever do was bomb Gaddafi).
However this way of dealing with things would not last. Eventually the Sunni's wanted their own wants and needs to be on par with Americas (the annihilation of Israel and a global Caliphate) so they allowed the extremists to multiply and prosper. The plan was a bit like how the old communists would go from country to country spreading the revolution, the Wahabbi Imams spread their hate across the planet. This however led to the largest strike against America's global domination ever committed: 9/11. All those years of supporting third-parties to take care of things, all those years supporting those local powers to keep those nations in line, ended up biting America in the ass in the worst possible way.
Bush Jr. and Obama both knew that the new ways were over, trusting the Arabs clearly did not work and they could see China's attempts to drag Africa into its dominance.
2/3
>Why then NATO don't protect the EU border from Muslim invastion
It would be Frontex job. But why stop something that is part of the (((Agenda)))?
Don't bother. Americans can never understand that they have been the biggest source of insecurity in South East Asia for decades, that Europe's security situation would be virtually unchanged without them, and that they have done nothing but export war to the Middle East.
American hegemony has nothing to do with global security.
>mfw Americans claim to be defending Europe from Russia
>mfw Americans did nothing to defend Ukraine from Russia
>failing
Because the person I'm talking to doesn't understand words, like fundamentals
>is fucking wrong
Another example of lack of understanding
Resource spending on education has only increased over time and used to be a minor benefit
Ancient civilizations used to be almost entirely structured around defense, with all other considerations, education included, taking a significant backseat
You take my assertion of fundamental and apply it to modern, incredibly complex situations
You're a fucking retard
>How the fuck Russia with 2% of global GDP threatens
except its 7% but I'll ask your source on that 2%.
Nevertheless your GDP is quite shit so it doesn't matter
lack of funding is not the problem with US education
we spend more than twice as much per student as countries with better outcomes.
What is with you people arguing with a strawman? I even excluded an evaluation of how effective or righteous hegemony is
From a military defense spending perspective ( and subsequently relative education spending), European countries do not have to spend as much as they otherwise would
You're expanding the notion of protect beyond defense spending, which is fine, but your response was to the op post. I would agree that hegemony is not a net positive at all to Europe or elsewhere.
Now THIS is damage control.
>Ancient civilizations used to be almost entirely structured around defense, with all other considerations, education included, taking a significant backseat
Sure, model your defence policy on ancient Greece. That will be effective.
What people used to do has no relevance
1. because times were different then, and GDP was basically a flat multiplicative of population because lol no technology. Seriously, look at India's GDP pre-Britain. It's literally just a direct relationship with population (excepting famines and shit obviously).
2. because they were doing it wrong, which is why they're gone and we're here. The old systems were outcompeted, thus revealing the truth of the superiority of the new system. Education --> industrialisation --> better weapons --> superior defence. It's simple. And it depends on education.
>"m-m-m-muh fundamentals"
List of things that are not luxuries:
1. anything that is fundamental.
Seriously, this is the longest concession speech I've ever suffered through. You backed yourself into a corner through your low-effort posting and now you're doubling down on a position you don't even believe in to save face on an anonymous website.
I'm a retard and have no idea about USA but I assume just because of the shire number half your economy runs on military budget and if you cut that everything goes to shit
>I'm a retard and have no idea about USA
That alone makes you an honorary American.
>Europe's security situation would be unchanged
>spending on defense wouldn't increase significantly
How can somebody be so stupid?
>has nothing to do with global security
I never claimed that
>defending europe from Russia
Never claimed that, though they would be spending more on defense generally
>unironically thinking having virtually no defense would be something a country would stomach, regardless of it it is necessary or not
>Europe's security situation would be unchanged
>therefore Europeans will spend more on defence
Stop posting any time.
"protect"
gj stopping bunch of sandniggers in syria. oh wait.
Defence spending shot up, direct action had to be done. Bush went into Afghanistan and Iraq and spent billions in Aid for Africa. However going hard back into the old imperial ways is not an easy task (the Iraqi misstep showed how badly it could go), but it was a showing of force that the local powers did not expect. Soft Power was dead, do as we say or perish. Once Obama was in charge he attempted a hybrid mix of the two: hard power tactics of air dominance in Libya, but soft power tactics of precision strikes and paying the local power to take care of the problem like in Pakistan. But a mix of those two systems only exacerbated their negative downsides but none of their upsides: the hard power stance in Libya only led to pure anarchy as NATO was unwilling to occupy north Africa, and Pakistan stole all the money to try and bomb India into submission.
Trump however is a return to the old ways of Bush and even Imperial Britain: the local powers cannot be trusted, the only way they will do as we demand of them is through blood and steel. Deus Vult and so forth. Trump wanting a muslim ban and decreasing spending on middle eastern nations is an obvious sign of this. Trump knows that the Sunni monarchies will only pretend to agree to Americas foreign policy plans unless they have a gun held to their head. The MSM views Trumps actions either as naively allowing others to capture these countries in their sphere of influence or traitorously allowing Russia and China to sweep in. However that's not Trumps plan: his plan is that if any of the Arab kings go against him he will either bomb them back to the stone age or will just allow those who want to overthrow them to take charge.
This military spending is a message that the ways of paying out third parties is dying, and that a return to form of decisive but bloody invasions are on the table. How else can you make America great again?
the other thing i would point out, that a lot of research done in the U.S. is military funded. medical, engineering, physics, geology, and oh so many more. there is so much money from the military industrail complex that floods the universities and independant companies. i dont get where this meme that the army is spending half a trillion dollars on bullets came from
Basically the security dilemma
It's easy for us to say, the biggest threat to my sovereignty is really Denmark. Growing up in a culture that actually relies on war and the need for enemies but still seeing through the propaganda like many do at least to a point is pretty admirable.
It echoes the fact that a lot the american cliches like free speech are really good ideas, there is at least some heart to burgerland that's kept them going. In my opinion the last vestiges of that moral high ground was trashed by publicly and proudly announcing the illegal murder of bin laden in Pakistan. Burgers murdered before but they would at least keep the facade of law being upheld, which was important.