Cut back on by far the largest and most expensive military in the world then.
NOAA budget 2016: $5.8 billion
US military budget: $600 billion
And they're proposing a $54 billion increase.
You could probably trim 10 NOAAs from the military industrial complex and nothing would be lost.
The key question of decreasing US government spending is how to get other countries to pony up for the "renting" of the US military forces that they're already doing (because the alternative is that the US withdraws military support from those countries—and then those countries build back up their own militaries. Which, undoubtedly, would put us in a very different world than the one we're in right now...)
It's important to consider the sometimes positive externalities of the current levels of defense spending. Even more so, it's important to consider where we or others have come to rely on those positive externalities.
For example, I'd be perfectly happy with the US withdrawing from many parts of the world and closing foreign bases. However, I do imagine there would be sometimes not so subtle consequences to doing so. Is the current balance of global power sufficient to prevent large scale and disastrous conflict? Do we risk tipping that balancing in one direction at some point?
Another fact that is generally completely omitted is that best, soldiers defend against other soldiers (and in practice, they kill a lot of civilians because war is tough), so in a way those people justifying war machineries in other countries are not the excuse, they are the counterparts. It's an axis of sociopaths and conformists against humans, and this rift goes through all nations, even some families. The root causes for these rationalizations matter, not so much the rationalizations, those always shift. A child kicking a dog and Abu Ghraib differ in scale but not principle, as does looking on to either. Those onlookers love to use "we", but there is no "we" here, speak strictly for yourself.
1. Me: High levels of defense spending has easily identifiable consequences. But we need to be careful that we also take time to identify the positives and consider them.
2. You: The US has done bad things in the past and war is bad.
I don't disagree with you, but you're not rebutting my point.
> But we need to be careful that we also take time to identify the positives and consider them.
Yes, and then you need to circle back and consider both, in context, including opportunity costs.
> The US has done bad things in the past and war is bad.
Respond to what I said or don't, but don't appeal to a 3 year old you're not talking with.
That's implied. You're either missing the point or not arguing in good faith. Have a good day.
$1.7T/year in total military spending worldwide.
China at 200B, Russia at 70B.
Iran? 22nd largest military budget at $10B.
The rest of the big spenders are our friends and allies. I'm not going to count up every country, but roughly 1.3T to 1.4T is spent by the US + allies + friendly countries.
Who are we preparing for war with?
Our own citizens, of course.
The White House is pandering to their populist base and contravening the advice of their own military experts