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Comment by quotemstr | Hacker News Reader

Another thing to keep in mind is that Germany doesn't fund its own defense. (The tiny amount Germany spends is insignificant; the German airforce doesn't even bother keeping its aircraft airworthy.)

We in the US fund our defense and Germany's defense (and cover the rest of the free world too) and still end up with more post-tax income than Germany does. That's a massive productivity gap.

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> We in the US fund our defense and Germany's defense (and cover the rest of the free world too)

I agree that the USA has used its military to keep a kind of pax americana. But that is not the complete story. The super expensive wars on Afghanistan and Irak didn't had anything to do with "the free world" and a lot with oil.

BTW That may have changed nowadays, but it was a very good idea that Germany had a low military budged.

Right. We're able to fight two stupid wars at the same time and provide blanket defense coverage for our allies. It's a huge financial burden. Bringing up the US's stupid expensive wars of choice just reinforces my point. We're so productive that we can afford these follies.

But not single payer health care, free education, modern transport infrastructure, parental leave, and renewable energy

It's all about priorities.

Looking at how those wars have ballooned our national debt, I disagree that we can afford those follies

Your point is a valid one, but Germany has a lot of restrictions on what military force it can have. It's not necessarily a choice.

What's the point of 'bothering' to keep a token airforce airworthy when your total military personnel is capped to far below a useful amount (350,000) for any reasonable attempt at defence, and for historical reasons you are incredibly adverse to using them overseas?

Yeah, bad things tend to happen when Germany gets focused on their military. Let's not encourage them!

Post-tax income is an irrelevant metric because higher taxes are compensated by the services they pay for. Our level of defense spending is not insignificant, yours is offensive. We don't need to outspend the rest of the world, we just need to convince Russia that invading the EU is not worth it.

You keep talking about defense.

Is that like preemptive forward defense in other peoples countries?

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