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Comment by rayiner | Hacker News Reader

That would be irrational. Even the UK and France spend 2% of GDP on defense, and they live under America's shield. Cutting our spending down to their level would save $400 billion/year. That's not peanuts, but that's only 1/3 of the deficit.

Having sufficient capacity for violence is indispensable for the existence of a state. You need a military so you can kill people in other countries, and you need police so you can maintain an internal monopoly on violence. You can't have state-funded preschool if you don't have a state. The Ukrainians unfortunately are learning this the hard way right now.

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> Even the UK and France spend 2% of GDP on defense, and they live under America's shield.

You mean: America lives under the UK and France's shield. The last time that US soldiers died to defend France or the UK is a long time ago, much more recently French and UK soldiers died for (amongst others) the USA. Not that anybody seems to remember.

Oh and on a per-capita basis more people from the UK died in the Gulf war than from the USA.

But this isn't a matter of keeping score it is standing together and at least trying to maintain some kind of world order. One problem with that is that you may have to refrain from threatening your allies with invasion.

Re: "You can't have state-funded preschool if you don't have a state" - USA is protected by two immense oceans right and left and two huge, weak and pliable neighbors up and down. From all sides USA is well protected without spending hundreds of billions anually. About ballistic missiles threat - USA already has 1,200 nuclear warheads deployed in various forms (submarine, air force, ground silos) so MADD takes care of that.

With 2% of GDP USA would take care of all its defense needs. USA does not need 11 aircraft carrier groups, about 100 nuclear-powered submarines, about 2,000 jet fighters, only God knows how many destroyers, to protect itself.

I agree the US could take care of its defense needs with 2% of GDP. But that would be a 40% cut, not a 90% cut. What we wouldn't be able to do is commit to protecting Europe or backstopping global capitalism.

> What we wouldn't be able to do is commit to protecting Europe or backstopping global capitalism.

We voted "America First" just recently. The 10% of the current budget should be enough to protect us against Canada and Mexico... except of course that budget is not for defense...

Who would ever want to invade the US? You would be destroying nearly everything of value because half the US economy is based on financial services. And it would make middle eastern insurgencies seem like childs play compared to the 10x higher gun ownership rate with better and more modern firearms in the US with a far higher percentage of practiced shooters and veterans.

> Who would ever want to invade the US?

Effectively, no one. The CCP doesn’t have the logistics capability or manpower to manage the largest occupation in the history of the world from half a world away.

They can and do want to destabilize American hegemony, but that doesn’t necessitate an end to the American state. My read is they prefer something like the British model for ex-imperials.

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