THE USA MILITARY-55

This essay is not an anti USA military screed; rather it is an analytical and dispassionate conspectus of the current USA military encompassing its philosophy, budget, and the worldwide distribution of its personnel. The truly anti-military far left loons may agree with what I am initially espousing, but wait – they will violently (as only they can) oppugn my wrap-up. You may not accept my thesis completely; that is your prerogative. Still, I shall endeavor to make my case as logically and persuasively as I am capable of.

My premise is simple: I believe the United States of America should not be the world’s policeman and yet that is what we essentially are. There may have been justification in some people’s minds, although not in mine, that the USA needed to fill that role during the Cold War. During this War on Terrorism we should certainly co-operate with other willing nations to oppose and thwart the Islamic fanatics who want to kill us. On the other hand, I don’t think the United States would be abrogating any moral imperative by not shouldering the burden of large scale military action against the client states of the terrorists as we are now doing in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The nominal USA military budget is $664 billion of which $534 billion is the base budget. This represents 40% of all of military spending in the world. Total military spending for fiscal year 2010 will be between $880 billion and $1.03 trillion. In 2005 the military budget was 4.06% of GDP; the low in recent years was 1999-2001 where the figure was 3.0% of GDP. The high occurred during WWII in 1944 at 37.8% and during the Vietnam War in 1968 it was 9.4%.

There are 1,454,000 active duty people in the USA military and 848,000 in the military reserve. Only China has a larger standing active military, but their military expenditures are 1/9 of ours. That represents considerably lower pay and more modest benefits for their soldiers as well as a mere fraction of the complex military hardware developed and manufactured by the United States.

There are 820 USA military installations in 135 countries around the world. These vary from small scale observer sites manned by a couple dozen or fewer people to huge military army, navy, or air force bases with tens of thousands of soldiers, sailors, or air force personnel. The USA has 142,000 soldiers in Iraq; 56,000 in Germany; 40,000+ and increasing in Afghanistan; 33,000 in Japan; 28,500 in South Korea; 9700 in Italy and Great Britain. By geographic area these figures breakdown as follows: 85,000 in Europe; 78,500 in North Africa, the Near East, & South Asia; 70,000 in East Asia & the Pacific; and 2000 in the Western Hemisphere (excluding the USA).

A partial list of the countries that the United States has military personnel in is as follows: Aruba, Australia, Bahamas, Bahrain, Canada, Denmark, Djibouti, Ecuador, Egypt, Ghana, Greenland, Hong Kong, Iceland (one can never tell when hostilities are going to break out in Iceland requiring intervention by USA troops), Kyrgyzstan, Norway, Oman, Qatar, Saint Helena, Senegal, Singapore, Uganda, UAE, US Virgin Islands. How on earth can the citizens of the countries, possessions, or principalities other than the 135 the USA protects, sleep peacefully at night?

Never in the history of the world, not during the time of Alexander the Great, the Roman Empire, the reign of the Mongols, the Mayans, or the Ottoman Empire has one entity spread its military might to more places on earth as the USA has currently done. It is not for conquest or subjugation of other peoples that the USA has done this. It was done with the best intentions. However, never let us forget what the “Road to Hell” is paved with. It is time, nay it is past time, the USA, however well meaning, solely occupies and protects its own land. Few other countries merit or, in fact, even desire we do this for them.

If we are to greatly curtail our overseas military, then how are we to protect ourselves? Here is what we should not do: give captured terrorists the same rights USA citizens get in civilian courts; so restrict our intelligence community that they can not monitor our ubiquitous enemies; impede communications between our domestic and foreign intelligence agencies.

What we should do is spend enough money and attract sufficient talent to ensure that we are in the forefront of nuclear weapon and delivery technology so that potential enemies such as Iran, North Korea, possibly Pakistan, and whomever are sufficiently deterred from even thinking of attacking us without the fear of themselves being completely destroyed by our retaliatory might. Let the nations who would appease the terrorists go down the path of nuclear disarmament. The modern “Better Red than Dead” crowd would be horrified and appalled by my assertion in this paragraph – so be it. I am for protecting this country from all enemies, foreign and domestic.

To accomplish this transformation of pulling in and reducing our military from around the world would take time, even a decade or longer, as a matter of simple logistics, treaty agreements, and so not to unnecessarily disrupt our economic equilibrium. What is the chance that this will be done? Likely in this decade, as the cliché goes, slim to none. Yet, done it must be, if only for economic reasons. As a people we are economically impelled to put Social Security and Medicare /Medicaid on a sound financial footing else the country will sink under unsustainable debt. There are several ways to do it: cut benefits, increase the fees for both the beneficiaries and working contributors, and increase medical services efficiencies by instituting tort reform and allowing interstate health insurance coverage. Likewise our military expense must share the cost reductions of Social Security and our health service. The voting public will insist upon it.