http://www.globalissues.org/article/75/world-military-spending
An interesting read. The author has analytically compared the military spendings of various nations, however, what he has left out is the rational for each country to arm itself.
Another interesting part is, his remarks on the reasons for reduction in spendings by most of the US allies. He asserts that the spendings dwindled down JUST because they saw the military threat diminishing after the Soviet collapse. My take on this is, it is both ways. The threat getting diminished is just fine, but one also has to take a note of the fact that NATO was/is still hanging around and with the US spending some 40% of the total global military spendings and its commitment towards the alliance and thereof towards the security of those countries, they found it appropriate to scale down their own military spendings while the US kept increasing it steadily.
The question now is, where should the US go from here? Keep spending and increasing the expenses, while the allies steadily keep scaling down so as to maintain its lead, or scale down and let other contending nations catch up?
Or encourage/pressurize its allies to beef up their own spendings, so that the US tax payers can have some respite while maintaining the military edge?
An interesting read. The author has analytically compared the military spendings of various nations, however, what he has left out is the rational for each country to arm itself.
Another interesting part is, his remarks on the reasons for reduction in spendings by most of the US allies. He asserts that the spendings dwindled down JUST because they saw the military threat diminishing after the Soviet collapse. My take on this is, it is both ways. The threat getting diminished is just fine, but one also has to take a note of the fact that NATO was/is still hanging around and with the US spending some 40% of the total global military spendings and its commitment towards the alliance and thereof towards the security of those countries, they found it appropriate to scale down their own military spendings while the US kept increasing it steadily.
The question now is, where should the US go from here? Keep spending and increasing the expenses, while the allies steadily keep scaling down so as to maintain its lead, or scale down and let other contending nations catch up?
Or encourage/pressurize its allies to beef up their own spendings, so that the US tax payers can have some respite while maintaining the military edge?
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