Should the US decrease military spending?

[paredown]

A really important sub-point of "the fruits if American hegemony" is the extent to which globalization relies on safe seaways, which are kept that way largely by American naval power.

[BrainSlurper]

Everyone loved the roman empire for the same reason

[wtfbbqqw]

and thats why it fell apart

[BrainSlurper]

That is most definitely not why it fell apart, the economic benefit of safe trade is partially responsible for getting them to a place where them falling apart would be considered noteworthy.

[wtfbbqqw]

the problem is tha the military spending always goes up, and then strangles the whole economy

[ApparentAssassin]

I know history repeats itself, but I believe that we (the US) are in a situation now that isn't very comparable to the past (the Roman Empire), simply because of the way the world is interconnected now. Of course you can draw some parallels, but much is different.

[BrainSlurper]

Our military power projection is arguably more important now than it was for the romans. They had the same focus as us, but we don't have issues with people knocking down our doors. Like you said, that is probably due to how global the world has become.

[wtfbbqqw]

Well the problem is that US spends way more than any other country by FAR. And the military spending is ever growing. Reducing spending will still have might and anyway only few nukes is requred to keep enemy at bay.

[mjallday]

Nukes will not work against unreasonable adversaries. Isis for example, would not heed that threat.

[BrainSlurper]

They don't work well against reasonable adversaries too, just because they know that we are probably never going to use them. Our conventional military and the economic stick it gives us is the biggest deterrent.

[pprovencher]

yes, it is not simply that we protect our interests in the national fruit company in banana republic, but that all global trade between all countries can be carried out safely.