United States Presidential Election, 2016

[Noirceur]

Thanks, I try my hardest : P

Lol, I was actually referring to Kuran, but you're pretty cool as well.

 

[Kuran]

The size comparison would be well and good if the U.S. didn't spend this much compared to the following countries: http://www.pgpf.org/chart-archive/0053_defense-comparison

I think you may not have read my previous posts. I explained why this is.

China and Russia spend as little money as possible in favor of sheer manpower.

Saudi Arabia spends a tremendous amount of money on it's army (I think something like 6k USD per person per year) primarily because the Saudis treat their army like a playset, buying the latest and greatest equipment from any nation that will sell them (Primarily the US and the UK, who for inexplicable reasons sell them relatively modern equipment despite a general policy of equipping allies with second-rate gear), despite having both a small and by most accounts somewhat sub-par army.

France, the UK, and Germany all spend relative to their populations and size, in general.

India is a bit of a dark horse. They try to both maintain a huge army and train/equip them somewhat poorly, the result being they excel at neither.

 

[JollySailorBold]

I think you may not have read my previous posts. I explained why this is.

China and Russia spend as little money as possible in favor of sheer manpower.

Saudi Arabia spends a tremendous amount of money on it's army (I think something like 6k USD per person per year) primarily because the Saudis treat their army like a playset, buying the latest and greatest equipment from any nation that will sell them (Primarily the US and the UK, who for inexplicable reasons sell them relatively modern equipment despite a general policy of equipping allies with second-rate gear), despite having both a small and by most accounts somewhat sub-par army.

France, the UK, and Germany all spend relative to their populations and size, in general.

India is a bit of a dark horse. They try to both maintain a huge army and train/equip them somewhat poorly, the result being they excel at neither.

Can't the U.S. then stop putting so much funding into defense and instead adopt the Chinese or Russian policy? If it's working for them and they're spending so little, why must the U.S. continually put so much money into Defense and Military?

Lol, I was actually referring to Kuran, but you're pretty cool as well.

Oh yeah, I knew. Your lack of clarification at first had provided me with an opportunity, which I took.

 

[Kuran]

Can't the U.S. then stop putting so much funding into defense and instead adopt the Chinese or Russian policy? If it's working for them and they're spending so little, why must the U.S. continually put so much money into Defense and Military?

Oh yeah, I knew. Your lack of clarification at first had provided me with an opportunity, which I took.

Because, like I said, the Chinese and Russian governments have been doing this for generations. In those parts of the world, conscription and drafts are commonplace, and while their people grumble, and sometimes rebel a little, that's the way that those countries operate. In the US, where the last draft was tremendously unpopular, you'd very likely risk an open rebellion if you tried to start conscripting people.

Plus, the population of China is four times that of the US, and Russia, well. Russia is still recovering it's population from the last time it engaged in large scale warfare, which killed off a huge percentage of it's men.

In the US right now, you can hardly declare an opinion anymore without someone getting offended. Think of what would happen if the government said tomorrow morning that you, your children, your neighbors, and essentially every third man in your town had to report for army duty, where, because of defense cuts, you know that you're really just cannon fodder.

Also, while Russia and China use the "man over money" idea to build up their armies, it's a huge waste to the country if they ever actually fight a war. Russia, for instance, spent close to 25 million lives to defend their lands from German invasion, whereas the Germans, who were relatively well trained and equipped, at least to begin with, spent about 4.5 million men in all. Did Russia "win"? Yes. Did it cost the country dearly? Yep.

Now try telling the average US citizen, or for that matter, anyone in the UK, France, or Germany, that they're all going to be drafted. The country that does that, these days, would likely have a revolution on it's hands within weeks. But in China and Russia and similar countries...it's just part of how it works.

 

[Green Ranger]

The reality is that for the majority of history, a nation that hasn't maintained enough of an army to deter invasion eventually is invaded.

I'm honestly curious about why the US is so paranoid of invasion considering they've, y'know, never really been invaded in earnest.

 

[Kuran]

I'm honestly curious about why the US is so paranoid of invasion considering they've, y'know, never really been invaded.

"Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it"

But honestly I think that it's a lot of Cold War paranoid mixed in with human nature. In the US, just 30 year ago, kids learned how to survive nuclear war in school, because there was at the time the very real possibility of a nuclear war. It's also a relatively young country by most standards, so we as a culture haven't quite shaken off the whole "young kids on the block" thing.

I don't think the average person lives in fear of being invaded. But it makes sense to be prepared for things like that. History is full of nations that absolutely, positively, knew that they were safe from invasion if they were just friendly and non-confrontational enough, who were promptly invaded and conquered.

 

[Green Ranger]

"Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it"

But honestly I think that it's a lot of Cold War paranoid mixed in with human nature. In the US, just 30 year ago, kids learned how to survive nuclear war in school, because there was at the time the very real possibility of a nuclear war. It's also a relatively young country by most standards, so we as a culture haven't quite shaken off the whole "young kids on the block" thing.

I don't think the average person lives in fear of being invaded. But it makes sense to be prepared for things like that. History is full of nations that absolutely, positively, knew that they were safe from invasion if they were just friendly and non-confrontational enough, who were promptly invaded and conquered.

While I wouldn't say the US fears being invaded, there is a certain sense of...worry that everyone, anyone or someone is plotting to invade the US that sort of permeates through the discourse of social and political agendas...and it's mostly due to the Cold War tbh. It dragged on for so long, and became so heavily ingrained in the culture of the US, that they're still shaking off the paranoia and mistrust. The attitude that was programmed into the US people over the duration of the Cold War has become deeply rooted, and it still makes an impact even now, especially when you consider that most of your current leaders were raised in that Cold War environment of fear and paranoia.

There's also something of a 'insecurity of security' mentality as well - as a country that hasn't faced a legitimate outside threat for so long (or really ever), it's only natural for the citizenry to be less emotionally and mentally prepared for hostile actions taken against you. The kneejerk reaction to 9/11 is a perfect example. This isn't to say that the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center weren't horrible or massively significant, but as a nation, it was also the first time the US had had their sense of security and safety threatened in...decades. When you think about it, other, more volatile nations deal with greater tragedies almost all the time, but the US response was so massive because...well, the US isn't really used to feeling threatened or unsafe, so the kneejerk response was massive because suddenly the entire nation was in panic. Of course, the other side effect of the terrorist attacks is that the panic bred more fear, so effectively the dialogue has shifted of being terrified of the Reds to...being terrified of Middle Eastern terrorists.

I've seen similar things here in Aus. The Bali bombings sent us spiralling into fear and paranoia, and that wasn't even on our own soil. A lone gunman held customers and employees of a cafe in Sydney hostage in the name of Islamic State, and again, we lost our shit and completely panicked about it - even though the gunman was later determined to be a lone wolf radical and not part of any sort of arranged plot or attack. Like the US, Australia lacked the emotional fortitude because we're so used to feeling safe that the mildest, smallest, most insignificant threats can cause us to panic and overreact.

Also, I don't think the whole young nation syndrome really factors into it at all - after all, there are other nations of a relatively similar age that don't breed the attitudes of the US in the same way.

And, tbh, it's misplaced anyway. I mean, think about it. the US is geographically massive, and has a pretty huge population to boot. Even setting the US military aside, a genuine invasion of conquest would simply be costly, long and probably not worthwhile in the long run, especially since other nations will get involved...pretty much immediately. There are smaller, cheaper, easier targets out there, after all - especially when you consider that the only plausible (and I'm stretching this term a lot here) nations that would even consider invading the US are on the Asian continent? It's simply not worth the risk and investment.

Tl;dr? The scale and justification of the scale of the US military is...actually pretty silly really.

 

[Eccles]

Tl;dr? The scale and justification of the scale of the US military is...actually pretty silly really.

I love you for the tl;dr version.

 

[Lavi]

The UK, to be fair, probably doesn't need the US, and Obama was likely just trying to find someone who would listen to him since a good chunk of the world have set him on ignore. It maintains a standing force entirely appropriate to it's size and populace (Remember, this is a country the size of Rhode Island), and while there have been some hiccups, a casual study of the UK armed forces indicates that it's in a perfectly fine position to be able to defend it's lands. And even if something out of the blue were to happen, like, say, Russia declaring war on the UK, the US still wouldn't really be all that necessary, since Germany, France, most of the Nordic countries, etc would all act in their own interests to defend Europe.

I don't exactly agree here. I can't recall the location of the article I read from Forbes, which was a reflection on the 8 years of the Obama presidency, and Obama had explicitly told the reporter that the world leaders pay the most attention to the agenda that he sets; they don't even place much authority of their own in these international meetings since they pretty much will be on board with whatever the American leader puts out. This, he criticizes with frustration that the European leaders look up so much to America. Obama mentioned that even Putin pays attention to him because "he's not stupid." And I agree here: people are getting scared of Russian advances because they don't really understand what Russia is doing. What Russia is doing is bullying the countries from its former Soviet days to retain its existing influence, not expand its influence (first Georgia, then Ukraine). What happened in Ukraine is despicable, but Ukraine has so few ties with non-Russian parties that there is very little motivation to protect its sovereignty.

Also, speaking with someone who is from the U.K., apparently the job security of being enlisted in the British military is quite low. The continuous defense cuts are concerning (particularly where it mentions that there may not be enough personnel to effectively man their new warships) and enlisted men are being laid off at the same time. This aligns with my earlier statement of Obama telling the British that they have to spend a minimum amount of money on their own military for their relationship to be unchanged. Sure, perhaps the European nations are spending enough on their military to be able to defend themselves from invasion. But they are still going to be expecting the involvement of the American military simply from NATO or economic obligations.

On another note, you slipped a bit on your geography because the United Kingdom is nowhere close to the size of Rhode Island (Rhode Island is the smallest state in our union!). It's more comparable to Minnesota or Michigan. See here and compare with the United Kingdom here.

 

[+SpaceJesus+]

A large part of the "paranoia" that America is under constant threat of attack comes from the fact that several countries in the world regularly threaten to do so, while everyone else in the world has a huge grudge against America that they don't have any qualms about making known. The country is under constant criticism and hatred to the point that to the average American it really could seem that most of the world is out to get them. Not to mention the fact that has been discussed earlier that even if we aren't invaded, someone else might be, and then every country in the world will momentarily stop bickering about America and expect the U.S. to come swooping in to fix the problem. So building up a military is just an occupational obligation for America in their current place in the world structure.

This is not to say the defenses can be a bit excessive, but they are not formed in a vacuum either.

 

[Outlander]

A large part of the "paranoia" that America is under constant threat of attack comes from the fact that several countries in the world regularly threaten to do so, while everyone else in the world has a huge grudge against America that they don't have any qualms about making known. The country is under constant criticism and hatred to the point that to the average American it really could seem that most of the world is out to get them. Not to mention the fact that has been discussed earlier that even if we aren't invaded, someone else might be, and then every country in the world will momentarily stop bickering about America and expect the U.S. to come swooping in to fix the problem. So building up a military is just an occupational obligation for America in their current place in the world structure.

This is not to say the defenses can be a bit excessive, but they are not formed in a vacuum either.

I'd say 'Expecting America to come swooping in to fix the problem" is a bit of an overstatement. There are several conflicts throughout America's history that no one wanted us involved in that we became involved in anyways. While some of these where successful, many where not, including the ongoing war on terrorism in the Middle East. So, no, I don't think toning down the Military would have substantial ill effects.

 

[+SpaceJesus+]

I'd say 'Expecting America to come swooping in to fix the problem" is a bit of an overstatement. There are several conflicts throughout America's history that no one wanted us involved in that we became involved in anyways. While some of these where successful, many where not, including the ongoing war on terrorism in the Middle East. So, no, I don't think toning down the Military would have substantial ill effects.

I'm not saying that we should be jumping into these fights. We all know how badly some of those well intentioned interventions went. The whole "speak softly and carry a big stick" thing doesn't work if you are constantly at the ready to beat people with the stick. But if you look up the countries that America is sworn to protect should they be invaded, you'll realize that America has more countries its promising to defend than it has states. I'm saying that at this point people just expect America to intervene and plan their own militaries accordingly, even if in all honesty most Americans don't really want to. If anything, the military mainly works as a huge bluffing tool to deter people from doing stupid things acrossed the globe. Now, I'm not entirely against budget cuts, so long as it is done in a way that does not compromise effectiveness of its forces. If America is going to do it, it should happen gradually. Find some ways to limit the needs for it before cutting back.

 

[+SpaceJesus+]

I am having an incredibly hard time trying to say what I am trying to say without sounding odd

 

[Nor'baal]

In the UK our system is so up to date that we still have a national song that has the words:

''Bow, bow, ye lower-middle classes! Bow, bow, ye tradesmen, ye faithful masses!
We are peers of highest station, paragons of legislation
Pillars of the British nation, tantantara tzing boom!''

The song refers to the Houses of Lords and Commons.
Nobody knows what ''tantantara tzing boom'' even means, but we have it anyway.

 

[Richie B.]

Just wondering what people thought of Bernie sanders?

 

[Algarus]

The amount of Trump bashing on CNN's webpage this past week is hysterical. TBH this whole talk about world politics is pointless, because as being removed and unable to understand the viewpoint or motives of world leaders we have no way of saying who is right and who is wrong; we are just able to speculate at best. What I'm saying is, there is probably so much backdoor dealing between world powers that anyone not in that circle is going to know what's going on. Also @Benvenu7 my thoughts on Bernie still haven't and most likely won't change.

 

[+SpaceJesus+]

This is the point at which we truly see just how biased the media is. I mean, we've all know for years now it was left leening and against anything to do with the right, but now it's becoming pretty blunt.

Bernie Sanders: Okay, I guess? A bit overambitious, with an odd grudge against capitalism, but definitely more likeable than any of his democratic opponents. When he talks I don't question whether or not he is trying to BS his way to the White House. *Cough cough* Clinton

 

[Algarus]

This is the point at which we truly see just how biased the media is. I mean, we've all know for years now it was left leening and against anything to do with the right, but now it's becoming pretty blunt.

Bernie Sanders: Okay, I guess? A bit overambitious, with an odd grudge against capitalism, but definitely more likeable than any of his democratic opponents. When he talks I don't question whether or not he is trying to BS his way to the White House. *Cough cough* Clinton

Exactly how I feel. Everytime that women opens her mouth I can the fakeness and desperation in her voice. I wouldn't mind having a women president, but please don't let that be Hillary, she is a poor excuse for a human being.

 

[Lavi]

This is the point at which we truly see just how biased the media is. I mean, we've all know for years now it was left leening and against anything to do with the right, but now it's becoming pretty blunt.

Is there really any truly moderate media source? I tend to go to foreign news companies for domestic issues since they are typically less biased in the reporting aspect.

 

[Johnnysaurus Rex]

Is there really any truly moderate media source? I tend to go to foreign news companies for domestic issues since they are typically less biased in the reporting aspect.

Same.

Though I do think it is funny you (SpaceJesus) are blanketly painting the media as left leaning, ignoring the media coverage during the last two elections and Obama's presidency alone from Conservative news outlets.

Those sources of news are still Conservative leaning, they are just anti-Trump. As pointed out to me that is also hardly a bad thing for his campaign. Everyone is talking about Trump and he is reaping all the rewards for it and maintains his spot as a frontrunner despite the "media bias".