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We dont have to resort being a miniscule or inferior power to stike a balance between maintaining a strong military--defense and redirecting some funds.
Maintain our military dominance and prescense, but stop the waste, fraud, and cut out some foolish defense contracts that jingle corporate profits.
I consider myself a moderate----so I dont want to emasculate the military---on the other hand enough Vietnams, Iraqs, and Afganistans.
There is enough room to maintain a strong military presence and to redirect some of the misspent money on our own people.
We can also cut back on foreign aide that has been funneled to corruput and inept governments all over the world.
Its time to put our people back to work, repair the nations crumbling infrastructure, and improve our schools. There is plenty of waste in defense spending------if it is time to repair entitlements it is also time to take the paring knife to wasteful military funding.
I'm more concerned with who will become the most powerful country. It should be a country with more responsibility to its citizens and the world and while I don't feel our country is perfect in that arena, China is 20X's worse. Not lookin too good.
"Maintain our military dominance and prescense, but stop the waste, fraud, and cut out some foolish defense contracts that jingle corporate profits."
I agree but it's not just the military. Money is wasted at an astounding rate by the government. So much fruad, waste, right out theft, mismanaged funds on and on it goes in every facet of government. Somebody mentined the Solyndra debacle and this is just one example. I'm sure there are hundreds if not thousands of Solyndra's out there now and in the past. The government is a giant beast and nobody has a clue how to tame it. The US would be rolling in loot if the government stopped wasting it all over.
I'm more concerned with who will become the most powerful country. It should be a country with more responsibility to its citizens and the world and while I don't feel our country is perfect in that arena, China is 20X's worse. Not lookin too good.
Many scoff at the US intervening in many countries but lets face it if we didn't where would the world be? Russia and Europe would probably have been in WWIII already with Europe gone.
I'm more concerned with who will become the most powerful country. It should be a country with more responsibility to its citizens and the world and while I don't feel our country is perfect in that arena, China is 20X's worse. Not lookin too good.
I hate to tell you this but most countries that become great powers or superpowers tend to not be the nicest kids on the block. I don't think anyone would say Germany, Japan, the Soviet Union, the British Empire, and France were nice countries especially not the people they subjugated and colonized. China's ruthlessness and authoritarianism doesn't really differ much from the previous Great Powers. In fact 4 out of the 7 great powers (Germany, Italy, Japan, and the Soviet Union) in 1939 were authoritarian and were pretty infamous for some heinous crimes.
In regards to the topic at hand, I wonder if anyone will mention that the demographic situation may force the United States to become more insular and inward looking. The demographics are changing rapidly in America. America is becoming more ethnically diverse and the White population is rapidly aging.
The thing is since the United States is a democracy, a lot of these disparate groups such as the elderly and racial/ethnic minorities will vote for things that aren't conducive to making the US a superpower; that is they will vote for universal health care, more funding for schools, increased social security, and more government funding for welfare services. The US will have to make a choice between these human welfare services and the military. In the vast majority of democracies, the human welfare services have won over military funding all the time.
It's nice when Conservatives always point out that the US population is growing and this will make the USA more dynamic and etc but they never mention the unspeakable. They never mention that the growth in the population tend to be concentrated in racial and ethnic minority groups while the White population is aging rapidly. The thing is these racial and ethnic minority groups tend to be disenfranchised and have worse poverty rates than the White population. Because of that, they tend to vote for politicians who emphasize human welfare services. This is why 90% of Blacks, 70% of Hispanics, and 65% of Asians vote democratic since they tend to be more interested in expanding human welfare services rather than in expanding the military. Whites are more open to maintaining the Superpower/military superpower status since they tend to be the main beneficiaries from this since the Upper Class in America is overwhelmingly White which is why the Republican Party is mostly White.
If the United States wants to remain a superpower they will have to make a very difficult choice between being authoritarian or democratic. The USA will have to be authoritarian if it wants to be a superpower since they will have to supersede the wishes and votes of a more diverse, less military friendly population.
Location: On the "Left Coast", somewhere in "the Land of Fruits & Nuts"
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^^ I don't disagree with the majority of your post, but aren't we oversimplifying things a bit re: minorities and their "political motivations"? Or do you think there are no affluent minorities or that they haven't noticed the downright open hostility and bigotry the GOP has increasingly been using to court the "white vote" (aka, "states rights", "anti-illegals", "the Southern Strategy", etc.)?!
And if you really want to see the future of that kind of strategy, just look at California, with a growing minority population and a state GOP with such harsh anti-immigrant rhetoric that it's approaching irrelevance. BTW, as for "motivations", remember that the largest consumers of social welfare in this country are still overwhelmingly rural and white.
As an ageing, not very prosperous, White man I want health care, energy subsidies, and food stamps available. I do not care if we have military dominance over much of the world. I do not care if China takes over most of South East Asia. China's expansion will be stopped cold by the Russians, the Indians and China's internal demographic debacle. I will watch the conflict between China and India as they compete for the mineral, but not social, resources of Africa. The Somali pirates will not be tolerated by the Chinese. Nor will the Chinese (you think we are raciest) allow Africans to immigrate to the homeland.
Our and Canada’s Military Industrial complex needs to be trimmed. We have no need for another, or even the ones we already have, super carriers or IRBM carrying atomic submarines. Why would Canada worry about the high Arctic? Russia already has enough frozen waste land to keep it occupied for generations exploiting the place. It does not need Canada’s. The Chinese will be willing to buy Canada’s, and increasingly, our raw materials and let us suffer the cost of the extraction.
I think we could cut our military spending at least in half and reduce the size of our active forces by even more. All we have to do is get the Hell out of the Middle East so they can have their own local Armageddon. That won’t even hurt our oil supplies because we do not buy any Arab oil. Nor, increasingly, does the European Union. Let India and China protect their supplies.
We could then employ the formerly over paid military contractors (except for the mercenaries who should be cut off completely) to bid on supplying materials for rebuilding our own country. The might not make as much money but they would still be in business and their employees still working.
The overall result would be a prosperous United States free of the burden of policing the world. We will create that prosperity by enhancing our internal markets and the prosperity of our working classes. Out investor class can take their chances overseas but will have a choice of far less risky domestic investment.
If this is a "second rate" country I am all for it. Actually we will become the envy of the world, not the bully of the world.
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