Choices or Echoes? | Doug Bandow | Cato Institute: Commentary

Choices or Echoes? | Doug Bandow | Cato Institute: Commentary: "First, the percentage of GDP spent on the military is meaningless. The U.S. economy has grown dramatically over the years—today it is more than five times as large, in real terms and despite the recession, than in 1946. In that year total national-defense outlays, which remained high as the country demobilized after World War II, accounted for 77.3 percent of total federal expenditures and 19.2 percent of GDP. Today military spending consumes 'only' 17.3 percent of the budget and 4.8 percent of GDP, yet the actual budget adjusted for inflation is more than one-third larger.

America is now spending 10 percent more, in real terms, on the military than it did on average during the cold war, when the United States faced a hegemonic antagonist. America currently accounts for roughly half of all military spending on earth. That wasn't the case during the 1930s. Or during the cold war. America's international dominance has never been greater. Second, the prospect of an Iranian or North Korean nuclear weapon pales compared to the one-time prospect of a conventional or nuclear war with the Soviet Union. For some four decades the United States confronted the possibility of continent-wide combat in Europe. Fighting could have extended around the world, engulfing China, the Koreas, Japan, Taiwan and more. And any conflict could have escalated into nuclear war—full-blown, massive, catastrophic."