Mars? Venus? Earth-like bodies elsewhere in the galaxy? Who knows? But here, at least, no great power, no superpower, no hyperpower, not the Romans, nor imperial China, nor the British, nor the Soviet Union has ever garrisoned the globe quite the way we have: Asia to Latin America, Europe to the Greater Middle East, and increasingly Africa as well…
Beyond my conservative estimate, the true bill for garrisoning the planet might be closer to $200 billion a year…
http://original.antiwar.com/engelhardt/2012/12/11/the-true-costs-of-empire/
Related:
The Pentagon is bracing for the fiscal cliff. This week the White House Budget Office directed itto plan for $500 billion in cuts it may have to make over the next ten years if cliff-averting negotiations fail. The negotiations may of course not fail, but it’s still worth asking: in the event that our military resources really did shrink significantly, how much damage would that do to our national security?
Here’s my initial estimate: zero.
I mean, what actual threat to America’s security is the military currently fending off? Are there any countries that would invade the United States if the Pentagon’s budget were 10 percent smaller than it is–which is roughly what $500 billion in cuts over 10 years would amount to?
The main threat to national security you hear about is terrorism. And, so far as I can tell, a big chunk of the money spent by the military to address that problem has made the problem worse…
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