Would shrinking the worldwide American Military footprint hurt or help the world economy?

Probably wouldn’t help the Capitalist economy, but it might herald in a new socioeconomic era. The capitalist economy is basically sustained by military force and coercion. So called neoliberalism is forced upon the throat of the developing world at gun point, nothing free and liberal about it.

Definitely hurt. Every single base out there provides heaps of civilian jobs.

My aunt and uncle were in the Air Force during peacetime. One as a nurse and one as a psychiatrist. My dad was in the Navy as a welder in Vietnam. My grandpa was in WW2. Only 1 of those people needed to be employed by the government. They could have done more good in the private sector.

@Nullo :: Hello Comrade. I’m a Socialist too. I’m a butter and not guns guy myself.

It’s funny how small-staters love the large size of the military.

I’m just gonna put out there that the usual trend is that after a war is over we tend to have a nice boom economically (as long as we’re the victors). Take what you’d like from that.

@johnpowell No, you’re a Socialist by yourself. @RealEyesRealizeRealLies is asking about the world economy. Bases practically hemorrhage money without costing the host countries much of anything. Thus they boost the local economies, which add up.

According to this study, suicide terrorism is linked to military occupation. Staying out, and using part of the the 56 cents of every tax dollar that now goes to the military spending for domestic purposes, can’t hurt.

@Nullo ”...without costing the host countries much of anything.”

Except the loss of sovereignty entailed in helping prop up the United States’ empire, and dealing with the sometimes disgraceful behaviour of US troops

Since GI Joe figures came out, America has never NOT been in war.

We have over 500,000 troops in over 150 countries. We are an empire which is going broke and instead of worrying about our country, whose infrastructure is crumbling, we spend money building bombs, blowing up their bridges and roads, and then we give them money to fix them.
I am no fan of war whatsoever and even being a top candidate to be drafted, I supported Charlie Rangel’s call to bring back the draft. Everyone was up in arms when he called for it, without listening to his reasoning. His reason was that enough family’s are not personally effected by war, so if everyone had the possibility of being affected, people would question the war a lil more. I think we need to start talking about the draft again.
When you have a volunteer military, just like in every other job, the person is only “doing his/her job” and is not allowed to question anything because thats what they signed up for.
Any person who would argue to keep the military as is, to help create jobs, is the epitome of whats wrong with this country…. money and jobs before human lives.

On this veterans day, if we want to support the troops, lets start questioning these wars, motives, and our leaders, and bring the troops home… ALL of them.

I’m pretty sure it would help it. Years ago, I read about an analysis which said that the multiplier effect for money spent on defensive is lower than any other kind of spending the feds can do. Multiplier means how often those dollars are turned over through the economy.

The military buys a bunch of high tech goods, and the dollars become more sticky, not moving the economy as much. Non-military goods apparently make the dollars slippery, and they get used over and over again pretty rapidly. Rapid turnover grows an economy. Sticky money—not so muc.

Future wars are going to be fought on the economic front not militararly. Look at Japan of the 80’s, China of the 90’s Brasil and India of the 00’s. While we are spending billions trying to maintain a hegemony over resources, other countries are totally bypassing the whole fuel issue, by reorganizing their economies using sustainable fuels. (Last year Brazil, become 100% self-sufficent in fuel production). Therefore, our resource allocation needs to reflect those realities on the ground. @wundayatta is correct that the multiplier affect is at play, but only so far as those things being manufactored in the US! When we buy up to 70% of the innerds used in defense manufacturing from china (or pay $900 for home made hammers) or some other emerging nation because we no longer manufacture those Lo-Tech parts, that whole argument becomes invalid.
Just my 2 cents.

@meiosis This question pertains to economics. Anyway, the host nations retain their own sovereignty. Bases are similar to embassies in that they are de jure part of another country. I imagine that operations outside of the bases are governed by various diplomatic agreements.

Also @meiosis There is a fundamental difference between a flood of government agencies and thick walls.

Depends how the money is being reinvested. New jobs related to innovative products have the potential to create even more jobs later on.