Does America’s military do any good?
What might the trillion dollars a year that America spends on its military do for the world, or even the United States? Presumably this vast expenditure which is unprecedented in human history and which is as large as the defence budgets of the next 15 countries combined is not just for defence. So what is it for? What good is it supposed to do?
Observing members:
0
Composing members:
0
32 Answers
It makes the world safe for democracy. ~~~~~
“Does America’s military do any good?”
Not really.
Yes, it does good, but the bloated excess is completely unnecessary.
@janbb Phew! For a moment I thought you were serious.
It certainly does good for Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Haliburton.
@flutherother I don’t usually bother with tildes but this time felt it necessary.
Good source for some pretty decent films &...err…yeah, that’ll be it.
@janbb And five of them no less.
Considering the fact that we have not fought a “hot” World War III (for which I partly credit high capacity nuclear weapons and ‘just enough’ sanity for the controllers to not launch them in anger), the various regional conflicts that have been ended before they became widespread warfare (recently including Bosnia and Libya, but over the past half-century has included Korea – nearly every day of the past 50+ years) and massive relief efforts such as the Boxing Day tsunami of ten years ago, among others, I have to say that many posters here simply have no idea of what the US military accomplishes, sometimes just by existing.
I will agree as quickly as anyone that it has often been misused, including Lebanon during Reagan’s term, the “optional” Iraq invasion / war of 2003 and others, but that’s not the fault of the military. When you vote for Big Government, you should consider that “the military” is one of the primary manifestations of big government.
They provide natural disaster relief to millions of people around the world. Isn’t that good enough?
@CWOTUS For once, I don’t totally disagree with you. (Now will you and your assistant come fix my VCR?)
I think there is a legitimate need and purpose for a military. I wish there weren’t but…...
Could there be changes both in size, purposing and scope of missions?
Certainly.
Yes, but imperfectly, like everything else.
It’s little more than a stimulus program.
Look at all the jobs it produces. Look at the civilian support personnel that have gainful employment; the staff at the base stores, the shipyards, the contractors, the suppliers. Part of that military spending goes into the paychecks of normal people. So @dappled_leaves is kind of correct there, but I don’t think our economy could handle losing millions of jobs by getting rid of it. And some places like San Diego rely on the military the way some places rely on tourism; fewer soldiers/sailors/marines means less action for the local economy. A large city might be able to soak such a loss, but some places may be wiped off the map if they lost too many military customers.
That you would even conceive of this question is proof that it does good right well.
The US military is good at helping with disaster relief and it provides lots of jobs and I can accept these examples but they aren’t the main purpose of the US military they are just side effects. The main purpose is defence and that is also acceptable but the US military goes far beyond what is necessary for defence. Why have such a huge military? Who is it supposed to benefit and in what way?
A good rule to think of how widespread the military’s impact is on the economy and people. For every soldier on the ground there are eight people needed to support that man. That would be through logistics, feeding them, providing them with the tools they need, Fueling their vehicles, patching them together when they get hurt. And rendering aid to the people they hurt. There are ships that have capacity beyond imagination to render medical aid on a vast scale in areas that need it. There are so many things that the Military forces do that the civilian world has no idea they do, and maybe good that they don’t.
The military might render humanitarian aid, but the aid they render could be accomplished several times over with the amount of money we pour into the military.
Well America hasn’t been successfully invaded in 200 years. 1812 was when Canada burned down the White House for the third time. so 202 years.
@talljasperman
While true it’s not because of our bloated military, but rather no one’s even made the attempt to invade the United States in 200 years.
Have you forgotten Pearl Harbor? They failed, but they did make an attempt.
There was a significant draw down prior to WW2 to the point that there weren’t enough weapons to go around in basic training and they were using signs posted on the sides of trucks to indicate they were tanks or cannons etc. My father told me once their entire base only had one real gun and it was mounted on the top of a building in the event of an aerial attack (yep a ma deuce) they used sticks to simulate guns at first. We were unprepared and isolationist and had a very small outdated armed forces. Of course we got up to speed pretty quickly, but I believe a decision was made then to never again put ourselves in that position. Thus we have a pretty big standing Armed force. Spread really thin right now.
@Dutchess_III
Pearl Harbor was not an attempt at an invasion of the US.
Mexico has been invading the United States for decades!
@Dutchess_III
An attack, at most an effort to hamper the US’s ability to wage war in the Pacific. It was not an invasion. If you’re trying to invade a country you go to the country itself, not some remote colony thousands of miles from the mainland. And you send a much larger force. You send a ground force prepared to endure a siege that could last for months. You don’t invade a country just by having a few of your planes do a brief flyover attack on a single remote naval base.
Well, it backfired, didn’t it!
The Mexican-American war actually never ended. We are now losing.
Answer this question 
Composing members:
0
