America

[HarleyDog]

Not a P&R post and in no way am looking to go down that road.

Very proud of my country and the brothers and sisters who always stand post ready to defend not only their families and country, but also for humanity.  God Bless America. 

[Sabretooth]

Standing tall makes us proud of our military

[fredtoast]

Our GDP is still greater than the entire EU combined and almost twice as large as China (despite the fact their population is four times greater).

By itself the US accounts for 40% of the worlds military spending.

We are the ONLY true superpower.

[HarleyDog]

(04-15-2018, 11:12 AM)fredtoast Wrote: Our GDP is still greater than the entire EU combined and almost twice as large as China (despite the fact their population is four times greater).

By itself the US accounts for 40% of the worlds military spending.

We are the ONLY true superpower.

40% seems a little high in the overall strength perception of larger countries like China and Russia. It would be interesting to see that broken down to see where it all goes. I would think a large portion goes into housing, food, salaries for the troops to include education and training.

[Millhouse]

[StoneTheCrow]

I’m a big fan of it.

[HarleyDog]

(04-15-2018, 10:12 PM)StoneTheCrow Wrote: I’m a big fan of it.

That makes two of us.

[PDub80]

(04-15-2018, 11:53 AM)HarleyDog Wrote: 40% seems a little high in the overall strength perception of larger countries like China and Russia. It would be interesting to see that broken down to see where it all goes. I would think a large portion goes into housing, food, salaries for the troops to include education and training.

A few years ago looked at military spending by country and we spend more than the next 18 biggest spenders... COMBINED. So, that means US spending > number 2-19.

Check this article out. Also, take a peak at imported arms spending. China is over double ours. I read an article not ling ago about China finally developing it's first stealth fighter jet..... It basically uses a GE engine we sold them in the late 60s. Reading other articles from a sorts of publications and from all sorts of parts if the world, we are roughly 20-30 years ahead tech wise and that gap keeps widening.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.usatoday.com/amp/12491639


I agree with the idea of what the benefits are to our military are vs others = higher spending. We also have a massive global upkeep cost. Even still, I think that because of technology, those costs are still a lot lower than I would probably guess in comparison to the bigger number.

[*PhilHos*]

(04-15-2018, 11:12 AM)fredtoast Wrote: Our GDP is still greater than the entire EU combined and almost twice as large as China (despite the fact their population is four times greater).

By itself the US accounts for 40% of the worlds military spending.

We are the ONLY true superpower.

God damn right, we are!  :andy:

[BengalHawk62]

I thought this was going to be about Emenim's song America!  That's a good rap tune if you haven't heard it before.  

[HarleyDog]

(04-19-2018, 02:55 PM)BengalHawk62 Wrote: I thought this was going to be about Emenim's song America!  That's a good rap tune if you haven't heard it before.  

LOL... NO! 

It's a catchy tune but the song itself breads hatred and diversity.

[*bfine32*]

When you go by percentage of GDP spent on Military we do not crack the top 10. We spend 3.3% of our GDP on Military the world average is 2.2%. To be the boss you got to pay the cost,

[Bengalzona]

(04-15-2018, 11:12 AM)fredtoast Wrote: We are the ONLY true superpower.

So was Rome before it fell.

[*bfine32*]

(04-19-2018, 11:18 PM)Bengalzona Wrote: So was Rome before it fell.

So we're screwed in about 500 years

[Bengalzona]

(04-19-2018, 11:30 PM)bfine32 Wrote: So we're screwed in about 500 years

Probably much less. Things happen at a quicker pace in modern times.

We are at 242 years now, so....

[*bfine32*]

(04-20-2018, 12:29 AM)Bengalzona Wrote: Probably much less. Things happen at a quicker pace in modern times.

We are at 242 years now, so....

But I don't think we have been a super power for all of those 242 years, just as Italy was a country long before Rome became an Empire. Let's put us as a Super Power after WWII (1945). If we follow that Roman model, we may not be a superpower in 2445 

[Bengalzona]

(04-20-2018, 12:40 AM)bfine32 Wrote: But I don't think we have been a super power for all of those 242 years, just as Italy was a country long before Rome became an Empire. Let's put us as a Super Power after WWII (1945). If we follow that Roman model, we may not be a superpower in 2445 

Actually, Italy didn't become a unified country until 1861.

Before Rome, what we now call Italy was a collection of colonies and city-states owned by Greek states, the Etruscans, Phoenicians and others. Rome was just one of the states. But eventually, over hundreds of years, they were able to conquer neighboring colonies one at a time and assemble an empire. Historians generally recognize 27 BC as being the year it actually became an empire. Before that, they consider it as the Roman Civilization. It reached it's height in 117 AD under Trajan and split in two in 330 AD under Constantine. The Eastern part became the Byzantine Empire while the Western part became a shell of itself and eroded away. The Byzantines made efforts to prop up the Western part, but could not maintain it due to troubles of their own. The Lombards, Germanic peoples, occupied large parts of what is now Italy for several hundred years. Charlemagne captured most of the north and incorporated that into his empire, Francia. Eventually the area broke into small fiefdoms and city states which fought each other and outside powers for centuries. But modern Italy didn't develop until Garibaldi and Victor Emmanuel unified it in 1861.

As far as superpowers, they haven't fared very well in modern times. Napoleon's empire only lasted about 10 years. The Third Reich went about 12 years. The British Empire ran for about 200 hundred years or so (depending upon who you talk to). But they were really only super power from about 1814 to 1914, 100 years. Compare those to the Romans who went about 400 years or the Byzantines who went about 1000 years.

Things change at a much more rapid pace now. And other countries generally aren't fond of superpowers.

[grampahol]

Our standing as a super power has never really been tested outside of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and that could have gone terribly wrong had we not had a highly developed economy and the protection of two rather large bodies of water to isolate us from potential invasions. Most people don't really think of how thinly spread our military has become around the world now . Probably the only thing preventing an adversary from attacking us now is the idea of mutually assured destruction ,our nuclear capability and global trade . If we had to fight a purely conventional war without the use of nuclear weapons and high technology we'd be in big trouble . We simply don't currently have the manpower to defend ourselves in a purely conventional war so it is our nuclear power and economic power keeping us from such invasion. 
Our world is far different from the world our grandparents and great grandparents grew up in .China has little interest in invading because we're huge customers of the goods they manufacture and sell to us . A global war, the kind like WWII would make no sense and the same reason we don't invade them. If either nation were to attempt to invade it would disrupt our economies so much that neither nation would have enough of a customer base left to sell anything to .
In these respects the world is a much safer place than just 70 years ago . Now we fight proxy wars in places that are too far from our shores to affect our daily lives and only a very small percentage of our population is even involved. 
The biggest danger we face now are the fools who seem to want us to believe that we could successfully invade another large global power. We could unleash our weaponry on them and destroy cities ,but we don't have the physical manpower to take control and administer the aftermath and even if we did we would stand nothing to gain from it.  The rest of the world is also aware of this and they also have the same problems of what to do with a nation after you completely destroy it . 
I'm glad that we and others had the foresight to put in place the capacity to prevent future global wars from happening in the first place. I worry more about people who want to drag us back in time to colonialism and wars of conquest.

[fredtoast]

(04-20-2018, 10:30 AM)grampahol Wrote: Our world is far different from the world our grandparents and great grandparents grew up in .China has little interest in invading because we're huge customers of the goods they manufacture and sell to us . A global war, the kind like WWII would make no sense and the same reason we don't invade them. If either nation were to attempt to invade it would disrupt our economies so much that neither nation would have enough of a customer base left to sell anything to .
In these respects the world is a much safer place than just 70 years ago . Now we fight proxy wars in places that are too far from our shores to affect our daily lives and only a very small percentage of our population is even involved. 

This X 1000.

Also corporations are becoming more powerful than governments and most large corporations have factories or other facilities all over the globe.

There will always be local skirmishes over religion, ethnicity, or a border between two countries, but I don't think there will be any more huge international wars ever again.  The North China Sea seems to be a bit of a hot spot, but I predict that will get resolved without a huge military conflict.

When industry and commerce became more global then it meant EVERYONE loses in a big war.