These are recent figures (source is http://www.globalissues.org/) .
Hope they help those getting into arguements over it.
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US Military Spending The United States, being the most formidable military power, it is worth looking at their spending, compared to the rest of the world. Consider the following:
On the military in general, the USA spends more than the rest of the G7 countries combined
The U.S. military budget request for Fiscal Year 2003 is $396.1 billion
The U.S. military budget request for Fiscal Year 2002 was $343.2 billion.
The U.S. military budget request for Fiscal Year 2001 was $305 billion And Congress had increased that budget request to $310 billion.
This was up from approximately $288.8 billion, in 2000.
The US military budget is more than six times larger than the Russian budget, the second largest spender.
The US military budget is more than twenty six times as large as the combined spending of the seven "rogue" states (Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea, Sudan and Syria).
It is more than the combined spending of the next twenty five nations.
The United States and its close allies (NATO countries, Australia Japan and South Korea) spend more than the rest of the world combined
This accounts for two thirds of all military spending.
Together they spend approximately 40 times more than the seven rogue states.
The seven potential "enemies," Russia and China together spend $117 billion, less than 30% of the U.S. military budget.
Global military spending has declined from $1.2 trillion in 1985 to $809 billion in 1998. During that time the U.S. share of total military spending rose from 31% to 36% in Fiscal Year 1999.
In 1997 alone, half of USA's aid was related to military aid/trade -- and most of that was to countries that are already wealthy, like Israel, or Turkey (which has often been one of the largest recipients of US military aid and has often been criticized for its human rights violations and crackdowns). Compare that to very poor countries like Sub-Saharan African nations that received very little aid.
During his election campaign, President George Bush had promised an an additional 45 billion dollars over nine years to the military budget. Yet, that increase was seen in just the Fiscal Year 2003 request alone. This large increase is attributed to the "War on Terror". Some of the above statistics are from World Military Expenditures from the Center for Defense Information (CDI) and their Miltary Spending: U.S. vs the World table. They have more statistics and charts if you are interested, including this one from the above-mentioned World Military Expenditures page, where they also describe the amount the U.S. spend on military "simply staggering":
U.S. Military Spending vs. the World: $ in Billions
NOTE: "Allies" refers to the NATO countries, Australia Japan and South Korea. "Rogues" refers to Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea, Sudan and Syria.
Chart created by the Center for Defense Information
In this new era, traditional military threats to the USA are fairly remote. All of their enemies, former enemies and even allies do not pose a military threat to the United States. For a while now, critics of large military spending have pointed out that most likely forms of threat to the United States would be through terrorist actions, rather than conventional warfare, and that the spending is still geared towards Cold War-type scenarios and other such conventional confrontations.
"[T]he lion's share of this money is not spent by the Pentagon on protecting American citizens. It goes to supporting U.S. military activities, including interventions, throughout the world. Were this budget and the organization it finances called the "Military Department," then attitudes might be quite different. Americans are willing to pay for defense, but they would probably be much less willing to spend billions of dollars if the money were labeled "Foreign Military Operations."" -- From a Center For Defense Information weekly update titled "The Billions For "Defense" Jeopardize Our Safety", March 9, 2000
And, of course, this will come from American tax payer money. Many studies and polls show that military spending is one of the last things on the minds of American people. Furthermore, "national defense" category of federal spending in 1997, for example amounted to 51% of the United States discretionary budget (the money the President/Administration and Congress have direct control over, and must decide and act to spend each year. This is different to manatory spending, the money that is spent in compliance with existing laws, such as social secuity benefits, medicare, paying the interest on the national debt and so on). For 2003, the total budget request for discretionary spending is $767 billion, of which 51.6% is the military budget -- $396 billion. Compare this with the next two largest items, which are education and health, getting $52bn and $49bn dollars, (6.8% and 6.4% of discretionary budget) respectively.
For facts, statistics, research and news on US military spending, also visit the Center for Defense Information (CDI) web site. They have a section on US Military Spending. They also provide statistics of spending by the US. vs. the World.
But it is not just the U.S. military spending. In fact, as Jan Oberg argues, westerm militarism often overlaps with civilian functions affecting attitudes to militarism in general. As a result, when Western militaries may have been revealed to have trained dictators and human rights violators, the reasoning for that given may be surprising, which we look at in the next page.
