It was stated on ABC radio.This is from the Fin Review Jan...

It was stated on ABC radio.

This is from the Fin Review Jan 4:
http://afr.com/perspective/2003/01/04/FFX12RYYGAD.html

Until September 11, 2001, the US military's budget was about the size of the entire Australian economy. After the terrorists struck, the government quickly increased defence spending, by an amount equal to the New Zealand economy. In the budget that President George Bush is preparing to submit to Congress, he is expected to ask for another increase, this time equivalent to the national economy of Syria.

Altogether, this would put US military spending at roughly $US410 billion ($730 billion) for the fiscal year beginning in October.

So if the Pentagon were a country, it would rank as the world's 14th-biggest economy - a fraction smaller than India and South Korea, but larger than the Netherlands or Russia.

Washington's military spending, long the heftiest in the world, has burgeoned to become preponderant, stunning by any measure.

At the peak of US defence spending during the Cold War confrontation with the Soviet Union, Washington accounted for 31 per cent of all global military outlays.

Today, the US makes up fully half of all world defence spending.

What if you combine the defence budgets of all America's adversaries and potential adversaries - the unfriendly seven, Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea, Sudan and Syria, plus the potential strategic rivals, the great powers China and Russia?

They barely come to the knee of the US colossus - equal to less than one-third of the Pentagon budget, according to the Center for Defense Information in Washington.

Together with its backers - NATO, Japan, South Korea, Australia - the US alliance system accounts for well over two-thirds of all military spending worldwide.

Even by US historical standards, its spending today is vast. When the Soviet Union collapsed, the US cut its defence budget by a third.

Now, although the US no longer faces a mighty opposing empire, its military outlays have been rebuilt to a level 10 per cent higher than the average during the Cold War, and only 16 per cent lower than the absolute peak of its Cold War spending in 1985, according to Steven Kosiak at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments in Washington.

So why does a country with 5per cent of the world's population and a quarter of the world economy need half the world's military spending?