Fred Kaplan delivers some more seriously depressing news from the defense budgeting process. Another year, another insane record set on defense spending. Over one half trillion dollars spent on our defense department, not counting the costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Look, I am no dove. I think it's important that we spend more on defense than any other country in the world, and given that we have some responsibility to act as the World's Police force, I think we need to spend much more. But when we spend more than every other country, combined? Seems just a bit rich.
I love movies where shit blows up. I thought the only problem with the movie Independence Day was that they spent too much time with characters, and plot, and not enough time blowing shit up. And I'm proud to say that I am a citizen of the country which can now blow shit up more accurately, and more thoroughly, than any other country which has ever existed. I am. But the fact that the US currently operates 11 of the 24 aircraft carriers in the world, consisting of 76% of the total displacement of said carriers (see Wikipedia for more info), well, I think we've won the arms race. For real. Maybe we could find a couple more billion to help, I don't know, put kids into college, or some starving people in Africa somewhere, or to pay for my lawn's xeriscaping.
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I love the fact that the USS Reagan, the new super carrier is the 5th largest air force in the world. So, that's us, 3 other countries, and 1 fricken carrier. That's just awesome.
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