To a certain extent, this is already happening and has been since the end of the Cold War, it just got interrupted by fighting a war in Iraq and Afghanistan at the same time. But it's important to recognize that yes we do use that military might and not just in a soft power sense. The US has spent 90% of the time since WWII involved in some conflict or the other. Sometimes for decent reasons, sometimes terrible ones, sometimes great ones, but whatever the reasons we've been fighting. And part of the reason we've been able to fight so well and with such low impact on the American homefront is that we've spent such large amount of money oiling the war machine.
Military spending on items like tanks and fighter planes which we produce at far above our current utilization rate function in the same category as stockpiling supplies for a potential disaster.
If for example China decides to invade Taiwan or Russia implodes and invades a Nato ally or some other unlikely but possible scenario we will be very glad we had both the stockpiles and the manufacturing capacity as we'll need to ramp it up even higher.
Yes, thank you. I have updated it to read "Globally, the US accounts for 40% of the world's defense spending." Strictly speaking, this is redundant, but it gets the point across better than simply leading with "globally".
To a certain extent, this is already happening and has been since the end of the Cold War, it just got interrupted by fighting a war in Iraq and Afghanistan at the same time. But it's important to recognize that yes we do use that military might and not just in a soft power sense. The US has spent 90% of the time since WWII involved in some conflict or the other. Sometimes for decent reasons, sometimes terrible ones, sometimes great ones, but whatever the reasons we've been fighting. And part of the reason we've been able to fight so well and with such low impact on the American homefront is that we've spent such large amount of money oiling the war machine.
Military spending on items like tanks and fighter planes which we produce at far above our current utilization rate function in the same category as stockpiling supplies for a potential disaster.
If for example China decides to invade Taiwan or Russia implodes and invades a Nato ally or some other unlikely but possible scenario we will be very glad we had both the stockpiles and the manufacturing capacity as we'll need to ramp it up even higher.
> Globally, the US accounts for 40% of the US defense budget.
Is this a typo?
Yes, thank you. I have updated it to read "Globally, the US accounts for 40% of the world's defense spending." Strictly speaking, this is redundant, but it gets the point across better than simply leading with "globally".