President Trump’s announcement of the new Space Force, a branch of the US Military designed to ensure US domination of the earth’s upper atmosphere, has drawn intense criticism and even ridicule from his political opponents. And sure, “Space Force” is a very stupid name for a military group – it should be “Storm Troopers,” or “Space Marines.”
But lots of people are complaining that the proposed Space Force will be too expensive, even pointlessly expensive. Many are saying that the US military budget is already too high, and that it’s the army’s fault that America is in crippling debt that only grows every year.
These people are idiots. Because, and prepare yourself for a hot take here folks:
America’s military budget is too low.
And here’s why.
Russia and China are our main geopolitical rivals. Both spend a lot on their military forces.
Russia spends about $69.3 billion on its military yearly. As a percentage of their country’s gross domestic product (GDP), that’s about 4.3%. (Russia is poor as hell.)
China spends about $228 billion a year on their military. That’s about 2% of their GDP. (China’s richer than Russia but still poorer than the US.)
We spend about $610 billion a year on our military. That’s about 3.1% of our GDP. (The US is rich as hell.)
So, while we blow our biggest rivals out of the water in terms of absolute spending (which is how you want it to be), we’re actually not spending much more than they are, percentage-wise. To put it differently, we can afford to spend more on our military because our economy is so, so much stronger than either Russia’s or China’s.
The US leverages its massive economy to full effect when it comes to outfitting and deploying our military. We get to do things and buy weapons that nobody else can really afford, because our economy makes so much goddamn money in a year.
And think about it this way, too. The $610 billion that the US spends on its military every year makes up about 35% of all global defense spending. One country, the USA, does a third of the world’s defense spending.
But, when you think about it, it makes a kind of sense. The world is divided, roughly, into three major spheres of geopolitical power; the Americas, Europe, and Asia. Much of the money the US spends on its military is aimed at defending our allies and projecting power in all three of those geopolitical spheres.
Our rivals, by contrast, are trying to control one sphere each. Sure, the Chinese may have global ambitions, but right now they’re focused primarily on Asian domination. The Russians, for their part, want control of Europe.
But America currently has control of all three spheres, on the balance. And we spend heavily to keep it that way. We also spend heavily to ensure that, if pushed, we could be fighting a war on two (or more) fronts, and still win it. Again, that is the way we should want it to be.
America is the world’s army. The money we spend on our military is going to the defense of every other civilized country on earth. And it’s going to the pacification of every uncivilized country, too. The US foments world peace not only by defending our allies, but also by destroying threats to the stability of the world before they can grow out of control.
And yet we have idiots here in America who foolishly claim that our military budget is too large. Some dumb-dumbs even labor under the misconception that our military budget far outweighs every other part of our government’s spending.
Those people need to learn how to use this wonderful new thing called “Google.”
Entitlement spending, according to 2017 numbers, was at $1.5 trillion dollars between Social Security and Medicare alone, represents more than 50% of the money the federal government spends every year.
Spending on entitlements takes up a full 8% of our country’s yearly GDP. And that’s all non-discretionary spending, money the government is legally required to dispense. Congress can’t touch that money without major legislative changes.
Military spending, on the other hand, was a mere $590 billion dollars. 3.1% of GDP, and all of it discretionary. Meaning that foolish Democrat politicians are free to reduce it as they please.
In addition to all that, entitlement spending is going to grow exponentially as our country’s population ages. Baby Boomers are going to be going on Social Security and Medicare, and our country has too few young people to replace them within the economy.
Military spending is not projected to grow over the same period, because it is discretionary. In fact, if the budget remains the same, which, given our low rate of economic growth, it will, then that means the portion of our budget which can even be spent on discretionary things, like the military, will shrink more and more as entitlements grow.
So, in the short term, while we have the money, you bet your ass the US should be spending heavily on things like President Trump’s “Space Force.” You may be wondering, “Why?”
Well, I’ll tell you why.
Space is already becoming militarized whether the libs like it or not. The Chinese have had a modern missile that can shoot down satellites for a number of years now; our own anti-satellite technology dates from the 1980s and was primarily designed to shoot down ICBMS.
And if you’re thinking “What’s a few lost satellites?”, then I would encourage you to look into the main methods by which our troops in the field now communicate with one another; you’ll find that one of the most crucial is, you guessed it, via satellites.
Besides the impact that space-warfare could have on ground troops, there’s also the matter of asteroid mining. Some of the asteroids within spitting-distance of the earth have gigantic deposits of precious metals within them. NASA has already sent mining vehicles to one nearby asteroid that is projected to have a value above $10,000 quadrillion.
If you don’t think there’s going to be conflict over resources that valuable in the near future, then I don’t know what to tell you. The return on any investment into space-exploration and space-defense technology will almost certainly be massive.
What’s a few hundred billion extra dollars slung towards a Space Force today if the payoff is $10,000 quadrillion tomorrow?
