Military Might: Does the U.S. Still Need It?

All understand MAD (Mutual Assured Destruction) if nukes are used. This leaves the need for conventional forces necessary to defend or acquire territory. Future wars will be fought for resources necessary for survival, which might include land itself. America is the 'cherry', especially in the eyes of China (imo), whose population is rebounding after a decades long failed attempt to control it.

Of course one cannot discount the possibility of local tactical nuclear strikes (Iran/ Israel comes to mind). But even North Korea must realize the folly of ever using it's nukes, which would result in the destruction of their country.

In the end it will be 'boots on the ground' as usual, and the more boots the better.

I could see some kind of down sizing of the military and spending the money on rebuilding roads, bridges and other decaying infrastructure here at home. But on other kinds of social programs those are often much more expensive than people give them credit for, not to mention bureaucratic inefficiency. In our society we have more than just the "Military Industrial Complex" to worry about, social programs/Institutions of various kinds play that role as well.


After rebuilding infrastructure, I could see some kind of tax break in future years like tax free money, as far general deduction ,or deduction allowance for Income tax. That would help a lot of people and be very fair as far as how it is distributed back to the working and middle class.

Your points of view are differing, yet consistent. We need a military. Praying for our military leaders, and reminding others to pray, will be roles I will take more seriously because of your posts. Thank you for your emphasis on keeping abreast of global perspectives, because I can get caught up in relatively unimportant areas of my personal life.

"Wisdom is better than weapons of war" (in Ecclesiastes 9:18)

seeking.IAM said:

What nice things could we have if we weren't spending so much money on defense?

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Well, if you fix the superhighways, this might work for ones who have cars and money to travel . . . maybe not a big percentage of the population.

And you could be defending a system of the rich getting richer and the poor poorer.

So . . . nice for how many?

seeking.IAM said:

Does our militarization help or hurt us in the world's view?

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One item I think of > if people are effected by the military the United States has, they are letting themselves be controlled . . . possibly . . . by what is not wisdom and love.

But there are ones who would just take the world over, if they could. Someone's military can help to keep them in check . . . not only for America's sake, but for the sake of the ones who would take over . . . and then be taken over by someone else who then would be taken over . . . in an endless tumult of the next guy taking over by means of violence and pillage.

I think we can see how now in various places in the world there are groups fighting to take down whoever is in power. If they succeeded, then others would be fighting to take them down. So, possibly military helps to slow down that process.

com7fy8 said:

Well, if you fix the superhighways, this might work for ones who have cars and money to travel . . . maybe not a big percentage of the population.

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Speaking for myself, as a guy who lives in the boondocks of rural Michigan, it ain't the superhighways that need fixing. That's what they usually do---they get some money and they rip up perfectly good interstates that there's nothing wrong with, and re-pave them.

Meanwhile, none of that money ever trickles down to the county and township level, where we're still driving on roads that were laid down during Eisenhower's first term and haven't been re-paved or upgraded since....they just come through and throw shovels of hottop into the potholes, and maybe some asphalt slurry into a few of the larger cracks, which completely uses up the $46.73 allocated to the township for annual road repair.

So the roads continue to degrade, year after year, and the out-of-state tourists still get to zip along on brand spankety-new highways that were last re-done two years ago.