As a % of GDP our spending is low - 4.5%. In the 1960s it was close to 10%.

4.5% is reasonable for a global power.

Has anyone here seen the movie Captain Philips? It got me thinking about something that I had never thought before:
America's massive, dominant and global navy does a lot to reduce piracy and therefore encourage global trade, which is good.

Lets say piracy incidents were a common and frequent occurrence, big transporting companies would avoid waters rampant by pirates and this would have a negative effect on the worlds economy.

The question that I thought about after seeing the movie is "Does America's overseas defence spending have a net benefit on the economy; aka is it worth it?"

You could probably cut ~$170 billion (too lazy to find exact numbers, so this is an estimate) if America stopped all non-Afghanistan overseas operations.

International trade is a $20+ trillion industry, and accounts for $2.2 trillion of America's GDP.

Now obviously if America's navy just disappeared most of that would remain, but the question is, would cuts to America's navy lead to a larger or smaller nominal cut to global trade?

This isn't the only factor, but I've recently gone, partially thanks to a movie, from being anti-DoD spending, to being favour of most overseas operations (even the ones not related to piracy. Its just one of the things I thought about).

Yeah, that's it gunfighter.

You need to have this three part deterrent though. Having just one leaves it vulnerable, while having all three makes it nearly impossible to knock them all out. Because a non-nuclear nation could hypothetically knock out the subs, but never could they touch the missile silos. and I won't want to speculate as to what the future 30 years from now will bring, but the US may have to use them offensively.

I agree with Putin in the sense that 4.5% of GDP isn't that bad for a global power. And US defense spending has beneficial effects on the world such as what Fasces said. Think how less stable the western pacific would be without the US. Taiwan, Vietnam, the Philippines, Japan and South Korea are jittery enough as it is. Without the US Navy and our contingent in Korea, it could be even worse.

But why did we resurrect the 4th fleet? That's the real question. The presence of the US navy is not always a stabilizing force.

From Wikipedia:

"As part of the reestablishment, no new permanently stationed vessels will be assigned to U.S. FOURTH Fleet, as it is an organizational fleet staffed to fulfill a planning and coordination mission.

U.S. FOURTH Fleet will be focused on strengthening friendships and partnerships and will have five missions: support for peacekeeping, Humanitarian Assistance, Disaster Relief (HADR), traditional maritime exercises, and counterdrug support operations."

Perhaps its due to the crisis that happened a month before when Ecuador and Venezuela were moving troops to the Colombian border?

When Colombia assassinated Raul Reyes on Ecuadorian soil that was universally condemned by the OAS (even Mexico), the US being the only state in the hemisphere backing Colombia? Yes, maybe. Although the three countries have long since patched up their differences. No longer have Uribe causing trouble.

But I don't think it's an example of the US being a force of regional stability. Colombia wouldn't have been nearly so bold this past decade or so without strong support from Washington.

I think that's a situation where Washington had to back Colombia. It didn't hurt that Colombia offended nations that Washington doesn't exactly like either.

But I agree that the support of the US Military does tend to embolden countries

Right, well that's the point. The US is only a force for stability where it can reasonably be seen as a disinterested third party (East Asia, South Asia, Europe), not a force that is backing a rogue state hostile to its entire region (Colombia, Israel).

Continuing on what I previously said (I realized I accidentally deleted my conclusion):

I feel bad for the US as their government is forced to spend as much as it does because they govern the world. I wouldn't want America to withdraw their overseas bases only to see Russia or China set up shop.

I would only be ok with cuts to US military expenditures on the condition that her western allies (Canada, UK, Germany and France) step up their contributions to international security, in the interest of maintaining the worlds political and economic stability.

How are Canada's leaky submarines working out? I'm sure the Brits laughed all the way to the bank on that one.

With Europe scrapping their militaries, I don't see that happening, Fasces. We have to find new partners in emerging economies - Philippines, Vietnam, India, etc who 1) We can trust and 2) Have the ability to step up defense expenditures

Personally, I'd like to see America strengthen our defense relationships with the Philippines and India respectively. The Philippines is probably America's strongest ally in the Far East with the possible exception of Japan. We should also buddy up to India as a deterrent against red China. India has enough human capital to make red China blink. I wouldn't think twice about alienating Pakistan either; they've been a terrible "ally" since the day we climbed into bed with them.

I don't know if stronger Vietnam-US relations are possible. Sure, we have diplomatic relations with them, but don't forget that some Vietnamese might still have some lingering resentment over the fact that 41 years ago we dropped 20,000 tons of ordinance on their country, not to mention the lingering effects of Agent Orange and unexploded ordinance.

I'm not sure I'd ever be able to trust a communist dictatorship, so count Vietnam out, but I agree with you, I'd like to see South Africa and India step up their game as regional powers.

I think stronger Vietnam-US relations are certainly possible. Some might have resentment against us still, but Vietnam-Chinese conflicts are more recent and go back several thousand years as well.

I haven't read the thread so far so this is just with regards to the OP.

The near-term future of the militaries (which Firefox doesn't think is a word) of Western countries is more of the same. Europe will whittle away at its ever shrinking military relevance, and the United States will pick up the slack.

However, that can't go on forever. There are so many factors to consider, though, that making a prediction out past a decade or so is none too wise. How will the EU develop after the inevitable treaty revisions? How will a less-white America feel about having to shoulder the responsibility for European defense 100 years after WWII and 50 after the Cold War? What will the policies of a post-Putin Russia be? What will the effects of Europe's extreme demographic changes be? These are very tough questions to answer so far in the future, and will be tough problems when we get to them.

I believe it is not within America's jurisdiction to act as a 'global police force'. But solutions are few- boosting multilateral force within, for example, the UN, lead to conflicting interests within the military force. While this can be a good thing, making sure that less extremes are taken, it can also lead to more power struggle. Perhaps make the UN Security Council be more involved in funding security?

Only three countries are able to project force anywhere in the world, firewok0. They are: the United States, France, and the United Kingdom. In that order. Only the United States can sustain force projection anywhere in the world for an extended period of time. Remember how the Europeans were running out of missiles during the Libya campaign?

Overwhelmingly, countries today have militaries that can only operate within their own borders or just outside of them. Only the United States has preserved and maintained the ability to wage war anywhere it has to or decides to. If there is to be a "global police force" that's anything more than Bangladeshi and Irish UN peacekeepers freezing conflicts in place forever, the United States is the only country in a position to be it.

I personally don't think it should (I was against Syria and Libya as it happened, for example), but it's either America or nothing. Or rather, America or having the strongest player in the region win outright.

"I personally don't think it should (I was against Syria and Libya as it happened, for example),"

You had a funny way of showing it.

Anyway if the US is looking for partners in the emerging markets, they had no better friend than Pakistan, yet the US just assassinated Mehsud so that's not going very well. Meanwhile India took the lead in arms imports from China, and the overwhelming majority come from Russia. So even if the US builds better ties with India, they aren't going to side with the US over Russia on any kind of major issue any time soon.

It might be true that they won't come out in favor of Ukraine joining NATO or something like that, but with regards to the South China Sea, where Russia has no interests but India and the United States do, they are natural allies. Russia may sell the weapons India uses to kill Maoist rebels for now, but if the United States is serious about the pivot to Asia then ever closer relations are inevitable.

@Invictus

Of course. I did state this earlier- saying that solutions are few to this problem of US unilateral force. However, a joint operation by the UN would see funding being more evenly distributed amongst the countries, justified due to their position on the UN Security Council. To hold such an important position is to do so for the benefit for the world, and a better way to do that is to contribute more heavily in a global peacekeeping force, which is limited through multilateral checks and balances.

"However, a joint operation by the UN would see funding being more evenly distributed amongst the countries, justified due to their position on the UN Security Council."

In who's interests is it to do that? I doubt Japan will be happy to effectively fund the Chinese military, or Poland and the Baltic states do the same for Russia. Or Iran effectively do it for America. You'd need a wholesale restructuring of the international order for states to agree to prop up non-allies' militaries.

India is about to screw everything up by electing Modi. Nobody is going to want to touch India after that happens.

If only it would be that clear, and India elects a guy with OK economic policies but some serious political violence problems. From what I see Modi will have a hard time cobbling a coalition even if things hold and the BJP is the largest party. India isn't Belgium. It can't not have a government for months and months.

@Invictus

This is solved due to the multilateral effort mentioned above. If the other members of the Security Council effectively outvote Japan on the subject, that's where the money goes. A country on the UN Security Council also wields significant power (notably a veto that cannot be overturned), and I personally feel it's time they started paying for it.

Keep in mind that this is only an example of a plan that could be offered- obviously this small brain cannot calculate the foolproof answer to global enforcement in a couple of minutes. But there needs to be something done about the unilateral US intervention in many countries, and whatever that can be done, should be.

Oh there is about to be a Saffron wave. BJP should alone get close to 200 seats. As it is the Congress-led alliance forms the government with 225 seats or thereabouts. BJP and its handful of allies should be fine.

I don't think you really have a full understanding of how the UN works.

Japan could easily just not pay its dues, and the United States would veto the proposal all together because it can't be expected to allow its military lead to be whittled down just like that. In fact, I don't see how any country besides Russia and China would be for this proposal. The UK and France already are integrated in the American military system through NATO, so there's no reason for them to bulk up independent forces. And all of Russia and China's neighbors, and other states that like a more liberal international system, would be against propping up these two countries' militaries. There's also the question of how much it would all cost, and whether it's at all acceptable for Congo to subsidize Russia's navy, for example.

In sort, it's just not a realistic proposal.

"Oh there is about to be a Saffron wave."

http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2013-10-17/india/43142991_1_ysr-congress-seats-times-now-cvoter

Eh, maybe, maybe not. This, an article that says basically the same, and a few on Modi from around a month ago are all I really know about the polling (I know, shame on me for being such a low-information non-voter), but I wouldn't bet on solid BJP-lead coalition coming out of the election. But who can tell?

It's a crazy world that we live in. America really is the only country that can project power worth a shit. We can park 10 carrier battle groups offshore. We can deliver at least 3,000 tons of ordinance in a single air raid. We can have 10,000 trained paratroopers in the air within a few hours' notice and we have the airplanes/tankers to get them anywhere in the world. We could establish air, surface, and subsurface supremacy anywhere in the world.