"I would argue a country's "need" is based precisely on it's GDP. The more valueable your country is, the more modivation there is for another to take it away. Again, there are a few THOUSAND years of history to back up that statement."
"Yeah that's been tried before. You think we should try a third time for World War 3? And your "all of the world's militaries combined" is cute but doesn't take into account the % of GDP in which it's just average. We just have more money to actually spend."
These are the statements you made, yes?
They are false, yes? They are contradicted by other statements you have made, which you have now asked me to consider, so clearly they must be.
Your original argument was in counter to the notion that the US spends too much money on its military. You said it was a low figure *in proportion to GDP*. That is a precise figure. You weren't talking about "value" as vaguely defined. You weren't talking about the US' strategic situation, or its power vis-a-vis its opponents. All you said was that spending as a portion of GDP was not high, and that this justifies further spending (or counters arguments against spending so much).
You further went on to make two qualifications to your statement, both of which I take issue with. First, is that GDP was not roughly correlated, but that it was precisely correlated. I would disagree even with the weaker version, but the strong version is simply absurd. Clearly, you knew that, because you've contradicted it since. Second, you made clear your point was obvious from thousands of years of history. Invoking that kind of authority, to me, means you're pretty friggin' sure of your point.
So, yeah. I read the earlier posts. You were defending spending relative to productivity. I said spending should be relative to threat (accepting Occhi's criticism that this might not be just a direct or immediate threat). Now, what are you saying to that? Do you still accept your original argument that a "low" (relative to China and North Korea...) defense budget relative to GDP is a good reason not to cut back on military spending? Or does one actually need to consider what one's enemies are spending, not merely what percentage of their budgets go towards the army? I wouldn't, for instance, be very threatened by Andorra, even if they spend 100% of their GDP on the army. I would, however, be quite threatened by the US, even if they only spent half a percent of their GDP.
The way I see it, you've contradicted yourself. I think it's because those statements above reach much farther, and are far more precise than you intended. Unfortunately, they were also the justification for your earlier argument. So I'm not even sure which you mean. That's what I'm arguing about.
I pick apart individual phrases because I presume you mean them. Is that a presumption I should stop making?
Jester
"Yeah that's been tried before. You think we should try a third time for World War 3? And your "all of the world's militaries combined" is cute but doesn't take into account the % of GDP in which it's just average. We just have more money to actually spend."
These are the statements you made, yes?
They are false, yes? They are contradicted by other statements you have made, which you have now asked me to consider, so clearly they must be.
Your original argument was in counter to the notion that the US spends too much money on its military. You said it was a low figure *in proportion to GDP*. That is a precise figure. You weren't talking about "value" as vaguely defined. You weren't talking about the US' strategic situation, or its power vis-a-vis its opponents. All you said was that spending as a portion of GDP was not high, and that this justifies further spending (or counters arguments against spending so much).
You further went on to make two qualifications to your statement, both of which I take issue with. First, is that GDP was not roughly correlated, but that it was precisely correlated. I would disagree even with the weaker version, but the strong version is simply absurd. Clearly, you knew that, because you've contradicted it since. Second, you made clear your point was obvious from thousands of years of history. Invoking that kind of authority, to me, means you're pretty friggin' sure of your point.
So, yeah. I read the earlier posts. You were defending spending relative to productivity. I said spending should be relative to threat (accepting Occhi's criticism that this might not be just a direct or immediate threat). Now, what are you saying to that? Do you still accept your original argument that a "low" (relative to China and North Korea...) defense budget relative to GDP is a good reason not to cut back on military spending? Or does one actually need to consider what one's enemies are spending, not merely what percentage of their budgets go towards the army? I wouldn't, for instance, be very threatened by Andorra, even if they spend 100% of their GDP on the army. I would, however, be quite threatened by the US, even if they only spent half a percent of their GDP.
The way I see it, you've contradicted yourself. I think it's because those statements above reach much farther, and are far more precise than you intended. Unfortunately, they were also the justification for your earlier argument. So I'm not even sure which you mean. That's what I'm arguing about.
I pick apart individual phrases because I presume you mean them. Is that a presumption I should stop making?
Jester