World Defense Spending rankings

[LSK]

1 United States $ 518,100,000,000
2 China $ 81,470,000,000
3 France $ 45,000,000,000
4 Japan $ 44,310,000,000
5 United Kingdom $ 42,836,500,000
6 Germany $ 35,063,000,000
7 Italy $ 28,182,800,000
8 Korea, South $ 21,050,000,000
9 India $ 19,040,000,000
10 Saudi Arabia $ 18,000,000,000

https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/rankorder/2067rank.html

Any questions?

[Telly Savalas]

1. Maybe the Pentagon should start buying its furniture at IKEA.

They have good office furnishings for very reasonable prices.

I'm all for a strong military, but isn't spending more money than the rest of the world combined a tad excessive?

[Ilsa]

2. What bothers me is that right now, we might actually need to

spend more since Chimperor Bush has most of the rest of the world PO'ed at us. But I get sick when I think of all the good things that could be done with that money: new schools, college for anyone wanting to attend, universal healthcare, cleaning up th eenvironment, and end to homelessness. Our priorities are so screwed.

[LSK]

3. no, the reason everyone is PO'ed is that they are threatened

They dont want to be the next invaded. That is why North Korea is acting that way and why Iran would be pursuing a Nuclear Weapon (IF they are).

If we reduce our military ambitions, others will back down too.

[Ilsa]

5. Right, all feeds upon itself. I am nervous

because others are nervous and afraid, etc. I hate this crap. Oh why can't we all just get along?

[Warren Stupidity]

4. Where is Russia?

Also, as the source is the CIA, I'm just guessing that there is no attempt to include the considerable off the books spending we engage in, so 518B is likely more than a bit low.

None of the axis of evil make the top ten. Odd huh? One would think that these massive threats to world peace would be spending like crazy on all sorts of evil weapons.

[LSK]

6. it seems Russia does not provide the data

https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/rs.html#Military

[Warren Stupidity]

8. Yes but not even an estimate?

I seem to recall that the factbook used to take a stab at it.

$13.1B (2004)

http://www.gateway2russia.com/art/Unrubricated/Defense spending to be raised 40 in 2005_249138.html


AFP reports that a draft FY 2006 budget for Russia allocates 668.3 billion rubles (USD $24 billion, EUR 19.5 billion) for spending on national defense, an increase of nearly 22% on this year's defense budget and a figure equivalent to about 2.75% of Russia's projected gross national product.

http://www.defenseindustrydaily.com/2005/08/putin-proposes-22-increase-for-official-fy-2006-russian-defense-budget/index.php

Doesn't appear to be a big secret. Guess the CIA lost their google privileges.

[Selatius]

9. The problem with the Russians is they tend to hide true military costs

For example, money spent on maintenance of military hardware could be booked under government operating costs rather than show up under military expenditures. In my mind, they're probably spending about as much as China is on national defense if not more. The figures for China may also be suspect because they also tend to want to hide true military expenditures. We all know how authoritarian regimes can be secretive.

[Warren Stupidity]

10. Oh we do the same damn thing only 10x what they do.

Leaving Russia out is just plain peculiar.

[Selatius]

7. Just 40 billion of that 500 billion/year is enough to fix pub. education

At the national level, we spend roughly 35 billion on K-12 education. Think of how many more qualified teachers we could hire if we doubled the amount spend on training and retaining them. With smaller classroom sizes, individual students are more likely to get the individual attention they need to pass.

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities. It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some fifty miles of concrete pavement. We pay for a single fighter plane with a half million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people. This is, I repeat, the best way of life to be found on the road the world has been taking. This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron. <...> Is there no other way the world may live?

-- Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower

And nobody listened...

[bikesein]

11. France and Japan are high

and that surprises me. Especially Japan, I thought they were still un-militarized and dependent on the US for defense.

[NuttyFluffers]

13. Not too much. let me help

Japan is our #1 military R&D ally. Italy is #2. So Japan's "military spending" is really a lot of research farmed out to them at the request of USA.

But Japan also does something pretty neat, and i think more efficient. They use major consumer goods companies use their R&D depts. to further USA/Japan military research goals. So consumer goods from Japan help mitigate the cost of R&D -- whereas Lockheed Martin, Boeing, etc. don't really produce much in the way of general consumer goods to mitigate such R&D costs. Also, a lot of the R&D from research from say, Sony, Panasonic, etc., end up being re-invested in a lot of consumer goods at a faster rate than military R&D from USA, thus making a rapid evolution of consumer electronics, etc.

Also Japanese factories have an immense conversion capacity from consumer goods to military materiel. They are essentially "flexible." So, a lot of what could be counted as "military spending" is also overlapping into "domestic economy spending." Thus you get a higher spending than one would expect, especially for a nation that still constitutionally cannot have a military (though there's political maneuvering to change this). It also has an immense police force materiel. They have a baby aircraft carrier for their "police force," but it has pylons along the edge to prevent jets from landing, only to use helicopters. They tried to say it was for humanitarian aid, but it still scared a lot of the world. Japan does have the capacity to crap out a nuclear sub easily in less than a year -- they just have so much political and international diplomatic image problem that it won't happen anytime soon.

France is like the only other nation to have the largest aircraft carrier class outside of the USA. They have 1 of those, whereas we have 11. Those require high maintenance $. France is also deeply entrenched in the international arms trade, along with USA, Russia, and UK. They are the main players in the very lucrative arms race. Japan, Israel, Italy, and China are also big players, but on the international arms market they are 2nd tier players (due to technology differentials, diplomatic difficulties, etc).

[TahitiNut]

12. The U.S. spends more than ....

... China, France, Japan, United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, South Korea, India, Saudi Arabia, Australia, Turkey, Brazil, Spain, Canada, Israel, Netherlands, Taiwan, Mexico, Greece, Sweden, North Korea, Singapore, Argentina, Iran, Pakistan, Norway, Belgium, Chile, South Africa, Poland, Portugal, Colombia, Denmark, Kuwait, Algeria, Switzerland, Egypt, Morocco, Czech Republic, Angola, Finland, Thailand, Malaysia, Venezuela, United Arab Emirates, and Austria COMBINED!