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Originally posted by WestPoint23
Of course it’s appropriate, and as we are engaged in ongoing conflicts and other countries such as China are on a military build up the US DOD budget should be higher.
Now sminkey you cannot possibly say that the UK’s military needs are the same as that of the US, hence our bigger budget.
Originally posted by sminkeypinkey
The current 'fight' the US is engaged in is with a bunch of low-tech irregulars popping up a couple of times a day in Iraq or Afghanistan - and once in a long while elsewhere.
Originally posted by sminkeypinkey
China (like every other country on this earth) spends a small fraction of what the US spends.......and has done so for the last century.
Trying to pretend China is any kind of credible threat is IMO utterly laughable and indiocative of the blatent con-job currently going on.
Originally posted by Manincloak
This "fight" as you call it, is costing America more than vietnam did.
Originally posted by WestPoint23
Sminkey, you know that the money spent in Iraq is going toward fighting the insurgents and toward rebuilding the country.
Also Sminkey, what would in your view, justify a cold war era budget?
Originally posted by sminkeypinkey
- Surely the military spending and the rebuilding of Iraq can't possibly be coming from the same 'defence' budget?
Originally posted by WestPoint23
the DOD money goes toward paying for the 130K+ troops in Iraq and all their gear and systems, plus all of their needs. That's a lot of money, more so than if all those troops were back at their bases doing nothing.
its and inherent consequence that if you want to stay ahead of everyone, you have to spend more than everyone.
Originally posted by WestPoint23
Sminkey, if we lowered our DoD budget then it would just give other questionable countries a chance to catch up.
If I may say so, it’s apparent to me the we’re not going to agree on this, so can we agree to disagree?
You need to divert that DoD budget to Katrina affected areas..
Fair enough.......but surely a little debate is what this place is all about?
I think with the same ammount of money that you need to spend in the US for a assault rifle you can get 3 or so in Russia.
Originally posted by tomcat ha
So from now on everything everywhere other than the US is just as expensive as in the US. In other countries you can do more with the same ammount of money than the US. Altrough that is not the case in most of europe. I think with the same ammount of money that you need to spend in the US for a assault rifle you can get 3 or so in Russia. Doesnt that allow the millitairy budget to be lower?
Originally posted by Seekerof
Originally posted by cyberdude78
Hooray, it'll be nice to see a competitor with a decent budget. If the US gets lucky Congress might raise our budget to keep up.
Huh?
The 2005 defence budget for the US is requested at $401.7 billion, cyberdude.
Fiscal 2005 Department of Defense Budget Release
US defence budget will equal ROW combined "within 12 months"
The proposed Russian defence increase amounts to only $24 billion.
A draft 2006 budget allocates 668.3 billion rubles (24 billion dollars, 19.5 billion euros) for spending on national defense, an increase of nearly 22 percent on this year's defense budget and a figure equivalent to about 2.75 percent of Russia's projected gross national product.
You were saying?
seekerof
[edit on 23-8-2005 by Seekerof]
Originally posted by WestPoint23
I think with the same ammount of money that you need to spend in the US for a assault rifle you can get 3 or so in Russia.
The old argument between quantity and quality comes to mind when something is significantly cheaper.