{"id":29304,"date":"2012-04-26T01:08:04","date_gmt":"2012-04-26T05:08:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/countingpips.com\/forex-news\/2012\/04\/military-spending-by-country\/"},"modified":"2012-04-26T01:08:04","modified_gmt":"2012-04-26T05:08:04","slug":"military-spending-by-country","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex-news\/2012\/04\/26\/military-spending-by-country\/","title":{"rendered":"Military Spending by Country"},"content":{"rendered":"

By The Sizemore Letter<\/a><\/p>\n

With outstanding U.S. debt fast approaching 100% of GDP and budget deficits continuing to yawn stubbornly wide, the next president and congress will have some unpleasant decisions to make. \u00a0Spending will have to be cut. \u00a0But from where?<\/p>\n

Social Security and Medicare will come under debate, as will most discretionary spending. \u00a0But the elephant in the room that no one wants to acknowledge is the U.S. military (see figure).<\/p>\n

Top 10 Countries by Military Spending, 2011<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
\n

Country<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

Spending, $<\/span>bn<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

World Share, %<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

United States<\/td>\n\n

739.3<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

45.7<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

China<\/td>\n\n

89.8<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

5.5<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

Britain<\/td>\n\n

62.7<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

3.9<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

France<\/td>\n\n

58.8<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

3.6<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

Japan<\/td>\n\n

58.4<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

3.6<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

Russia<\/td>\n\n

52.7<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

3.3<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

Saudi Arabia<\/td>\n\n

46.2<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

2.9<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

Germany<\/td>\n\n

44.2<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

2.7<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

India<\/td>\n\n

37.3<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

2.3<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

Brazil<\/td>\n\n

36.6<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

2.3<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

Source: The Economist<\/em>, April 7, 2012<\/p>\n

The United States currently accounts for nearly half of all world military spending. Its military budget is more than eight times that of China and fourteen that of Russia.<\/p>\n

The United States requires a large, muscular military to defend its economic and diplomatic \u00a0interests abroad. \u00a0Having a powerful army and (more importantly) navy is essential to maintaining credibility. \u00a0But during times of economic austerity, unpopular questions of “how big is enough” will start to be asked.<\/p>\n

The automatic spending cuts that were part of the grand bargain between Barack Obama’s White House and the Republican-controlled House hit the military budget hard. \u00a0In an election year, neither party will want to see them implemented.<\/p>\n

But once the election is over, even the most hawkish of republicans will have to accept that sacred cows like the military will have to be touched if the United States is to get its finances under control. \u00a0And with a smaller military, expect a more modest foreign policy. \u00a0It’s a whole new world, dear reader.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By The Sizemore Letter With outstanding U.S. debt fast approaching 100% of GDP and budget deficits continuing to yawn stubbornly wide, the next president and congress will have some unpleasant decisions to make. \u00a0Spending will have to be cut. \u00a0But from where? Social Security and Medicare will come under debate, as will most discretionary spending. … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Military Spending by Country”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29304","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29304","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29304"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29304\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29304"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29304"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29304"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}