So long as America is happy to spend as much as the next seven or eight countries combined, it’s sole superpowerness will not be challenged.
Perhaps that money comes at a cost that means less is spent on healthcare or infrastucture, but:
a/ that’s the price of admiralty
b/ Americans are more than willing to pay that, or double * to be safe
c/ such vast spending from tax ensures economic growth, and itself provides income and healthcare from high wages to millions, civilian and military. The United States spent $581 billion on the military in 2014, according to IISS, while the eight next-highest spenders combined spent about $531.9 billion.
Trump’s going to drive us into the ground, so I doubt we’ll even be a superpower anymore by the time he leaves office. It’s all going to go into his and his billionaire buddies’ bank accounts.
you clearly missed the amount of Communist subversion the USSR tried to do all throughout Latin America, in Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, Paraguay, Bolivia and Brazil throughout the latter part of the Cold War.
By Cold War standards, the US isn’t a superpower anymore. By modern standards, the US is not the sole superpower right now. So the OP’s premise fails twice
Could you elaborate a bit on this? It might seem cut and dried to you that your assertions are self-evident (to you at least), but I’m not seeing either premise to be honest.
Isn’t the ability to project force throughout the world (instead of just regionally) essentially the definition that separates a superpower from a major power? If that’s the case, how does the US not qualify, and who else does?
25% healthcare, 25% social security, 16% defense, 34% everything else.
I think growth in healthcare budget will be 5-7% a year for the next 4 - 8 years. This would require an extra 150 billion dollars most of which will come from defense.
Yes, about 6% is interest on the debt which can not be cut and will grow, 8% is unemployment which is very popular, 4% veterans benefits which are very popular and will grow. The rest is all the other parts of government, welfare, education, transportation, law enforcement, and farm subsidies. None of those is big enough to make up for the money healthcare needs.
Well, it means the USA can completely smash any small country that doesn’t offer complete submission. Not a big country, nor one with nuclear weapons.
As for men, it doesn’t matter if no occupation is desired, just send enough missiles and the people will do the rest to themselves.
Partial submission is not enough, Gaddaffi had renounced terrorists, no longer sought nuclear weapons and was conforming to all demands. Don Obama even gave him the judas kiss in front of their mutual associate Silvio Berlusconi, and a year later Gaddafi was lying dead with a knife up his anus. He thought he was forgiven.
It doesn’t mean the superpower *will *smash every tiny country, just that they can, and that brings the rest into line. Anyway it worked, because Libya is no longer a threat to the continental United States.