No, it is not an I explain my questions and the reasons behind them in my OP.
Salaam. A
You’re not the only one 
Man is preoccupied with war. The US is just the most capable of waging it at this point in history. Why not say the same for the British, French, Spanish, Russians, Romans, Macedonians, Hittites, Sumerians, Iraqis, Germans, Native Americans, Japanese, etc.??
I would point out the US did not have a large standing military until World War I (when we had to save Europe). At the outbreak of World War II the U.S. military was something like Number Seven the league tables, behind Rumania.
So the American military machine only came about as a result of the World Wars. It was preserved as a result of our desire to prevent the Europeans from launching a third one. The policy seems to have worked.
You are, of course, correct but, as we currently have at our disposal an unprecedented amount of technology - not just military but, especially, that which allows us to communicate much more effectively - it is worth asking if war is still a necessity.
Point of order–it was preserved after WW2, because our county’s uber-rich were afraid of Communism. Not the same thing.
Aldebaran-
Here are the most important issues from the 2000 election. If you notice the first mention of the military is in the 12th most important issue veterans benifts. The first issue possible dealing with the strength of our military is 18th under National security. You don’t get to our actual military unil item #22 defense. Clearly in 2000 our military was basically a non-issue a bit contrary to your claim that the USA is a fixated with war.
Even in the 2004 election while we are in the midsts of 2 wars they were only the 4th most important issue. Americans it seems are more concerened about who sticks their dick where than war.
I’ve avoided every thread Aldebaran has started in the last year/year and a half, but I was curious to see him/her still around, so I figured I’d check out the OP. Color me surprised, but not much has changed in Alde. We still have the vast generalizations about a country of 250 million. We still have the condescending attitude. We still have the incorrect, underlying assumptions about the U.S. We still have what are basically rants dressed up for Great Debates. And we still have no interest on the part of the OP to engage in debate.
Same ol’, same ol’
The United States is currently engaged in a war (a military conflict, call it what you will). This is part of the reason that it is considered normal to discuss waging war. Additionally the US has engaged in some form of intervention overseas fairly continuously to confront or fight the bad guys, whether Serbs in Bosnia & Kosovo, warlords in Somalia (or the first gulf war, Panama, Grenada, Lebanon, Vietnam, Korea, plus a billion interventions in the Caribbean/Central America) so it is not unusual for us to see our government taking action overseas (to right wrongs or counter threats real or imagined),
Soldiers, like firemen or policemen, are given a default assumption of virtue. While they are volunteers, they are still the ones who are willing to sacrifice their lives in defense of our country and its interests. Thus the rather heated debate when they are sent to do something that a significant portion of the country dislikes. See Iraq, Kosovo, Bosnia, etc. I think that historically in the US opinions of soldiers has varied considerably over the years, with high opinions in war time and less so otherwise (similar to Kipling’s Thin Red Line of Heroes). World War II reestablished ideal of the ciitizen-soldier and the Coldwar never let the military draw down as previously (though prior to Korea we were on our way). It should be noted that the term “hero”, in modern American usage, is highly degraded in value and meaning. The media’s self-reinforcing cycle of hyperbole leaves a dearth of meaningful superlatives, adjectives, and nouns.
The stockpiling of nuclear weapons is a legacy of the cold war and ongoing nuclear deterrent purposes. What the appropriate level for such a deterrent purpose is may be debateable, but the policy seems to work. We have been reducing inventories in pretty much all such weapons for the last twenty something years. Over the past 60 years there has been much development of nuclear weapons in a variety of directions, too broad to characterize here. Continued development as proposed by the current administration is not exactly unanimously endorsed by the population. (IIRC the US does still possess some stocks of chemical weapons, long out of date and unusable, mostly because of the difficulties of disposing of them.)
Obsession is in the eye of the beholder I suppose.
WRT conventional weapons the US does not have particularly impressive stockpiles. We have had to start producing munitions at a high rate due to current usage. The military during peacetime stockpiles assuming usage rates that seem ridiculously low once the fighting begins. In terms of developing ever more sophisticated conventional weaponry - sure, we do that. Figuring out ways to spend steel and dollars and high explosives in lieu of our soldiers’ blood is not something I regret or see anything wrong with. (Whether these weapons, because of their safety to American personnel, are used in situations that politicians would otherwise risk spilling American blood over is another question).
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The USA was attacked. There was/is no reason to believe that Al-Qaeda and its adjuncts will not continue to target US personnel and property, both civilian and military, overseas and domestic (unless you are of the opinion that by invading Iraq we have given them everything they want and they don’t want to jinx it). Whether we are “under attack” is a matter of perception and definition.
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Huge disconnect between us here. The baseline facts on which you and I base our analyses of the who, what, where, why, and how’s of Al-Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan are likely so different that no meaningful conversation can be had.
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Okay. I think a majority of Americans agree with you on the first part (now) and see the second part and third part as relatively unimportant compared to the first part. A large minority were against the adventure from the start.
Stereotypes will be fought with stereotypes!
Why do all Arabs cheat in trade and denigrate women?
Why do all the Arabs go batshit over Koranic gobbledygook?
How many Arabs does it take to compose a coherent sentence?
Unfortunately, no amount of clear communication can stop one country from imposing its will on another. Communication assumes that everyone is willing to act rationally.
Aldebaran, have you ever heard of the logical fallacy of begging the question? You are asking for the causes of a phenomenon that you have not demonstrated to exist.
The fact that President Bush was re-elected even though he instigated the war in Iraq is not evidence that Americans are preoccupied with the Military and War.
If I ask the question, “Why are Arabs preoccupied with terrorism and anti-semitism”, what would your reaction be?
You, my friend Aldebaran, are a xenophobe. You aren’t interested in learning, you aren’t interested in hearing what people say. However, I’m glad you are here on the SDMB so that other people can learn from you, even if you won’t learn from them. However, I suspect that what people are learning is not what you intend for them to learn.
RickJay hit the nail on the head. The American people hold our military strength in very high regard, and there certainly is a very strong military tradition in many parts of the country.
Compare the US view towards its military to that of the general European view toward its militaries:
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We maintain roughly 2.5 million people under arms (active plus reserves), each of which volunteered to serve in uniform. Generally speaking, the South holds a strong traditional value on military service. In contrast, many European countries must resort to mandatory national service to fill out their much more meager ranks.
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Military spending in the United States is a relatively modest percentage of a very large GDP, resulting in a very high figure in comparison to any other group of countries. Comparing the liberals in the US and the liberals in Europe, American liberals, despite advocating cuts in some military programs, still prefer an incredible amount of military spending compared to their counterparts across the Atlantic.
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Related to the above, the US had devoted incredible resources to building new military technologies. Our European neighbors, who have just as much access to knowledge, brainpower, technical knowhow, and wealth to do the same types of research, choose not to.
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The US seems to be in a chicken-or-the-egg situation with regard to its global commitments and defending them against perceived threats. We like to say that we deploy our military worldwide (I’m avoiding the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan for the moment) because we have global interests, but we also have global interests because we have military commitments worldwide. One can’t say the same thing of any other country right now.
Maybe I’m trying to parse the OP too much, and I do so hate to break up a “bash Alde on his anti-American views” fest, but there is an interesting point here.
Why is it that the US places such high regard and importance on its military strength? Is it our culture? Do we feel that we must maintain the position of military leadership at all costs? Are we in love with being a superpower? Do we wish to remake the world in our image, and military strength helps promote that? Is it our history? Could it be the military-industrial complex becoming too powerful, as Eisenhower warned?
There’s lots of interesting questions here. Sorry so many folks instantly jumped to the conclusion that this was nothing more than an America-bashing thread.
Ravenman-
The United States does not place a high importance on military strength. See my previous cite. When voters were asked to name the 2 most important issues defense ranked 22nd with a mere 1% of voters citing it. We don’t have parades demonstrating our military strength to the rest of the world. When was the last time you saw Bush conduct a military review of a unit?
We have a large military becuase we place importance being able to protect our interests along with democratic interests around the world. We have aircraft carriers to stop China from invading Tawain. We have a large airforce to bomb Slobadon Milosevic’s forces to stop them from genocide. We have an army to go into Somalia to prevent famine.
Let us not forget, in this discussion, that the following Arab nations (for example) have waged war against neighboring countries within the last 50 years or so: Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Jordan and Iraq. Wherefore the Arab preoccupation with military and war?
In fact, even a cursory glance at a globe will drag your eye across huge swaths of land contended over by warring factions. It’s a sad truth that the vast majority of the nations of the Earth are preoccupied with military and war. That’s one of the reasons we have a U. N. and the U. N. has an army.
Uh-uh. The proof is in the pudding. By any comparative measure, the US has a vert large and extremely capable military, and it costs a simply incredible amount of money. A citation about some opinion poll is very weak contrary evidence to the fact that the US will spend in excess of $410 billion this year on its military, even excluding the cost of ongoing military operations, the replacement of battle damaged equipment, etc. If we don’t place great importance on our military power, why do we devote such massave amounts of tax revenue to our armed forces, and why do we have military personnel in something like 120 countries?
And I didn’t argue for one second that we are a militarist society. We are clearly not, despite the fact that a lot of Americans go gaa-gaa over pictures like this. Nonetheless, it’s hard to argue that Americans do not want a very strong military, especially in relation to other countries.
Well, that’s what I was kind of getting at, innit? See point #5 in my previous post. What makes Americans want to devote such great amount of resources to these things, where other countries don’t want to bother with the expense of such far-flung interests? Do you think that America is the world’s policeman, and therefore must be well armed to carry out those duties?
Though I think Aldebaron has his own axe to grind there may be something to examine here.
Well I’d say the United states goes out of its way to high tech parade its Military might.
They may not be out on Pensylvania Ave every 4th of July like the Soviets on Mayday but there is a hell of a lot of pro miltary propaganda out there to demonstrate the might and invincibility of the United States Military.
Every piece of information about the armed forces on the news is a statement of its might and superiority. News programs will show off the latest technological breakthrough. Rememeber when the Stealth bombers were first rolled out before the public? See how they have Military aircraft shipped around to airshows around the world?
Today there are Video games produced to show the high tech hardware, movies made showing the strength and virtue of the soldiers, sailors and airmen. Hell how many War movies are made by the United States compared to other nations?
As for George’s reviews of the troops, I seem to rememeber him making those rallying speeches before thousands of uniformed Americans, I’ve seen him fly onto an Aircraft carrier and take photop ops in flight uniform to declare Mission accomplished.
kingpengvin-
Every piece of information on the news is not a statement about its might and power. The news stories I recall off hand about the military pertain to “don’t ask don’t tell”, women at the citadel and VMI, Rumsfield cancelling the Crusader program and that many divisions were not combat ready. It is true that there are articles from time to time about military breakthroughs becuase there are some amazing pieces of equipment in the military. It is also true that the military flies in air shows but from the one I went to I remember it being more of a demonstration of the flying capabilities of the machines rather than their ability to kill. If we were obsessed with military might we would have fly overs of hundreds of heavy bombers instead of the Blue Angels flying in close formation.
Giving speech’s in front of troops is much different than a review. When I say review I am thinking of troops, tanks and missle launchers parading in Red Square or the way the Nazi’s had hundreds of planes flying information wit Hitler reviewing troops on the ground. That is evidence of a militaristic culture but that doesn’t happen in America.
Ravenman-
My point about the poll is that when electing the person that will be responsible for the military the military is down around 22nd in importance. If we were that concerned about our military wouldn’t it be higher?
As far as your point 5 goes I believe my argument is slightly different. We don’t have a strategic national interest in seeing that the Somalians don’t starve. If Somalia dropped off the face of the earth it wouldn’t affect the U.S. in the slightest. If the Serbs had ethnically cleansed whomever it was they were cleansing it wouldn’t have affected the U.S. In these cases we don’t have a national interest, it doesn’t affect the U.S. whether the War Lords or Milosevic remained in power. We saw injustices taking place and we wanted to stop them.
Well, US military spending is fairly modest, when looked at as a percentage of GDP. A quick check of the CIA World Factbook puts the US as the 37th highest military spender, as a percentage of GDP, with 3.3%. Israel, Singapore, and Greece are 1st world nations that choose to spend a larger percentage than the US on their militaries. Australia, Taiwan, France, the U.K, and India are not that much lower, as a percent of GDP. Note that China & Russia are not on that rank page; going to the individual country pages, China’s military spending is estimated at 3.5-5%; figures for Russia are not given for some reason.
It is interesting to note the large number of Islamic nations that chose to spend a larger portion of their nation’s wealth on their militaries than the US. And consider how many times Islamic nations have launched wars in the past 50 years.
The reason the US military spending is so large is that the US has more than twice as many people as the next largest first world nation (Japan) and chooses to spend a bit more of its wealth on its military. Even if the US cut its military spending to 2% of the US GDP (same as the world average), US military spending would still be higher than China’s, France’s, the UK’s, and Japan’s military budgets put together, due to America’s population & economy.
Now, why the US chooses to spend a percent or two more on its military than other first world nations would make for an interesting debate.
Which is pretty much the core of the question that I asked in post number 53. (And on the GDP thing, see my point number 2 is the same message. I agree entirely with your post.)
No, because there really isn’t THAT great a difference between liberals and conservatives on this issue, especially when compared to their ideological counterparts overseas. Most conservative politicians probably believe that we should spend about 3.4% of GDP on defense. Most liberal politicians (with some exceptions, like Nader) would probably propose that we spend about 3.0% to 3.2% on defense. It’s not a terribly big issue for voters because the differences between the parties are not that drastic.
To use the point Mr Moto brought up on the last page, we now have about 300 Navy ships. It is not as if Republicans are proposing a 700 ship fleet, and Democrats are proposing a 50 ship fleet. It’s not a huge political issue because, for the most part, nobody on the American political scene really disagrees with the notion that we should have a very, very powerful military; the only disputes are around the fringes of the issue.
So are you saying that we need a large military to fight international injustices, as well as to defend against attacks on our country?