The “Baby Boom” generation (1946-1964) was the largest, most wealthy, and most mobile generation in American history. It is also the last to experience geometric progression in growth. More “Boomers” left the farm or factory, went to college, and moved to urban or suburban lifestyles where children became a large expense rather than a net labor benefit, and so they produced children at barely a replacement rate. The birthrate from 1965 to 1975 dropped precipitously, resulting in a contraction in “Gen X” and since then has held pretty steady through the new millennium with most net growth actually occurring through immigration. “Millennials” and “Gen Z” have held pretty steady, but the “Next Generation” (there doesn’t seem to be a consensus on what to call them yet) born after the 2007-8 crisis are significantly contracted.
The problem with waiting for “Boomers” to die off is two-fold; first, they’re healthier, have access to better care, and generally living substantially longer than their preceding generations. The other is that they have acquired and retained a vast amount of available capital which they are using to fund their retirement, including real estate, which has driven up costs and reduced available resources for everyone coming after them, forcing Gen X and Millennial (and presumably those that have come after them) to fund their education and advances through debt, which has served as a pseudo-capital base for economic growth. This means that both the tax base is contracting as the population of marginally contributing retirees is increasing, and the younger populations are in more debt than has ever existed in the US economy that they will never be able to pay down. And the United States is far better positioned than most other countries; I think the only nations that are even in comparable positions are New Zealand and maybe Australia.
We’re barely spending anything to support Ukraine, and most of the weapon systems and ordnance that has been provided has been stuff the DoD was going to have to destroy or surplus anyway. That US defense spending is way out of proportion to other nations in terms of percentage of GDP needs to be understood in the context that the United States, while not technically an empire, maintains a global security apparatus in order to foster and facilitate international commerce, which has benefitted everyone (even our competitors) and makes tacit if not explicit support and exchange with the US an indispensable aspect of participation in the global economy. From a standpoint of defending the continental United States and outlying states and territories from attack and invasion almost none of this necessary, and the argument can be made that having such a vast force in reserve encourages needless military adventurism.
However, the United States would not be the global economic power it currently is without this security. Whether that is a good thing or not depends upon your view of American hegemony; many people certainly believe that the United States is an “exceptional” country that supports and buffers democracy around the globe, while if you follow Noam Chomsky you’re more inclined to believe in the destructive capacity of the US in fostering its own corpo-capitalist interests. Regardless, “defense” is far more than just about defending the population against foreign attack, and spending on defense needs to be considered in that larger context.
I’ll say it as I have in the past; we didn’t need a Space Force because we already had USSPACECOM which was a command within the US Air Force and before that a Unified Combatant Command that supported all services. As a separate branch it offers new uniforms and more staff positions, but it is unclear to most people what it actually does. We do actually need a command with those functions because orbital space is a new area of international competition but we should avoid making orbit a field of open warfare because the ultimate consequence is denial of space access and resources for humanity for decades or even centuries.
Stranger