What if the US suddenly picked butter over guns?

Great Debates
1

Let’s assume, in the aftermath of Iraq, the US public decides that a huge military is not the best way to spend our money and there are better ways to achieve our goals than kicking some ass. Rightly or wrongly, the idea gains traction that a lot of life and money was wasted in Iraq that could have gone to “better uses.”

Voters decide the US should, as a matter of general principle, invest its budget in butter instead of guns (e.g., reducing dependence on foreign oil instead of trying to manipulate middle eastern politics by force). The public decides it no longer wants to pay for a huge military capable of unilaterally toppling governments around the globe.

US voters elect public officials who decide to reduce the military down to a size/functionality that’s just a bit more than enough to defend our domestic borders, but certainly not big enough to significantly flex a whole lot of muscle on the other side of the planet, absent nukes.

The cuts will happen over a reasonable time: short enough to be quite noticeable, but not so fast that all people in the military and related fields are suddenly unemployed.

Knowing all the other things we know about the US and the world, what likely social, political, and economic changes would we expect to see domestically and internationally by such a move?

My response is that I have no idea. Perhaps other nations will increase their military spending. Perhaps global military skirmishes will erupt. Perhaps we’ll have universal health care and awesome schools. Perhaps we’ll see huge tax cuts. Perhaps the US will be setting itself up for disaster somehow.

What do you think?

2

Never forget that we have a semi-hostile nation crouched on our border just waiting for us to relax even momentarily.

Butter won’t stop them, eager to flee their frozen wasteland, they’ll march south and crush us all! :slight_smile:

3

What I would like to see is massive increases in spending for education, national health insurance, and investment in developing alternative energy sources.

What I probably would see would be even more massive tax cuts for corporations and the uber-wealthy, and a national government so enfeebled that it is powerless to accomplish anything at all.

4

It’s happened before. The United States has demobilized its armed forces after every major war (including the Cold War). Inevitably a new enemy arises and we build the military back up again.

5

I agree with everything except for “enfeebling the national government so that it is powerless to do anything”, because that isn’t rational.
I would also say that we can do these things you propose and have a strong, well-trained military at the same time, if we would quit getting ourselves involved in wars that are the epitome of a morass.

6

We have spent huge resources on the military since world war 2, and to a lesser extent since world war 1. There was never a point in history since the 1940s that the USA could not project enough ground force into any given country to sustain a major war. As a percentage of GDP, the USA has spent an incredible amount of money on the military for nearly the past 70 years.

What the OP is talking about is not the typical scale-down of military spending that happens after major conflicts. The OP is talking about cutting the military by 75% or more, leaving the USA unable to invade a foreign nation.

7

I was imagining the US military scaled back to being just a bit stronger than other industrialized “Western” powers.

Could Canada, Britain, France, Germany, or Australia, etc. successfully unilaterally invade a foreign nation? They seem to get along fine without all that military power (although they may be mooching off the US). :wink:

What would we do with all that money we save?

8

Depends on the current political climate. When republicans have control, they would use it for tax breaks, some of which would end up being permanent. When democrats have control, they would use it to advance or create some welfare program or another, which would likely become permanent.

In either case, we wouldn’t have a whole lot of money to spend after only a few years. Government tends to expand to fit (or exceed) it’s budget with astonishing frequency.

9

What I would like to see is a balanced budget, debt payments, and massive tax cuts.

What I would probably see is massive spending increases which represent horribly inefficient uses of national resources.
Just to put into perspective what we’re talking about, in very rough terms:

U.S. Federal Budget in 2007: $2.8 Trillion
U.S. Military Spending in '07: $550-$700 Billion
U.K. Military Spending in '07: roughly $65 Billion.

Also note that our military budget is so huge in part because our GDP is also huge (for example, it’s about 5 times the size of the U.K.'s GDP). As a percentage of national GDP, our military budget is smaller than that of several countries (including Israel), and similar to that of China and Russia.

Anyway, say we scale back to a budget of $100B per; what can we do with an extra $450B-$600B? The answer probably should address the national debt in a serious way – we spent nearly $250 Billion in '07 on the interest incurred by our debt alone. We could maybe put a dent in that number, yeah?
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2034rank.html

10

I say we literally pick butter over guns. Grease up the coast lines and borders as a national defense then wait for a foreign interest to initiate a toast treaty.

And if the UK tries to put beans on that toast without proper ketchup and brown sugar then I say we butter 'em back to the stone age.

While we are at it, let’s hose down the CEOs of the oil industries with some of that cheap oversalted butter, enough to demobilize them. Then invest in domestic energy programs and eliminate the need for overseas oil. Grow us some corn and beans, mash the oils out of 'em for diesel and ferment the starchy remains for alcohol. Deregulate technology that allows for a conversion of older cars to ethenol, improve diesel engines and thumb our noses at the middle east.

Once we are back on track, totally independant and no intradebt, then we amass an army large enough to invade other countries. Take over and assimilate their culture and mix that culture with the butter for some nice yogurt. Feed the yogurt to the peasants and make the former oil-rich bastards grow corn an’ beans for us.

::spits out some Cope on the ground::

And another thing. I thought we went to war for oil anyway? Where the Sam Hill is it? We kickeded their asses pretty good, why don’t we have their oil? Stupid waste of good taxpayer dollars if you ask me. Kill all them Iraqis and not even bother to squeeze the oil out of their dead man’s pockets? What the hell? Just get the hell out of there and start butterin’ up the borders I say. Let’s start with New Jersey, they got plenty of cows there.

11

The Cold war is OVER. China is not an enemy-it wants to make money selling cheap products to us. The ME will ALWAYS be unstable. If we had spend a fraction of what we are spening on 'defense" (on synthetic gasoline plants) we would not have to import any oil. The world price of oil would drop, and the ME would fade in importace.
It is our irrational energy policy that fuels the world’s conflicts.
And, suppose we decide to ‘sit out’ the latest african massacres? I don’t see where military intervention solves anything.

12

Hmm? In peacetime, the US spends 3-4% of its GDP on defense. That may be higher than you’re comfortable with but it’s not “incredible” - lots of countries spend more, and countries you might consider less militarily oriented like, say, France, spend around 3.

13

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JiSCt0VxhEk Time for Ben Cohen and the cookies.

14

The US reached 3% for exactly one year. France has never reached 3% since the end of ww2. And for someone who hasn’t been invaded or attacked by a foreign military in the past 150 years (i’ll give you the civil war) 3% is a really freaking high number.

15

Can’t we compromise and use butter as gun oil?

16

Right, but how many times has the US been “requested” to intervene on behalf of another nation or the UN?

And why don’t we just say no?

17

If you have all those guns and bombs and soldiers, the urge to use them has got to be hard to resist.

18

…and efficiency!

I agree with Mosier, depending on what party is in office and the sticky nature of the swinging political pendulum, will either see a massive reduction in taxes or massive increase in welfare; both of which will be very, very difficult to undo should the need arise. Personally, I prefer tax reduction as it makes a good political speech to have everyone swallow hard and contribute to the war effort should a need arise.

Either way, I think border skirmishes and “police actions” will escalate across the globe without US involvement. Countries with regional disputes that were previously jittery about action because of US measured response will saber rattle a bit more, and other countries/regions affected by such saber rattling will probably be more keen to escalate, especially if they think they can score cheap political points.

I think countries all over will increase their military spending, and there will likely be more piracy across the globe. According to my poli sci professors, and I tend to agree, terrorism will start to take hold in SE Asian areas. If the US cannot take its surplus and bargain with aid, then it will become more of a serious problem. Even if this is acceptable, in the long run, the US will look weak as the modus operandi will be to bomb something in exchange for food.

At home, I would like to see a decrease in the national deficit. There needs to be some inflation in the markets, and I would rather have it controlled through the interest rate and bond markets rather than in the market where bubbles could be more of a problem (i.e. instead of one bubble, there would be multiple bubbles of less magnitude, government will have an easier time of controlling themselves than the buying preferences of the people). Hopefully, the percentage of spending (rather, the lack thereof) currently on the military will not result in an economic depression. In today’s climate, the dollar should get stronger, but hopefully, slow enough that businesses/industry benefiting from a weak dollar can become more effective as the dollar strengthens, and the economy can diversify to accommodate a stronger dollar (I believe historically that this is not the case).

There will probably be a call to increase welfare (given today’s economic scenario, I would say tax breaks if we were still in a booming economy). It will probably result in a “fix” to Social Security (pass less of a problem on to future generations), and some government over-bureaucracy UHC thing. The government mandate to lower the military would mean politically a turn towards isolationism. Assuming we learned enough about world markets we can keep our trade free, however, I assume that America’s new found wealth will mean increased protectionism which will be very damaging and very hard to undo in the long run. In the short term, the government contract defense industry will likely plummet.

19

Forget about Pearl Harbor, did ya?

As a percentage of the GDP or percentage of population, it’s not particularly high: File:US military personnel and expenditures.png - Wikipedia

List of countries by number of military and paramilitary personnel - Wikipedia Notice on this last one, Iran is listed as having 11.3 “paramilitary” troops. What the heck are those?

Notice here that, while the USA spends the most on the military, in raw dollars, than any other single nation, China, which has almost twice the number of troops in Uniform, spends only ten percent what the US does. Neat trick. Do they not pay their dudes? Also, notice that North Korea spends the most in relation to their GDP: 22.9%. Wow.

20

Ahh yes, the irresistable draw of the shiny, sweet, candy like red button. Calling out “Push me… push me now… you know you want it… you need it… go ahead… on little push won’t hurt… try Grenada… something small like that… oh yeah… you like that don’t you… push it, push it harder… oh yeah.”