Watch this video from Vox as part of the article This map shows how enormous US military spending really is and pay particular attention to a couple of stats. First that we spend between 70 and 100 billion a year to maintain these overseas bases, many leftovers from prior conflicts that just never were closed and that it costs 10,000-40,000 more to maintain troops based overseas compared to those in American bases. In the case of Germany there are around 50,000 U.S. troops so even at the cheapest rate of $10,000 more a year that means half a billion dollars in extra expenses to occupy a country we haven't been at war with for over 70 years. That is just one country.....
That is a whole lot of foreign bases for one country to have compared to all the rest combined. Just remember that when you are told that we need to spend more on "defense" lest the rest of the world catch up. Here is a spoiler, they are never going to catch up but we are still going to spend ourselves into financial ruin.
(p.s. sorry the video is so wide)
4 comments:
We have 800 military bases around the world and your only concern is their expense? Do temrs like 'empire,' 'imperialism,' 'proxy leaders,' and 'blowback' mean anything to you?
Do you only care about the impact these bases have on you and our nation here or are you curious about the costs other people have to pay to have our bases in their nation?
Curt, I don't generally cover every single facet of a topic in a post. Please feel free to peruse other posts where I deal with some of those issues. For purposes of this post I was focused on how expensive it is to this nation. I would also point out that many of our "allies" are quite content to let America spend ourselves in financial oblivion while hiding under the umbrella of "protection", real or imagined, provided for by the wasted blood of American youth and the sweat of the American worker.
BTW, after reading my comment, I think I came across to harsh. I apologize for that. The expense of these bases is an important subject. Just that there are other issues and other stakeholders.
Curt, understood. It is an emotionally charged issue that covers a wide span of topics, almost none of them very positive.
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