Military Spending Research Paper

Thank you for your willingness to serve the United States of America. The amount of money poured into defense and the military has gone far beyond a reasonable amount. The U.S.’s annual budget for military defense spending was $598.5 billion, approximately 54% of the discretionary spending of the federal government (National Priorities). This staggering number is made even more astounding by the fact that the US accounts for approximately a third of the world’s defense spending (Taylor, Karklls). A hot topic in this year’s presidential election, that I am sure you are aware of, was whether or not to increase the budget for military spending. The answer? A definite no. I am not saying that we should decrease the budget, simply that it should not be increased. As a student residing on an army base located in Kwajalein Atoll, and therefore a benefactor of the …show more content…
Since that time, the US has been the biggest player at the table when it comes to military size. The US alone covered 39% of the world distribution of military expenditure in 2012. This amount, 598.5 billion in US dollars, is staggering when compared to the combined spending of all the countries that, according to the debate, are the ones that we (the American people) should fear. China’s defense budget in 2015 was 146 billion. That is 24.414% of ours, and China is the largest of our competitors by approximately 80 billion dollars (Taylor, Karklls). North Korea is the saddest of the lot with its puny 4 billion dollar defense budget (Korean Times). The defense budgets of our very allies are but mere fractions of this immense number with France’s 47 Billion, Germany’s 37 billion, UK’s 56 billion, Italy’s 22 billion, and Israel’s 19 billion (Taylor, Karklls). Basically, why should the budget be raised when we have such a serious advantage on the global