In 2015, the United States spent more on its war machine than the next six countries combined, with a total of $596 billion spent on military expenditures. This week the U.S. House of Representatives passed its version of the annual National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), with roughly $602 billion slated to be spent on military programs and armaments in the 2017 budget.
To put this amount in perspective, the U.S. spent more on its military than the next six nations combined, with China coming in second at $215 billion, followed by Saudi Arabia at $87 billion, Russia at $66 billion, with the United Kingdom, India and France spending roughly $50 billion each on defense expenses.
When looking at this spending in context, the U.S. not only spends more than the next six countries combined, but spends almost triple the amount on military expenses than the second biggest defense spender in the world, China, according to data from the Stockholm International Peach Research Institute.
These figures come on top of the recently announced $1 trillion dollar nuclear missile modernization program that has been curiously absent from public discourse, having not even been mentioned in the televised presidential debates.
All of this comes as the U.S. pivots from the “Global War on Terror,“ to a more traditional defense posture. The reasoning behind this is simple; who needs new tanks, bombers, fighters and missiles to fight ISIS or al-Qaeda? There simply wasn’t enough money to be made in bombing jihadists in tents in the desert, thus the drums of war in the media, regarding an “aggressive Russia,” began to be played as to allow for the return of traditional military-industrial complex/Cold War posturing.
The sheer enormity of the sums being given to the military-industrial complex is enough to boggle the mind. Think for a moment how else that $600 billion could be spent to actually assist in creating growth rather than death.
Consider that in January 2015, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) found there were 564,708 homeless people on a given night in the United States – the government could actually purchase a $1 million dollar home for each individual homeless person in the U.S. and still have money left over.
Or perhaps the money could be spent on the rapidly eroding domestic U.S. nuclear infrastructure. Although the media spotlight is rarely shined upon America’s aging nuclear infrastructure, U.S. nuclear power plants are decaying rapidly, precipitating numerous nuclear environmental disasters across the country. The Free Thought Project recently reported on four nuclear disasters playing out across the country, with massive amounts of radioactive material having been leaked.
Rather than investing in these terminal goods, such as bombs and bullets, which are meant for destruction, we should be investing in capital goods that are able to provide growth. The U.S. war machine spends hundreds of billions of dollars per year waging war against humanity, while Americans at home are dying from a crumbling nuclear infrastructure and crippling poverty.
Also Read: U.S Navy Finally Takes Control Of Its Overpriced $4 Billion Warship
Jay Syrmopoulos writes for TheFreeThoughtProject.com, where this article first appeared.
Absolutely proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that the average American is so totally programmed & brain-washed as to NOT see what is going on around them & in fact have lost their ability for critical thinking while stumbling thru an alpha-wave faux reality of ‘USA USA USA’ from an acute case of deliberately engineered ‘Cognitive Dissonance’….this obscene tragedy of the bloated Pentagon gorging themselves at the public trough…while good Americans are homeless & strarving… is staring us right in the face & as always …peoples opinions & critical thinking is directly proportional to not making any waves or rocking the corporate ship of State while receiving their steady paycheck .
Very well expressed, Eddy…
if AMERICA WANT THE RESPECT FROM THE REST O THE WORLD, THEN IT HAS T CLEAN UP ITS ACT, all money that has been taken for black projects to be paid back to the people, and cease all war mongering.
The 600 Billion doesn’t even take into account the trillions of dollars in Black Ops money from drug dealing. Surely this would buy every American a million dollar mansion and a couple of Teslas to go in the garage. The US has devolved into a very dystopian place.
The perpetual military, industrial, government death machine marches ever onward.
It is the way of the UsurpedStates.
Both foreign and domestic enemies must be dealt a death blow.
NOW NOW don’t PISS OFF ISRAEL.
How would those 66 billionaires and their heirs continue their global rule if sharing resources became the norm?
“The separation of the good from the bad. The eternal and the temporal are divided one from another.”
“To practice magic is to be a quack; to know magic is to be a sage.”
“Magic is the divinity of man conquered by science in union with faith; the true Magi are Men-Gods, in virtue of their intimate union with the divine principle.”
The problem the Americans have is the same problem the British, French, Germans and most western people have. We don’t live in democracies and this abuse will continue until we hang the bastards.
No, the only problem Americans have is Washington! The problems the British, French and Germans and most western peoples have is Washington! In other words: the political-financial-industrial-military complex!
How many lost and broken veterans will it take for the US Military Staff to fkng wake up and realise how completely they are Despised by the powers that order them to invade foreign countries and terrorise the local populations?
People! Please! If they don’t keep funneling our tax dollars to their owners through their bullshit “expenditures”… How else will the Judas Class finish their latest order from AIPAC to have the entire world buried in Central Banks and “shills” in their governments / gift wrapped and handed over to Israel on time! I mean, get real!!
…
T E L E S T A F F – R A C K E T E E R I N G…… is fraud….
all across America,
this fraud is costing taxpayers $100’s of billions of dollars..
costs that are hidden in new and ongoing fee and tax increases .
learn as much as you can
about the theft of taxpayer money by unaccountable public unions….
The Pentagon budget is around $700 billion.
..
The Pentagon’s own
auditors found they cannot account for 25 percent of their
expenditures. That means Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.,
the Pentagon loses around $86 million an hour.
The Pentagon loses more money before lunch each day
than Americans will see in their entire life times
That means the Pentagon loses enough of your tax dollars every day
to give every American free health care.
So if ‘nukes’are fake then what’s all the money for?
And if you think 1 million per homeless person is a lot, the money they could give each homeless person for what they are blowing on the secret space programs, it would astronomical!!!!!!
Would a homeless person want to pay for and handle upkeep on a new million U.S. dollar house every year?
,
After ten or twenty years with that many houses to keep up, it could be both time-consuming and expensive.