The sound of one hand clapping

[endarkenment]

World military spending nears Cold War peak

STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - Massive U.S. spending on the war on terrorism pushed global military expenditure above $1 trillion in 2004, the sixth successive year the total has risen, a leading research institute said on Tuesday.

World military expenditure rose 5 percent to $1.04 trillion, still 6 percent below a Cold War peak in 1987-88, but up sharply since 1998, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) said in its latest yearbook.

"World military spending...is again approaching its level at the height of the Cold War," the think tank said. "

"The major determinant of the world trend in military expenditure is the change in the United States."

U.S. military spending accounted for nearly half the global figure, rising 12 percent last year to $455 billion, the Swedish government-funded institute said.

That was more than the combined total of the 32 next most powerful nations, SIPRI said. The figure was set to rise still further to $502 billion in 2010.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20050607/ts_nm/arms_spending_dc

The conventional wisdom has it that Saint Reagan spent the Soviet Union into its demise in the late 80's arms race. As we approach cold war spending levels, with only one side doing all the spending, would the conventional wisdom care to speculate what the likely outcome of this 'arms race' might be?

[Nederland]

1. Question

Are these numbers adjusted for inflation?

[endarkenment]

2. I would assume adjusted

But their website is massively slow. Maybe you could research it:
http://www.sipri.org

[endarkenment]

3. here - its real dollars

"World military expenditure in 2004 is estimated to have been $975 billion at constant (2003) prices and exchange rates or $1035 billion in current dollars. This is just 6 per cent lower in real terms than at the 1987–88 peak of cold war world military spending. As a global average, 2004 world military expenditure corresponds to $162 per capita1 and 2.6 per cent of world GDP.2 However, there is a wide variation between regions and countries in the scale and economic burden of military spending. The average annual rate of increase in world military expenditure over the 10-year period 1995–2004 was 2.4 per cent in real terms. This average encompasses two distinct trends: first, the post-cold war reduction in military spending which culminated around 1998; second, an increasing trend since 1998, accelerating to an annual average increase of around 6 per cent in real terms over the three-year period 2002–2004."

http://www.sipri.org/contents/milap/milex/mex_trends.html

[Burma Jones]

4. Terrorism is Terrorism because it's done on the cheap.....

Spending billions on the "war" on terror because it worked with the Soviets is insane. But, we all know the real reason for the spending, it's to make a few people very wealthy. If you want to spend massive amounts of money to fight terrorism, you would have to spend it on things that never get publicized......

Calling Iraq part of the war on terror is absolute Bullshit

[endarkenment]

6. Actually here is my point

Not that I disagree with you. But my point is simply this: we are losing a war of atttrition against the 'terrorists' whoever they might be, whatever that word might mean. They are spending $1,000s to attack us with box cutters and IEDs, we are spending $1,000,000,000s in response. What did 9/11 cost whomever was responsible? $50,000? $100,000? $500,000? How much have we wasted in response? How long can we keep this up before we suffer a disastrous economic collapse?

Osama, if he is even alive, must laugh everytime he looks at what we are doing: creating fresh recruits every day for his decentralized army of many heads all dedicated to our destruction, wasting our national resources on a military buildup of nearly unparalleld proportions against an enemy with no credible military force, all while the vital resource required to fuel our vast armada is running out and controlled by the very people we have declared war on.

Good plan Bushco. Nice empire you neocon idiots.

[Burma Jones]

7. I'm with you

It's just that Terror is the latest excuse to redistribute a lot of money from the Middle Class to the Wealthy.....

[Raiden]

5. We need to invest in education

Why do we need a military expenditure equal to the rest of the world combined? 9/11 was the best thing that ever happened to the neo-cons.