President Proposes USA, China and Russia Cut Military Spending in Half

18 thoughts on “President Proposes USA, China and Russia Cut Military Spending in Half”

1. This is all starting to look a lot like, “Hey, let’s fire all the Iraqi soldiers, police, and government workers! That way, they won’t be a problem anymore.”

   This isn’t all happening in a vacuum.

   What’s the next step? What’s the plan?

   Fire everybody everywhere, while cutting all services?

   Are we gonna be Egypt?

   Millions and millions of people with no hope, jobs, future, seething on the outside, ready to burn it all down?

   Rick and Morty, season 2, episode 9.

2. When you realise that compact fusion initiation is all about technology the dynamics as to what the military edge is changes. Making fission and fusion devices a lot more efficient and cleaner also makes the drawbacks of use different (Tsar design efficiency) as they are no longer have the radiation aftermath (see declassified field artillery studies). Are the two sites of the only wartime use still no go radiation zones.
   Is it more about the geopolitical and technical divide between more compact devices and the old route of a couple of lumps of material being slammed together very inefficiently with lots of after effects.
   Technology changes dynamics in lots of different ways.

3. Interestingly not Europe though, perhaps Europe will become the predominant military super power.

4. 100% disagree with this.
   Military spending in a free democracy is one of the few truly worthwhile uses of taxpayer money – not to be confused with direct ability to exert and transmit hard military power.
   A reliable and pliant group of people, within a strong and constantly-reinforced hierarchy unmotivated by local politics and other private industry selfish distraction, that can flexibly manage almost all forms of internal and external security, be available for emergencies and civil control/ management, and just otherwise be the common force ‘outside’ of basic administrative duties and private industry? Think of the possibilities: removing more regionalized emergency/policing services (mostly unionized); aggregating the bizarre range of border services, intelligence, various ‘guard’, other fed/state only departments; robust basic engineering/ medical/ scientific expertise to deal with infrastructure issues rather than outside Contractors, a ‘place’ for people who otherwise don’t fit into private industry values and competitiveness, etc.
   The military pretty-much has its own civilization within a civilization. The vast majority of military are not combat-focused and several have access to top research projects and fascinating STEM work equivalent to the outside civvie world.
   A great initiative: Could be: US workforce – 2% elected/ appointed government; 20%+/- military and military-adjacent; 75%+/- private industry. Every G7 country should undertake such a system to allow their populations choice of how to ‘structure’ their lives. WArning: probably won’t work in a totalitarian or near-failed state system (i.e. 90% of the world).

   • Gee. Imagine a group that were composed of people that cared about their job and were motivated to quality, productivity, and service to a higher order than themselves? The current unions would be quaking in their sick day onesies.

     • Agreed. The Military could be the Good Parenting that many people never had.

   • The amount spent on the military is dependent on what you want to do with the military. If the US military is only defending the US itself, then yes, the military budget could be gutted and the US would still be very well protected. But if the US is going to be the world’s policeman, then $832 billion is the barebone minimum.

5. Amazing leadership!

   Imagine what we could get done redirecting this money to basic science or frontier engineering in space exploration or similar.

   If there’s such a thing, the cuts should focus on reducing offensive capabilities while maintaining defensive.

6. This will be hard to pull off, but not impossible.
   One of the first things that will happen is that all 3 countries will suddenly “admit” to spending 20-30% more on defense than they’ve been saying, e.g. the U.S. spending will suddenly be over $1 trillion, not $849 (proposed) for 2025. The higher the base, the easier it will be to cut. Actual cuts then, might be 30% from today’s admitted figures, not 50%. But since there’ll be more “stuff” in the expanded budget, that’s not terrible in theory.
   The other problem, which MAGA budget-slashers will never understand, is that withdrawing that much money from the economy, whether from the private sector via contracts, or directly from government will cause a massive recession, which won’t be filled quickly by private sector spending – certainly not in the MIC. The MIC will lobby hard against the loss of jobs and income (expect defense stocks to swoon if there’s even a hint China and Russia take this plan seriously).
   The verification aspect will be the hardest to negotiate and work out. There’s a lot of black box spending in all three countries and highly classified stuff that none of them will want their adversaries to know about. They’ll want to keep their high-tech development secret.
   This won’t happen fast, if it happens at all.

   • “The other problem, which MAGA budget-slashers will never understand, is that withdrawing that much money from the economy, whether from the private sector via contracts, or directly from government will cause a massive recession,”

     If so, I wouldn’t expect it to last long, because government spending has a way of displacing private spending, (You know, the actually *productive* part of the economy the government lives off of?) and you’d expect the private economy to spring back pretty quick with that wet blanket pulled off.

7. Trump and Musk are just trying to reintegrate China and Russia back into the Western economies in order to enhance the power of authoritarianism over freedom and democracy.

   Nice try!

   • I’m not sure I’m understanding you.
     Are you saying Russia & China are freedom loving Democracies, and the U.S. is authoritarian???
     I’m really hoping I misunderstood you…

     • The US is currently controlled by a king, who literally runs the country using dictats. So yes, it’s correct.

       • Trump is President, not a king. He was chosen to lead, by US citizens. He’ll leave office in 4 years since he’s on his final term, something a king doesn’t do. His picks to run government agencies have to be confirmed by congress…something a king doesn’t do. Trump is doing exactly what he was elected to do. Streamline the Government, reduce waste, stop funding the world, put US issues…first.

       • Please do stay w/that.
         “Trump is, like, a real actual, like, Dictator and everything! He’s Hitler!” has worked so well for Democrats. It’s quite wonderful that you continue in that vein.

       • Nah. It’s kind of a ‘Better to Ask for Forgiveness After than Permission Before’ thing. Many would say more like’ Ends Justify the Means’ – but I don’t think so.
         I applaud the Brazenness as we -seemingly for awhile- ‘Suspend our Disbelief’. Once in a Century changes. But 4 years? Buckle Up.

   • its cheaper than to spend even more money to prevent china from reclaiming taiwan.

   • And what proof do you have for your conspiracy theory besides “Orange Man BAD!” or “Rocket Man BAD!”?!?

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