In sci.military.naval Stop SPAM! wrote:
: To correct some gross misstatements of fact circulating in these
: newsgroups, some facts:

: The USA Defence budget for FY2004 is 3.4% of the USA GDP, one of the
: smallest in recent history. Since the end of WW II the USA Defence
: budget has averaged about 6% (ignoring the Korean war spikes of
: 10%-14%). So overall the USA Defence budget is down about -40% from Cold
: War averages.

But compare the total dollars spent by the US military with the
total dollars spent by the rest-of-world -- especially now that there is
no USSR stripping itself to build a military that can compete with ours.
Manpower is down (Rumsfeld wants it lower) and there are fewer 'units', but
the US has very intentionally been 'transforming' into much higher capability
and lethality units, even if it can't afford them in great numbers. In WWII
we had a lot more ships, yet, but the modern navy is very much more powerful.
And, to use a favorite tax argument, if the US economy grows then
you can have a smaller percentage of the economy and still have growth in
'real' terms. The diminishing of military budget in terms of percentage of
GDP might represent the growth of the budget more than any kind of disarmament.

regards,
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