Paul Waldman's article on our massive military spending and the absurdity of our presidential candidates -- Democrats included, Barack Obama included -- trying to further increase the size of our armed forces is terrific. But reading it, I couldn't help thinking that what this piece really needs is a chart. So, I made one. Here's US military spending as compared to the handful of nations we're theoretically spending that money against (numbers are from 2005):
Our spending is 43 percent of the total. Not the total on that chart. The total of the world. The "hostile" nations on that chart barely equal out to a fraction of our spending. To put our share of global military expenditures in perspective, we're about 4.5 percent of the world's population and produce 20 percent of the global GDP. On, and lest I forget, we're protected by an ocean. So watching John McCain and Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama and Mitt Romney promise to further throw money at the defense industry is fairly gross. There may, to be sure, be an argument for reducing our expenditures on hardware and increasing them on manpower, but there's no real argument for increasing our total expenditures. This is particularly true in light of the last few years, where the size and power of our military fueled a vast overconfidence in its capabilities, which in turn helped ease our decision to invade Iraq, thus contributing to a venture that most all security experts agree has dramatically reduced our safety.
Our spending is 43 percent of the total. Not the total on that chart. The total of the world. The "hostile" nations on that chart barely equal out to a fraction of our spending. To put our share of global military expenditures in perspective, we're about 4.5 percent of the world's population and produce 20 percent of the global GDP. On, and lest I forget, we're protected by an ocean. So watching John McCain and Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama and Mitt Romney promise to further throw money at the defense industry is fairly gross. There may, to be sure, be an argument for reducing our expenditures on hardware and increasing them on manpower, but there's no real argument for increasing our total expenditures. This is particularly true in light of the last few years, where the size and power of our military fueled a vast overconfidence in its capabilities, which in turn helped ease our decision to invade Iraq, thus contributing to a venture that most all security experts agree has dramatically reduced our safety. 
