The United States military should be significantly reduced in size and scope.

Thanks, Con. The primary purpose of the military is to defend its country from actual or perceived threats. The question is whether or not the U.S. military would be able to fulfill this mission if reduced in size by 1/3. I affirm. The U.S. spends 58% of the total military dollars paid out by the world's top 10 powers. With its unparalleled global reach, the US outspends China, the next-biggest military power, by nearly 6-to-1. It outspends the next biggest competitor, Japan, by 12-to-1 and so on. We spend more than the next 26 nations combined on the military - 25 of whom are allies [1]. Because we not only spend more but infinitely more than everybody else, we can afford to cut costs by a significant amount. Considering we have good working and trading relationships with the next most powerful nations, the incentives for armed conflict is not high. Security is of paramount importance for prosperity, but to what extent is a military attack on the U.S. realistic? Considering no other nation comes close to the resources they allocate toward their military, it would be naive to assume that any major super power would find it productive to wage an attack on one of the most influential nations in the world. Indeed, the U.S. still has more sophisticated weapons and military technology than any other nation [2, 3]. There is no nation on the planet that poses a great physical threat to the U.S. in the way that the USSR did during the Cold War. While we should absolutely be prepared, there's no need to spend 10X everybody else. This enormous burden on tax payers hurts our economic standing. The U.S. is losing financial credibility which is the real source of power and influence in a global economy. Moreover, it's taking money away from funding other/better causes such as education, combating poverty, infrastructure, medical research, etc. The money required to eradicate hunger for everyone in the world has been estimated at 30 billion dollars per year - what the world spends on the military every 8 days. Our ever-expanding institution is creating an arms race throughout the globe. This is counterproductive to inhibiting war. In fact, crafting predetermined alliances "just in case" there is war was one of the primary causes of WWI. It incentivizes people use their shiny new toys... that is if they are functional. Sometimes our military spending is so wasteful, that we completely blow trillions of dollars without true concern for the grave reality of cost and what that translates to in real life. For example, the new F-35 army plane just got crippled by a computer glitch that won't be fixed for at least 4 more years. The jet has already cost 400 billion dollars since 2006, and expected to cost around 1.9 trillion in total by the time they can even be used in 2019 [4]. Ergo, the U.S. has already spent hundreds of billions of dollars on planes we haven't used or have a reasonable reason to use, which is not only a massive burden on tax payers but a massive insult to humanity. The UN's entire budget is less than 2% of the world's military expenditure. It is revealing that the world can spend so much on their military, but contribute so little to the efforts of global security, international cooperation, and peace. Let it be noted that while every other facet of government is scaling back, the military is not. The Marine Corps Times said, "the Armed Services Committee's proposals on major weapon programs were left unscathed" [5]. The Global Peace Index attempted to quantify the value of peace, and rank countries based on quantitative data and qualitative scores from a range of sources. The top ranking nations on the global peace index were New Zealand, Denmark, Norway, Iceland, Austria, Sweden, Japan, Canada, Finland, and Slovenia [6]. Most of these countries spend very little on their military. While strategic alliances are important, one repercussion of U.S. expenditure is that other countries can afford to spend a lot less on their own. Many countries have outsourced their defense to us, which is problematic and unfair for obvious reasons. Excessive military spending is used to maintain unwarranted control of the U.S. population, assert a level of political dominance, and foster the dangerous and very real Military Industrial Complex that is crippling our economy and putting citizens in danger. As long as there is profit in war and politicians have connections to war profiteers, the world will never know peace. A militaristic arms race is detrimental and only helps those who benefit from investment in war materials, such as defense contractors. Politicians support these industries because they have both direct and indirect ties to individuals and corporations who benefit from an expanding military. In terms of self-defense, the U.S. is concerned mostly with terrorism. Terrorism is typically fought as an act of guerrilla warfare. An individual strapping a bomb to themselves and blowing up a bus is not realistically made impotent by adding a million soldiers to our army, or developing better weapon technology. In fact, fighting fire with fire has been proven counterproductive, as our highest defense officials have acknowledged that our military presence in the U.S. has facilitated the recruitment of terrorists, and made us less safe [7]. Terrorism should be dealt with by addressing the underlying causes, and exploring potential solutions outside of outright violence and aggression. Military invasions cannot stop small-scale terrorism attempts, and developing a comprehensive counterterrorism strategy is necessary. Suggestions include increased intelligence sharing, renditions, and specialized raids on terrorist bases, safe havens and training camps [8]. This would be more prudent than having a bunch of kids running a muck amidst great danger in the Middle East, getting nothing out of it but an ugly uniform and bad case of PTSD. In 2004, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld commissioned a task force to study what causes terrorism. It concluded "Muslims do not hate our freedom but rather they hate our policies. Specifically, American direct intervention in the Muslim world through our one sided support in favor of Israel, support for Islamic tyrannies in places like Egypt and Saudi Arabia, and most of all, the American occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan" [9]. Of course this occupation would significantly decrease if the size and scope of our military were reduced. If our presence were truly needed throughout the globe, our leaders probably would not have had to exaggerate and lie to convince us of intervention. I would argue that our sprawling occupation has not been successful, necessary or beneficial to the U.S. on a cost/benefit analysis. We also cannot ignore that many countries rely on militaristic prowess to maintain systematic control over a population in the name of security. What originally starts as technology for military security tends to evolve into something else. For instance, the U.S. has now made it legal to utilize spy drones against its own citizens for surveillance [10]. Our civil liberties are being taken away while the government grows and military becomes more powerful. New policies like the NDAA, which allows "indefinite detention of American citizens without due process at the discretion of the President" is also scary and a direct violation of our Constitutional rights. The military should protect against internal threats, but not help exploit its own citizens. Indeed the military famously engaged in Operation Green Sweep, a series of raids conducted by the military where they targeted people growing marijuana [11]. What a ridiculous waste of resources; marijuana is minimally harmful by virtually all standards even if it is against the law. The military should not be used to engage in such frivolous activity, but specifically kept at a minimum to maximize defense in the most efficient manner. Our military resources are simply not being used efficiently and/or fairly. We have troops in more than 150 countries around the world. Rather than focus on man power, we should be focusing on cyber-terrorism. In 2009, Chinese spies hacked the Pentagon's $300 billion F-35 fighter jet project. In an age where cyber security is our biggest threat, increasing our brain power that government's can invest in is more important than having such a massive military. The greatest threat to our security is an EMP: having our electrical grid destroyed by an enemy with a low-cost, short range, ship-launched missile armed with a nuclear warhead. The consequences would be far-reaching, with long-lasting, continent-wide crippling effects to our electricity-dependant infrastructure. Investing in military expansion won't help combat this threat. In conclusion, thus far I've argued why the current size and scope of this institution is dangerous and counterproductive. In the next few rounds, I will outline more specifically what should be cut and estimate their savings so as to warrant the 1/3 reduction. Cheers. [1] http://www.huffingtonpost.com... [2] http://www.mandatory.com... [3] http://usmilitary.about.com... [4] http://rt.com... [5] http://mic.com... [6] http://www.globalissues.org... [7] http://wcfia.harvard.edu... [8] http://usforeignpolicy.about.com... [9] http://www.sourcewatch.org... [10] http://www.presstv.ir... [11] http://www.nytimes.com...