SHOULD THE MILITARY BUDGET BE REDUCED?

Here is a report from the state of Washington about the power of vaccinations:

• Unvaccinated 12-34 year-olds in Washington are

• 2 times more likely to get COVID-19 compared with fully vaccinated 12-34 year-olds.

• 10 times more likely to be hospitalized with COVID-19 compared with fully vaccinated 12-34 year- olds.

• Unvaccinated 35-64 year-olds are

• 3 times more likely to get COVID-19 compared with fully vaccinated 35-64 year-olds.

• 14 times more likely to be hospitalized with COVID-19 compared with fully vaccinated 35-64 year- olds.

  Unvaccinated 65+ year-olds are

• 6 times more likely to get COVID-19 compared with fully vaccinated 65+ year-olds.

• 13 times more likely to be hospitalized with COVID-19 compared with fully vaccinated 65+ year- olds.

• 15 times more likely to die of COVID-19 compared with fully vaccinated 65+ year-olds. 

Convincing enough for the young, but the older you get, the evidence becomes more overwhelming.  However, while this report was released only a few days ago, I re-read the details, and don't see any mention of a booster shot.  But it is now clear that the standard 2-shot Pfizer/Moderna routine wanes, and there is a definite need of a booster.  If this Washington study did not include a booster in their analysis, I can only conclude that this third inoculation for an individual will even more significantly improve the protection numbers.  No matter what, the evidence for avoiding death if vaccinated and boosted should be obvious if want to live a longer life.  But I guess it's not for some.

Yesterday I began my series on controversial topics with Is Religion a Scam?  However, the military budget has long been a topic of concern, perhaps since 1961, when President Dwight D. Eisenhower, three days before passing on the mantle of national leadership to John F. Kennedy, gave his final speech to the nation by warning us of the Military-Industrial Complex.  Watch his farewell address.  So stimulated by an article yesterday by Trudy Rubin, I hereby add reducing the military budget as the second disputable proposition.

Entitled Foreign friends and adversaries believe U.S. power is in decline, Rubin said the following:

• The coup attempt on Jan. 6, along with its continuing reverberations, has shaken our allies’ faith in America’s future. Despite the Biden administration’s success in strengthening alliances Trump rebuffed — and building new ones in Asia — foreign officials now worry about the stability of the United States.
• 
  Said Gillian Tett, The Financial Times' editorial board chief:  And what’s even more remarkable is that the person who is seen as being behind this insurrection ... is being deemed a significant contender for the 2024 presidential race.
• Further, according to Rubin:  European and Asian leaders wonder whether the partisan madness eating away at America’s democratic institutions will undercut any effective U.S. foreign policy. This is a time when our country needs to be united against China’s advances and Russia’s aggression. Moreover, NATO allies know they can’t handle these threats alone, and are looking for solid U.S. leadership in pushing back against Moscow and Beijing.
• 
  And finally:  Trump’s Big Lie, which keeps the legacy of Jan. 6 boiling, is the gift that keeps giving to America’s adversaries. So long as Republican leaders refuse to rebuff that lie in public, they are handing China and Russia a compelling advantage by helping rip up American democracy at its roots.

So there is nothing above that suggests American military might is fraying.  The free world is concerned that my country is on the verge of abdicating world leadership because democracy is being threatened.

I've regularly shown this graphic:

In short the U.S. war (although it is called defense) budget is $788 billion, more than the sum of the next 11 countries, combined.  In case you did not know, this is how we spend these funds:

Here is the latest comparison.  Note the defense budget as a % of GDP:

However, seven years ago in 2014, with a budget of $610 billion, we spent more on war than only the next 7 nations:

From more than 7 nations in 2014 to more than 11 now!  Why???  China has no ambitions to invade us.  Russia is actually quite powerless.  We have 12 aircraft carriers, while China has two (one bought used from Ukraine) and Russia has one, a third of a century old and coughing.  No #2 being built.

Mind you, the trend is good, as the Congressional Budget Office projects that defense spending as a share of our Gross Domestic Product will decline over the next decade from 3.3% in 2021 to 2.7% in 2031.  Over the past 50 years our defense spending has averaged 4.4%.

But how does this compare with other nations?

Note that China's is less than 2%.  Why???  Or should I say, wow, the Military-Industrial Complex is doing very well.

I'm a bit nervous of the world nuclear stockpile:

Except that total nuclear weapons peaked in 1986 at 64,449, and is today down to 13,082:

My very first Huffington Post article was almost 14 years ago, where I proposed that the new president cut our defense budget by 10%, and challenge other countries to do the same next year.  When they do, we should again reduce it by another 10%, and expect the world to also conform.  In only a few years we should be able to reduce the world defense budget by 50% to be used for infrastructure, education, global warming remediation and so forth.  Maybe more important than the sudden windfall would be a reduction of war potential.  Can I even hint about World Peace?  Oh, that's another controversial topic I will post some other day.  Can you imagine where Humanity would be if all this began 14 years ago?  Well, it's not too late to start as soon as possible.

Why is it difficult to cut the defense budget? The New York Times had an article last year that said:

• ...the Center for International Policy, today’s military budget, adjusted for inflation, is far higher than the post-World War II average.
• In 2016, Bob Woodward and Craig Whitlock of The Washington Post disclosed that, according to an internal study, the Defense Department could save $125 billion over five years simply by trimming its distended bureaucracy. 

• 
  In the coming years, the military plans to develop and purchase more than 600 new nuclear missiles at a potential cost of over $100 billion. But as Elisabeth Eaves has detailed in The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, these missiles aren’t just wildly expensive. They’re dangerous. 
• Advocates of America’s mammoth defense budget claim it generates jobs. But academic studies reveal that it does so far less efficiently than government investment in education, clean energy, transportation and health care.
• 
  In 2018, the Trump administration warned that America’s “competitive military advantage has been eroding,” especially in relation to China and Russia.
• Wait a minute, that first graphic shows we spend more than the next 11 countries.
• China... less than one-third as much on defense as the United States does and has fewer than one-tenth as many nuclear weapons.
• 
  One explanation for Mr. Biden’s reticence lies in Dwight Eisenhower’s warning about the “unwarranted influence” that America’s “military-industrial complex” could amass in “the councils of government.” This influence is especially intense in Congress, where many districts rely on military spending and where legislators feel the weight of the more than $100 million per year that the defense industry lavishes on lobbying. 

• 
  Doesn't help that Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin served on the board of Raytheon Technologies, and more than a dozen high level advisors have links to defense contractor.

• 
  Counteracting that power will require a mass movement. In 1967, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. warned against the “triple evils of racism, economic exploitation and militarism.” In this new season of progressive ambition, Mr. Biden is beginning to challenge the first two. It’s time for ordinary Americans to make him challenge the third.

Another article from Brookings in 2020 (when Trump was still president) said:

• ...the annual national defense budget exceeds its Cold War average by more than $200 billion in real terms. Some were already calling for cuts of as much as $200 billion in the annual defense budget before the COVID-19 crisis.
• 
  Curtailing the F-35 fighter jet program or delaying the replacement of the nation’s intercontinental ballistic missile force may help.
• Outgoing Air Force Chief of Staff David Goldfein felt that, reducing squadrons 10% to 20% could save tens of billions/year.
• Today's military has 1.3 million in uniform and 0.8 million in reserve.  If the Reserve group is augmented by active duty cuts, annual savings might reach $30 billion.

I can add a few more thoughts:

• We have 750 military bases in 80 foreign countries.
• For example, in Germany, 45,000 Americans go to work each day just around the Kaiserslautern Military Community.
• About 60,000 American military and civilian personnel are stationed in Japan, with another 30,000 in South Korea.
• 6,000 U.S. militia in Africa.
• $55 billion spent on them.  Cut this in half.
• China, our most serious military rival has all of one official overseas military base...in Djibouti.  Do you even know which continent this is located?
• 
  We seem more and more threatened, but not by invading armadas:
• Cyberattacks.
• Disinformation.
• China's economic rivalry.
• Climate change.
• Disease outbreaks and the pandemic.
• Not war.
• We fear Russia and China, but for the wrong reasons.
• 
  One final reason I would like to offer as to why Congress has difficulty reducing the defense budget is that the dreaded Military-Industrial Complex and Defense Department have colluded to place economically key military installations and companies in every state.  Anyone working in any office, and that includes me when I toiled in the U.S. Senate, are regularly visited by someone from home to protect their budget position.   I can't imagine any Hawaii congressperson suggesting cutting the Pearl Harbor budget. 

Oh yes, war.  Want to guess how much we have spent on those Middle East Wars?  We have burnt $8 trillion (that's $8000 billion) since that 9/11 terrorist attack.  Almost a million have been killed.  What did we get out of it?  Where would we be if those funds were instead used for infrastructure, education and global warming remediation?

Today are two compelling TV options at the same time.  Of course, Alabama plays Georgia for the NCAA football championship.  Game starts at 3PM Hawaii time.  If the total score ends up at 24, 44 or 66, I win money through a 15 Craigside pool.  I won last year.

At 4:30PM in Hawaii, Amy Schneider attempts to extend her 28 game winning streak.  

• 
  On Friday, she became the fourth person to pass the $1 million mark. 
• Ken Jennings was the first, in 2005, reaching that figure in game 30 of his 74-game run.
• James Holzhauer was #2 in game 32.

• 
  Matt Amodio (in the middle, with Jennings on the left) was #3, and actually amassed $1.5 million before getting beaten after only 38 wins.  He had a system that blew away his competitors. and maximized earnings.

• 
  Schneider indicated her "luck" has just been a statistical fluke.  Sort of like Slumdog Millionaire.  This was the 2009 film rated 91/90 by Rotten Tomatoes.
• How to watch both the game and Jeopardy?  Record one and see it later.

Some of you might remember Victor Borge.  Called the Clown Prince of Denmark, he was a classical music pianist who was also a deadpan humorist.  Learned the piano at the age of 3 as a prodigy.  Being a Jewish entertainer, he made fun of Hitler in 1940, so had to escape, and eventually came to the U.S., but didn't know English, so did so just by watching TV.  He was on the Ed Sullivan show in 1948 and went on to entertain 60 times/per year until the age of 90.

Well, in Arizona is the young female version of Borge, Nicole Pesci.  She too started early, at the age of 7, and began composing music at 11, now with a catalog of 300 songs.  She is particularly known for her various renditions of Happy Birthday:

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