Isn't 5% a lot? IIRC even the US aren't that high. And what are we supposed to use all those soldiers and weapons for? Surely that's overkill, even for Russia? Is this actually about China?

Edit: It's 3.5% on the military and 1.5% on dual use infrastructure like roads, for a total of 5%. That's high but quite a bit more sane.

[–] PhilipTheBucket@ponder.cat 9 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (3 children)

5% is, in fact, a whole shitload.

The US is at about 3%, which is an insane amount a lot of which gets allocated to random domestic pork-barrel projects, or basic scientific research which is just getting funneled through the "defense" department for basically no reason. Upping it to more than the US spends per capita on its military is bonkers.

That being said, I get it. These are bonkers times. Russia is doing for-real military invasions and bombing whole cities and shows no signs of wanting to stop, and the US is no longer a reliable partner for defense and deterrence. It might be fine, but it might not. It's time to get ready to look after our own safety again, after a long period of not really having to worry as long as you were white and Western. I get why they're doing it.

[–] Tar_alcaran@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 week ago (2 children)

5% is about what the UK spent up to 1985. It was 7% in 1960.

France spent 3% in 85, and 5% in the 60s, but they count "defence spending" differently.

[–] PhilipTheBucket@ponder.cat 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

The UK in 1985 was being run by people who grew up getting their cities bombed out and not having enough to eat because of the war, or having friends and family members dead because they were in the infantry and didn't come back.

I posted a chart elsewhere in these comments; all during the modern era it's been hovering around 1.5%, and then suddenly in the last few years people are invested in paying more, what with the US and Russia collaborating to make them nervous about their safety again.

[–] rottingleaf@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago

Now it is whole 25 years after the Matrix movie, Windows 2000, Babylon V series and Star Wars The Phantom Menace. Which feel like almost recent. In 1985 it was 25 years after the moment closest to starting a nuclear war, and 25 years before that there were wars in ex-colonies all over the globe. And 50 years before that WWII was starting.

Time is elusive. The Phantom Menace is closer to USSR's invasion of Afghanistan than to now. And much closer to 1985 than to now.

OK, what I really mean is - 1985 was before USSR failed. When it failed, every first and second world society underwent a cultural shock. Expectations formed that it will be futuristic heaven now with no war and reaching for the stars, some capitalist version of the Soviet futurism with unified humanity, that now western nations are unmatched militarily, because all military actions will be like SG-1 series expeditions.

So - this shock led to some popular, but catastrophic changes, like complacency in the face of totalitarianism and reduction in armed forces in the western nations. One can even say that the USSR lost the cold war, and the west lost the peace that followed it.

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