As the title of my blog says: Food for thought.
the cost of safety?
The defense/military budget for the United States is roughly just a bit over one Trillion dollars a year. Just so we are clear on what that looks like: 1,000,000,000,000. That's enough to give everyone on the planet about $142.
context
Out of 180-200 (depending on who recognizes what as a country) countries in existence, the U.S. only has about 6 that it doesn't have diplomatic relations with, and maybe a half dozen more that might have hostilities with it and maybe another 2 imaginary entities that have no actual nation, so lets say 14 total.. So that is an average of $71,428,571,428 per "hostile" country per year. Keep in mind that this is just the money that is known, I'm sure there are classified programs whose budgets are wrapped into other departments and not publicly disclosed for what they are. I'm not a conspiracy theorist, it just seems logical because, well, that is what I would do.
why this matters
Maybe the most immediate concern would be the global depression that we are in (if you don't like the word depression, substitute with recession, or slump, or rough period, or bumpy bits...whatever, it means the same thing). In one year, if the U.S. diverted it's entire defense spending to infrastructure across the globe, balancing our budget, and making creative business/employment incentives, our economic problems would be gone by the end of the year.
Better yet, the U.N. has estimated that it would cost $195,000,000,000 (195 billion) a year to feed EVERYONE on the planet. By just reducing our defense budget by 20%, the United States could feed the entire world, ending malnutrition and hunger on a global scale. As if that wasn't awesome enough, the process of feeding the world would create jobs globally and boost agricultural and transportation industries world wide. If done right, it could even usher in a new age of food production techniques that would not only become self sustaining, but would be environmentally sustainable. Side effects could include increased popularity, happy people, good relations, better economies, more jobs, clean air and water, and one less thing to worry about at night.
Or we could invest the whole thing into developing clean and renewable energy sources. I wonder how long it would take for people to develop workable products to reduce and eventually eliminate our dependency on environmentally detrimental energy sources with that kind of investment. I'm not an expert, but I would guess no more than 5 years, probably less. Maybe 2 years to develop and another 5 to fully implement? Man, that would be a rough world to live in.
What about any of the other environmental problems we face. Imagine the effects of a trillion dollars invested into bio-degradable products, better recycling, waste disposal and treatment programs. Finding technologies that don't rely on toxic materials.
How about reinvesting in education globally? We could develop an unparalleled education system across the globe, preparing the future generation to deal with all of the issues listed above, and ones we haven't even thought of yet.
What about curing HIV, Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, or Cancer, or any of the other various debilitating illnesses that rob us of our loved ones. How much quicker could we find new ways to fight for healthy lives with that kind of money being pumped into it? I don't know about you, but I'm tired of people dying from anything other than old age.
Hell we could even invest in space travel and exploration. Imagine having a moon colony, or mars, or another solar system.
grain of salt
Ok so it isn't totally as simple of just redirecting the defense budget, but like I said this is food for thought. We are spending a sum of money so high, that if you were to withdraw that much in $1 bills, it would take you 31,000 years to count it all, on defending our country against a handful of other countries that may or may not be an actual threat (but how long do you think they would remain a threat if we started spending our money on helping the planet instead of killing them). Also, to be totally fair, the defense budget includes a fair amount of money that goes into researching benevolent things like medicine, or helping repair infrastructure and assist in disaster situations.
but still the point stands
I'm tired of the world suffering, and you should be too. Think.
