So, I'm watching Vaush's streams on Ukraine, and he mentioned a good point about how Europe funding their own defense more could lead to a more multipolar world. Honestly? I say, GOOD.
Keep in mind, despite my very obvious NATO simping recently that my goals aren't necessarily about maintaining AMERICAN hegemony in particular. While we will always be the big dog of the world due to having the third largest population and largest overall economy, I am perfectly fine with seeing nations with similar values to the US (ie, democracy, and market based economics) step up for their own defense.
In this sense, a multipolar world is a good thing. As the rest of the world steps up, we can stand down more. Military actions in the world will be more multilateral and less unilateral. Keep in mind, many of our European allies opposed the war in Iraq. We were for it, and we decided screw them, we're doing it anyway. If we played more with the UN, and NATO, and worked with other powers, we could see less military action around the world that is not liked, such is invasions of countries like Iraq, and more multilateral actions when crap hits the fan, like how we're shutting Russia down when they invade Ukraine. This leads to a safer world. Less bad interventions, more good interventions.
It also would allow us to spend more money on our own stuff. A huge reason we spend so much on defense is because we wanted to dominate the geopolitical spheres, while minimizing those of our former enemies, like Germany or Japan. But let's face it, do we really think Germany, a country that for the past 75 years, has been very anti what they used to be, become an imperialistic threat again? What about Japan, which is now surrounded by a powerful Chinese superpower and countries like North Korea? No. These countries are peaceful democracies, and their only real geopolitical goals are their own defense. So if we allow states we want to protect to arm themselves, that's good. We could prune our own defense budgets and use that money for UBI and Medicare for all.
I mean, a common argument I hear from critics of M4A and social democracy in general is the idea that "well we can't afford that stuff because we have this huge military, those countries can afford it because they rely on us for defense". SO LET THEM FUND THEIR OWN DEFENSE MORE! Like, that's one thing I actually did agree with Trump on. I don't agree with how Trump expressed such concerns, but I agree with the core concept. Other NATO nations should meet their defense goals, and we should cut back, to be more in line with our actual obligations. NATO obligations is 2% of GDP. Our GDP is currently $21 trillion, so that means our defense obligation is $420 billion. We currently spend something like $780 biillion.
Now, let's be honest. I dont think we should cut all the way back to $420 billion. I think something in the $600 billion range is probably fine. Let's also be honest. We currently spend closer to 3-4% of our GDP on defense. Meanwhile UBI would cost something like 15% of GDP, and a full on M4A system is normally around 12% of GDP looking at what other countries pay on healthcare. So cutting defense HELPS but it isn't the core problem.
Still, as Dwight Eisenhower once said, for every bomb or military aircraft we make, that's fewer hospitals and other stuff. So....I am all for this. If we cut out own military by $200 billion and the rest of the world steps up and contributes to their own defense, it would lead to a safer, more multipolar world, and we can use that money for more domestic concerns. Yes, absolutely. Let Europe pay for their own defense. While we're at it let's get our pacific partners and allies to do so too. We do need to counter China too after all.
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