The Cost of War

What is the price of defense? Sure, we know the world has spent combined total of about 1.2 trillion last year on defense and the US was responsible for 623 billion of that amount (not including funding for the wars she currently finds herself in). When you see a list like this, it tends to be very self serving to one degree or another, like saying you could hire 200 baseball players at X dollars. What I wanted to do here is to first give some perspective in terms of what the US brings in vs. what it spends on more humanitarian programs. Secondly I wanted to show the cost of some actual initiatives, and thirdly I wanted to compare costs with some world wide problems. Below is a list of of various amounts to compare the defense spending to.

• 1.2 trillion was last years deficit
• 1.06 trillion the amount paid in taxes by US taxpayers
• 222 billion the amount paid in taxes by US corporations
• 695 billion the amount spent on Social Security
• 453 billion is the amount spent on Medicare
• 290 billion is the amount spent on Medicaid
• 47 billion is the amount spent on Education
• 100 billion is the amount spent on building the International Space Station
• 44 billion is needed to modernize the US air traffic control system
• 2.2 trillion is needed to upgrade the US infrastructure to 'fair' conditions
• 1 trillion is needed to upgrade the US power system to smart grid technology
• 100 billion is needed to be able to return to the moon in a new spaceship
• 600 billion is needed for a manned mission to mars
• 71 billion would allow for for the relieving of debt for the Heavily indebted poor countries (HIPC)
• 100 billion a year would allow for the funding of the Millennium development goals
• 100 billion a year would allow for the education of the worlds poor
• 195 billion a year would allow for ending world hunger
• 27 billion a year would help eradicate AIDS from the world by 2050

I am not here to say all spending needs to stop and that world peace is right around the corner. Those are unrealistic expectations. What this shows is that a lot of the problems that seem monumental in task and scope are a reality if the world could redirect some spending habits. If the US were able to cut spending in half we would be able to fund much needed upgrades, and it would be even faster if you calculate in the costs of the wars. Lets just make it easy and say the two wars average out to about 100billion, that 400billion total could be used to upgrade the infrastructure, the power grid , the traffic control system, and double the education budget as well as possible help NASA get back to the moon. In the next decade if the world worked together we could end world hunger, poverty and cut down drastically the many forms of diseases that run rampant through the 3rd world.

These initiative could spur trillions of dollars worth of economic growth. The projects as well would give hope to billions of people and very well could help remove some of recruiting pools and tools for extremist groups. They also have the added benefits of helping regions fraught with famine and war stabilize. These expenditures are only recent yearly spending and the potential that this money could have if applied to more humanitarian means. Sadly the tens of trillions of dollars spent in the last 60 years on various weapons and wars, while some have helped with everyday life, mostly have been wasted.To give an idea of that cost, the US has spent over 20trillion dollars on defense spending since 1940 while almost all other government spending during this time totals closer to 25trillion (I have been unable to find similar numbers for the entire world as of yet). Maybe if we had spent even half of that money on trying to help those in need and taking care of what we had we would not be in such dire times.