Good article, but military spending might be deceptive:
Non western countries certainly get a lot more "bang for the buck" recently.
For example, Russia's defense budget is less than Germany's, yet Russia can deploy intercontinental bombers and a carrier battle group thousands of nautical miles from home while Germany is struggling to send a whopping reinforced company to Afghanistan!
Ok, Germany might have the worst managed military in the west, but generally western countries currently spend huge amounts of money on relatively little value.
I suppose some of it has to do with the fact that research and procurement has been largely privatized (QuinetiQ instead of Royal Aircraft Establishment, for example) and also the fact that except for some small arms manufacturers, all western defense companies are basically monopolists in their countries, often even worldwide.
So you have bunch of beltway bandits and other private companies in sharp competetition to sell merchandise from one manufacturer (Boeing, Lockheed, EADS, whoever) to one customer (the military). You don't have to be a studied economist to figure out who's finally paying the bill for everybody.
Also, national economic policy plays a role. When Germany ordered .50 cal Barrett sniper rifles, it was somehow impossible just to mail a check to Barrett and wait for delivery, they had to be licensed and final assembled by H&K! Because the german army getting a weapon NOT in some way manufactured by H&K seems to be the closest thing to blaspemy, even if all H&K did was take the rifles out of their crates and assemble them....
Russia and China do have monopolists as well, but their military procurement mostly still works along communist lines, it never changed in China, while Russia reinstated the OKB system for the military aviation; meaning serveral competing constructor bureaus (MiG, Sukhoi etc) design planes which will be build at factories that basically have nothing to do with the designer. Only today those manufacturers semiprivate instead of totally state run.


That said, the basic assumption of the text is correct, sometimes it seems to me that the current US admin sees politics as a continuation of war with different means
:rotfl:

The fecking EU Parliament full of corruption.

Well it was his analogy... ;)

So is ours:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/new...cle3283100.ece

Yea but they plan to take over Europe, one law, one flag, one leader and so on. The EU Parliament is only picking up where Adolf Hitler signed off, Hitler tried it by force and failed. The EU Parliament is doing it by paper work via the back door, I know about are lot who are ar*e licking that scum, at this moment giving the EU even more control of our country. We have lost almost 75% on important issues like law and order you only got to see the soft sentences handed out these days. For example a yob commits murder and gets three years for taking someone's life makes me sick to my stomach. :nope:

Still waiting for that article :hmm::rotfl:

Wow. As an American, I never thought of how much power I have over the rest of the world with my vote. :cool: :-j

Use your power for good then not evil!:lol:

Our foreign policy has been screwed up for nearly a hundred years now. We've always had the impression that we need to be involved in the business of others, to act as the world's policeman, which can be a good thing, but it's very hard to create a policy that actually works as intended. Sometimes, it's best not to nose in the business of others, like we did in Korea and Vietnam.

Every government in the world has corruption. It has it today, it has had it yesterday, and it will have it tomorrow. That's something you can't change. Since the dawn of civilization in Mesopotamia, man has conspired and schemed to disregard the benefit of his country for his own personal gain during his lifetime. They're the ones who have the power, and as long as they're fat, rich, and happy, then as far as they're concerned, there's no problem. When the people demand something, they'll toy with it to make them shut up so they can bathe in their success and power. That's all they desire: POWER.

Take a look around you. One of the hardest lessons in life is learning that people who might appear under the best and most honorable intentions, such as Hitler or Stalin or Lenin, are 99% of the time deceitful in reality. Hitler claimed that he was selfless and only lived to serve Germany. He promised the German people a better Germany when in fact he didn't give a rat's ass about his people, he only cared for power and domination under his reign. Lenin and Stalin promised to remove the Czar's bloody tactics and rebuild a free Russia, when in fact, the exact opposite was the case.

Ron Paul, for instance, promises to abolish the IRS, but that's not going to happen. The government will find another way to tax us. They rack in billions every year off taxes, and they're not going to let them go, not in a thousand years. Every person who is running for president is just saying what the people want to hear. It's no different between any one of them. They're ALL corrupt and they would ALL use you in a second (though you do occasionally get the one that speaks the truth and is in fact selfless, but they never elect them and if they do, they assassinate them).

Or the arms-industry has more influence in the US government? :hmm: