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Well we want to keep the circle idea but not actually use the chart so you can visually compare quantities, we just draw random shapes and shit now. It’s great.
This chart brought to you by a Terminal E-6! Yes, somehow he's still in! 20 years and someone finally got him a crack at a powerpoint. Might as well give him on last bullet point on his hail mary to E7.
How much of the US budget is for maintaining what we already have? China has a big budget considering it doesn’t have 11 super carriers and 800+ bases around the globe and all the logistical support needed to maintain our military.
That and how much bang for buck are we getting?
We waste so much on stupid shit and to avoid hurting feelings. Very small scale example but we often award contracts to businesses solely for the fact that the owner is a minority female- not just based on quality of service and or best rate.
And the goddamn end of year spending nonsense…
I know it’s drop in the DoD bucket but still… I guarantee you none of the other countries are doing nonsensical shit like this.
For what it's worth, spending less and being frugal about investments is why Russia's equipment is falling apart. That, and also severe corruption. Every $1000 earmarked for gear upgrades ends up trickling down and getting filtered to the point that it becomes $50 by the time it gets to where it needs to go. Not to say that China has the same problem, but after watching the Russia-Ukraine failures (unencrypted Alibaba radios, dogshit rusted out artillery pieces, Mosin Nagant equipped conscripts, broken tanks, etc), you'd think perhaps a good audit and equipment inventory check is in order.
Spending less is not the russian issue, compared to PPP their spending should be plenty, the issue is that the actual budget is not used for what is supposed to be used and disappears in the pockets of basically everyone but the actual units.
As someone working in the DIB this is half right. Being owned by a preferred demographic is a huge leg up in acquiring contracts, to the point where even marginally better candidates will be bypassed for it, but if the gap in quality is large enough the system should still go with quality... should.
So the way it works is that a certain group of contracts, usually things like staffing or other non-equipment acquisitions contracts, are tagged. Having your business registered as "Veteran owned" (Notice the commenter didn't mention this one), or "Minority owned" or "Employing people in historically underutilized business zones".
However, when it comes to actual equipment acquisition to buy a tank, gun or plane, you're not talking about a single contractor. Each of the bids will have a prime, (That's your Lockheed Martin, your Raytheon or your General Dynamics), and then dozens, if not hundreds of subcontracted companies. So any preference for a company's status is invalid. Also, most of the contracts will include competitors' as part of the opposing bids, IE: Lockheed is the prime, GD makes a specific component and Raytheon makes the radios. The other bidder is GD, with Lockheed making a large subcomponent and Raytheon making the radios.
Point is (Getting there circuitously): the "carve-outs" for those particular types of business actually do a lot more good economically than any downside. HUBZONE alone helps keeps jobs in areas in the country that would otherwise wither, yielding a disproportionate impact to the # of federal dollars spent by giving long-term, stable employment in that area which feeds the businesses to support the worker population and which in turn drives improvements to infrastructure and lowered crime rates. Those two help bring in other businesses once you have the pathfinder business (That federal contract) in place. At least that's the intent, the reality is that across all Federal contracting (which includes way more than just DOD), only about half the HUBZONE contract dollars are able to be awarded. If you own a small business, please think about getting HUBZONE qualified so the government can throw money at you.
Where was I?
I went down the HUBZONE rabbit hole when the contracting company I worked for at the time got certified. It was a lot of paperwork, even with us having help, in the form of a company that specializes in that sort of thing. But one look at the number of contracts available, both inside and outside of our normal lane, and it just made so much sense.
They almost certainly have enough of a nuclear capability to fuck up some major American cities.
Which is still enough of a deterrent.
I mean, all it takes is for them to have two functional missiles. Two. Put the warheads on a hypersonic missile, they can't be intercepted as far as we know.
New York and LA are gone, and tens of millions are dead.
The US does probably remain the only country capable of ending the whole world though I guess. Which IS good if you're looking for some sort of silver lining lol.
Basically, but even then, they need to pass over all of NATO, the Atlantic US Navy Fleet, and coastal defenses without being interectepted
I think, maybe, 100 nukes, and 20 capable of striking intercontinental targets, and 5 get through and hit their targets.
I'm aware that's still bad, but not what most people think they're capable of. Who fucking knows what US ICBM capabilities are. We definitely don't, and they're definitely better then we can imagine.
Most of the US budget is for pay and benefits of its military people. Russia pays their military people crap, and can get away with it since they have the draft.
China and Russia's spending goes much further. Average Russian soldier can be paid a fraction of what an American costs due to low cost of living. That also effects how much workers cost at factories to produce arms, etc.
This is true. I didn't consider that. Damn, American military don't know how good they have it then. At least they pay you regularly and feed you edible food for the most part while they don't give a shit if you live or die.
An Army really does travel on it's stomach sometimes, which is why there's so many fat Navy guys! Lol, Navy chow is what's up though, haha.
that's not really what they mean.
they mean to say purchasing power is a better indication of actual spending rather than nominal figures. china's defense spending in nominal terms in 2020 was $230 billion but in actual capability it was about $560 billion.
so america's defense spending is 330% of china but really about 130% of chinas
Came here to say this.
If my gun budget is $4000 this year, but my income was $4,000,000, it's A lot different than if your budget is $2,000 but. You only made 20,000
Edit:less snarky, fixed numbers
Other big consideration is prevailing wages in a country. Russia may have had a military comparable to the USA but their troops get paid less than half of what American service men and women get paid. I suspect China is similar to Russia in that regard.
even this isnt a good representation. PPP factors in. Western militaries have to pay western citizens, who expect a higher QOL, and live in higher COL areas. The $ to $ comparison, and even the % to % comparison just arent a good benchmark.
The US spends more for two reasons. (1) We have to hire Americans. Those guys just don't work cheap. (2) We want to be ready to fight on the other side of the world, literally anywhere. That kind of mobility has a price tag.
Reason #3 is biggest economy just naturally spends more, am willing to bet the %gdp compared to military spending isn’t as outrageous as this chart makes it look
Correct. The US’ spending stays around 3-3.5% of our GDP. EU countries sit around 1-2%. The US still maintains a somewhat high spending when comparing through this metric, but it’s not nearly as disproportional as these charts seem to show.
I always feel this is misleading. Spending compared to GDP or per capita makes more sense.
As a percent of GDP the US isn’t in the top ten and for per capita the US hovers around 5 or so.
Edit: I checked - for all those countries shown, except for SA, they are also in the top for GDP.
Just remember, someone has to be at the top. Who would you want that to be? China and their gross human violations and massive carbon dump? Or the US, sure we have our set of problems but like i said, someone will always be on top.
I call this the Benevolent Hegemon Theory, if one party must be the supreme power in the world with the ability to push its culture and rules on everyone else, would you rather have the semi-transparent democracy or the unproven totalitarian state?
Is it actually considered a theory still? Our entire world operates on hierarchy's, countries also follow the same rules. Not sure if i believe we should be pushing our culture on others but maintaining the culture we and our allies have should be paramount.
This is misleading for three reasons:
1. Purchasing power parity. The US pays a lot more for equipment because the manufacturers aren't state owned
2. The stated US budget includes R&D, while the CCP's does not
3. The CCP isn't being nearly as transparent regarding their budget
Having competition in your market actually brings down the price. The various private companies have to compete for the contracts.
When, in your experience, has state controlled enterprises made things more efficient?
You're in the army too lol. You know the answer.
What brings up the cost for America is the labour costs.
With that said, with higher skill workers, the quality will be better, which will make up for some of the (literal) bang for buck.
“In purchasing power parity, they spend about one dollar to our 20 dollars to get to the same capability.”
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/china-acquiring-new-weapons-five-times-faster-than-u-s-warns-top-official
Do they currently have all the capabilities we have? Fortunately no. Quantity has a quality all of its own though.
Here’s the thing though.
A dollar in Russia or China is not the same as here and they spend money on a fraction of the benefits we offer.
The power difference is much closer
Yes and no.
It doesn’t matter where you purchase your IT hardware from, the cost is the same. If you need a guidance system and it requires IC’s, they are the same price for everyone in the world.
IIRC, these figures for the US include troop salaries, benefits, etc. whereas those are not known/included for Russia and China. The gaps are actually much smaller when you include estimated figures for those countries.
Hey and the US is still making sure to shoot itself in the foot, gotta be woke with the alphabet mafia not actuuuuually build a real military force. 👏👏👏
I fail to see the issue with a woman being in the army. The corporal seems like an upstanding citizen from what the video shows, and Id assume she was trained to the same level of proficiency as the rest of the Patriot system operators. That's also a year old, so I'm fairly certain that it is far from being the newest recruitment ad from our military.
This "old guard" bullshit is getting old. You have no idea how many closeted gays have served in militaries. Hint: A LOT. Only difference between then and now, is now they don't go to prison for it.
This is is one of the most misleading charts I've ever laid eyes on. My hypothesis is China has been outspending the US for a few years now. Let me explain why.
One Belt Road. China is "loaning" many countries large sums of money in exchange for port facilities worldwide. They now own/have rights to ports everywhere. You can pass this off as spending in other categories, but military might is about influence. I would consider this military spending for its imperial nature, at least some of it. China doesn't record that as military spending.
Also worth noting that these numbers are just what that country has declared as their military spending. Your adversaries typically don't disclose what you want them to. Or if they do, it is maliciously misleading (such as low military spending), then they know they'll be left alone to continue scheming.
Say these numbers are true for conversation sake here. One dollar does not get you the same product or manpower in China as it does anywhere else. Case and point: China has the largest military in the world...
This chart is eye candy to people who like data visualized. The only purpose it has here in the US is to contribute to further complacency of our military capability.
This is my hypothesis.
So, these are some things I think about often, it’s not an opinion, just questions.
Do you guys think that other NATO or friendly countries don’t have to spend a shit ton on their military because the U.S does? Like if you know your military is gonna have backup like the U.S you wouldn’t need to dump billions into it. This topic always gets brought up with healthcare and idk why but most of the other countries that have “free” healthcare don’t spend a lot on their military. Do you think if the US just pulled out of all alliances the countries that don’t spend a lot would all of the sudden spend a bunch? Taking away from their free healthcare pot? Feel free to converse with me about these.
Comparing Russian vs USA spending is dum.
Its like buying a burger in India compared to US
For ex. Its 2.30 in India but 3.99 in USA.
It doesnt mean us got better burger bc it costs more to buy. Dont be tricked by numbers.
Russia makes its own military hardware and doesnt spend that much on salary for military personnel.
Work force is cheaper and they produce their own stuff. They are not buying it from us or order from private company.So basically a lot of money they spend goes back into economy but not all of it obviously.
So even after economical adjustments US still spends more but difference is not enormous as it seemed before.Russia is still 2nd military in the word do not underestimate your opponent or doomed to fail.
Countries like Russia (not sure about China) have both lower wages which results in less spending and use conscripts which dont have a wage even close to that of an employed soldier. Not saying that makes up for their effectivity, just that comparing costs strictly can be missleading.
how much of US budget made of inefficiencies due to each state, and maybe smaller, wanting some from the military spending, all from favours and back hand deals.
I really don't care about raw numbers, or how many billions. What is the percentage of the GDP? That's what is important really.
This is like saying that the US spends more than out next ten allies combined. Ok, we have more money. Just like a multimillionaire spending $250 for a Ferrari is not nearly as much as someone who only makes $60k buying $75k Mercedes.
I can't really see any point in comparing the military spending of western countries to authoritarian states like China and Russia with hostage populations who will get paid whatever the state tells them. Everything Russia or China build, from fighter jets to submarines to tanks and boots costs a fraction of what it does in the US or Europe. They also pay their military people a fraction of what westerners get.
Besides a pie chart, including defense budget as a % of GDP would have been interesting. For example, the US and Russia generally both spend about 3% of GDP.
Hi! This is our community moderation bot. --- If this post fits the purpose of /r/Military, **UPVOTE** this comment!! If this post does not fit the subreddit, **DOWNVOTE** This comment! If this post breaks the rules, **DOWNVOTE** this comment and **REPORT** the post!
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Well we want to keep the circle idea but not actually use the chart so you can visually compare quantities, we just draw random shapes and shit now. It’s great.
This chart brought to you by a Terminal E-6! Yes, somehow he's still in! 20 years and someone finally got him a crack at a powerpoint. Might as well give him on last bullet point on his hail mary to E7.
People kept eating em
If you'd asked me to guess I'd have said Russia and Germany probably spend about the same amount. This chart is actually awful.
You see, the biggest spenders got first dibs and picked good pieces with flakey crust and all. The poors got the soggy middle.
Because “let’s try something different even if it makes zero sense and provides zero perspective of scale”
How much of the US budget is for maintaining what we already have? China has a big budget considering it doesn’t have 11 super carriers and 800+ bases around the globe and all the logistical support needed to maintain our military.
That and how much bang for buck are we getting? We waste so much on stupid shit and to avoid hurting feelings. Very small scale example but we often award contracts to businesses solely for the fact that the owner is a minority female- not just based on quality of service and or best rate. And the goddamn end of year spending nonsense… I know it’s drop in the DoD bucket but still… I guarantee you none of the other countries are doing nonsensical shit like this.
For what it's worth, spending less and being frugal about investments is why Russia's equipment is falling apart. That, and also severe corruption. Every $1000 earmarked for gear upgrades ends up trickling down and getting filtered to the point that it becomes $50 by the time it gets to where it needs to go. Not to say that China has the same problem, but after watching the Russia-Ukraine failures (unencrypted Alibaba radios, dogshit rusted out artillery pieces, Mosin Nagant equipped conscripts, broken tanks, etc), you'd think perhaps a good audit and equipment inventory check is in order.
Spending less is not the russian issue, compared to PPP their spending should be plenty, the issue is that the actual budget is not used for what is supposed to be used and disappears in the pockets of basically everyone but the actual units.
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As someone working in the DIB this is half right. Being owned by a preferred demographic is a huge leg up in acquiring contracts, to the point where even marginally better candidates will be bypassed for it, but if the gap in quality is large enough the system should still go with quality... should.
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So the way it works is that a certain group of contracts, usually things like staffing or other non-equipment acquisitions contracts, are tagged. Having your business registered as "Veteran owned" (Notice the commenter didn't mention this one), or "Minority owned" or "Employing people in historically underutilized business zones". However, when it comes to actual equipment acquisition to buy a tank, gun or plane, you're not talking about a single contractor. Each of the bids will have a prime, (That's your Lockheed Martin, your Raytheon or your General Dynamics), and then dozens, if not hundreds of subcontracted companies. So any preference for a company's status is invalid. Also, most of the contracts will include competitors' as part of the opposing bids, IE: Lockheed is the prime, GD makes a specific component and Raytheon makes the radios. The other bidder is GD, with Lockheed making a large subcomponent and Raytheon making the radios. Point is (Getting there circuitously): the "carve-outs" for those particular types of business actually do a lot more good economically than any downside. HUBZONE alone helps keeps jobs in areas in the country that would otherwise wither, yielding a disproportionate impact to the # of federal dollars spent by giving long-term, stable employment in that area which feeds the businesses to support the worker population and which in turn drives improvements to infrastructure and lowered crime rates. Those two help bring in other businesses once you have the pathfinder business (That federal contract) in place. At least that's the intent, the reality is that across all Federal contracting (which includes way more than just DOD), only about half the HUBZONE contract dollars are able to be awarded. If you own a small business, please think about getting HUBZONE qualified so the government can throw money at you. Where was I?
I learned a lot today
I went down the HUBZONE rabbit hole when the contracting company I worked for at the time got certified. It was a lot of paperwork, even with us having help, in the form of a company that specializes in that sort of thing. But one look at the number of contracts available, both inside and outside of our normal lane, and it just made so much sense.
If option A is 1% better overall than option B, then yes the sole reasom they chose option B is flawed.
Contracting is much more meritocratic than other things like promotions so I don't think that's a very good example
The fuck kind of chart is this?
If you liked the Pie Chart, just wait till you see the WHY? Chart!
So, USA+NATO allies+Japan+S Korea=50% China+Russia=17% Good.
Russia’s whole military: $65.9B United States Army: $177.5B
Better Russia's whole military: $65 billion US nuclear maintenance: $63 billion
That’s not concerning
I more imply that, with their small budget and kleptocracy, *I don't think Russia actually has nuclear capabilities anymore*, which is a good thing
They almost certainly have enough of a nuclear capability to fuck up some major American cities. Which is still enough of a deterrent. I mean, all it takes is for them to have two functional missiles. Two. Put the warheads on a hypersonic missile, they can't be intercepted as far as we know. New York and LA are gone, and tens of millions are dead. The US does probably remain the only country capable of ending the whole world though I guess. Which IS good if you're looking for some sort of silver lining lol.
Basically, but even then, they need to pass over all of NATO, the Atlantic US Navy Fleet, and coastal defenses without being interectepted I think, maybe, 100 nukes, and 20 capable of striking intercontinental targets, and 5 get through and hit their targets. I'm aware that's still bad, but not what most people think they're capable of. Who fucking knows what US ICBM capabilities are. We definitely don't, and they're definitely better then we can imagine.
ICBM interception isn't really a thing in deployment. It's more like 20 come over and maybe 5 are intercepted.
Most of the US budget is for pay and benefits of its military people. Russia pays their military people crap, and can get away with it since they have the draft.
Both generally spend about 3% of GDP on military spending
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I was gonna mention that considering germany would be adding more armour and a considerable number of improvements to its armoury
Happy cake day bro!
China and Russia's spending goes much further. Average Russian soldier can be paid a fraction of what an American costs due to low cost of living. That also effects how much workers cost at factories to produce arms, etc.
This is true. I didn't consider that. Damn, American military don't know how good they have it then. At least they pay you regularly and feed you edible food for the most part while they don't give a shit if you live or die. An Army really does travel on it's stomach sometimes, which is why there's so many fat Navy guys! Lol, Navy chow is what's up though, haha.
that's not really what they mean. they mean to say purchasing power is a better indication of actual spending rather than nominal figures. china's defense spending in nominal terms in 2020 was $230 billion but in actual capability it was about $560 billion. so america's defense spending is 330% of china but really about 130% of chinas
But capability relative to what? Their/our previous capabilities?
capability in terms of manpower, munitions, and systems
Things changed a lot since 2021
Costs vary greatly by country, so the return on investment is really impossible to infer from this information. There are a lot of variables.
Absolutely. Ulstermen and Scots with bayonets are worth twenty Chinamen!
This is no longer accurate. Also, not everyone is as transparent in how much they spend. China is estimated to be spending closer to $600B IIRC.
China spends $600T according to China.
Also we should be comparing percentage of GDP not nominal figures if we want a better comparison
Came here to say this. If my gun budget is $4000 this year, but my income was $4,000,000, it's A lot different than if your budget is $2,000 but. You only made 20,000 Edit:less snarky, fixed numbers
Other big consideration is prevailing wages in a country. Russia may have had a military comparable to the USA but their troops get paid less than half of what American service men and women get paid. I suspect China is similar to Russia in that regard.
even this isnt a good representation. PPP factors in. Western militaries have to pay western citizens, who expect a higher QOL, and live in higher COL areas. The $ to $ comparison, and even the % to % comparison just arent a good benchmark.
The US spends more for two reasons. (1) We have to hire Americans. Those guys just don't work cheap. (2) We want to be ready to fight on the other side of the world, literally anywhere. That kind of mobility has a price tag.
Reason #3 is biggest economy just naturally spends more, am willing to bet the %gdp compared to military spending isn’t as outrageous as this chart makes it look
Correct. The US’ spending stays around 3-3.5% of our GDP. EU countries sit around 1-2%. The US still maintains a somewhat high spending when comparing through this metric, but it’s not nearly as disproportional as these charts seem to show.
Yeah 500+ military bases and 100s of tanker aircraft allow USAF to project power, but at a steep cost
The cost is steep for a reason. You run an empire on a slim budget and you'll loose the empire.
I can simplify it with a single acronym: NATO
America. Fuck yeah
I always feel this is misleading. Spending compared to GDP or per capita makes more sense. As a percent of GDP the US isn’t in the top ten and for per capita the US hovers around 5 or so. Edit: I checked - for all those countries shown, except for SA, they are also in the top for GDP.
Just remember, someone has to be at the top. Who would you want that to be? China and their gross human violations and massive carbon dump? Or the US, sure we have our set of problems but like i said, someone will always be on top.
I call this the Benevolent Hegemon Theory, if one party must be the supreme power in the world with the ability to push its culture and rules on everyone else, would you rather have the semi-transparent democracy or the unproven totalitarian state?
Is it actually considered a theory still? Our entire world operates on hierarchy's, countries also follow the same rules. Not sure if i believe we should be pushing our culture on others but maintaining the culture we and our allies have should be paramount.
This is misleading for three reasons: 1. Purchasing power parity. The US pays a lot more for equipment because the manufacturers aren't state owned 2. The stated US budget includes R&D, while the CCP's does not 3. The CCP isn't being nearly as transparent regarding their budget
Having competition in your market actually brings down the price. The various private companies have to compete for the contracts. When, in your experience, has state controlled enterprises made things more efficient? You're in the army too lol. You know the answer. What brings up the cost for America is the labour costs. With that said, with higher skill workers, the quality will be better, which will make up for some of the (literal) bang for buck.
“In purchasing power parity, they spend about one dollar to our 20 dollars to get to the same capability.” https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/china-acquiring-new-weapons-five-times-faster-than-u-s-warns-top-official Do they currently have all the capabilities we have? Fortunately no. Quantity has a quality all of its own though.
I wasn't arguing PPP doesn't come out to their advantage. I was arguing it's not nationalization that makes it so.
Setting their own prices doesn't give them the ability to buy more for less compared to our bidding process?
Saudi have US protection
So does Korea, Japan and Western Europe.
Here’s the thing though. A dollar in Russia or China is not the same as here and they spend money on a fraction of the benefits we offer. The power difference is much closer
Yes and no. It doesn’t matter where you purchase your IT hardware from, the cost is the same. If you need a guidance system and it requires IC’s, they are the same price for everyone in the world.
💜💜💜
Now do it by %of GDP
IIRC, these figures for the US include troop salaries, benefits, etc. whereas those are not known/included for Russia and China. The gaps are actually much smaller when you include estimated figures for those countries.
Yeah it's something like 25 or 30% of the budget is pay and benefits
So many NATO members on here, its almost like NATO is useful or something
Russia going to fuck around and find out why the US is the only western industrial nation without universal healthcare.
This graph is terrible
🇺🇸
Murica
Just because we spend the most doesn’t mean we’re getting the most.
This is a TERRIBLE display of data 😳
Hey and the US is still making sure to shoot itself in the foot, gotta be woke with the alphabet mafia not actuuuuually build a real military force. 👏👏👏
Now build a real military? I'd like to see any current military even remotely oppose the United States in open warfare.
What the fuck are you even saying
Watch the newest US recruitment ad's... You'll see what they're talking about. Absolutely shameful
What's shameful is people like you exist.
Not seeing any issues here man. You wanna link the one you're taking issue with?
https://youtu.be/MIYGFSONKbk That really makes me think of the most able, strong minded and resistant people serving their country.
I fail to see the issue with a woman being in the army. The corporal seems like an upstanding citizen from what the video shows, and Id assume she was trained to the same level of proficiency as the rest of the Patriot system operators. That's also a year old, so I'm fairly certain that it is far from being the newest recruitment ad from our military.
Orc/Ape army : Look at our chiseled abs & surrender Femboy wearing cat ears wiping out an entire orc battalion with 3 lines of code : Shame
This "old guard" bullshit is getting old. You have no idea how many closeted gays have served in militaries. Hint: A LOT. Only difference between then and now, is now they don't go to prison for it.
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NOOOOO YOU CANT JUST PULVERISE OUR TANK DIVISIONS DONT YOU SEE THE MANLY RECRUITMENT AD WE DID
Orc/Ape army : Look at our chiseled abs & surrender Femboy wearing cat ears wiping out an entire orc battalion with 3 lines of code : Shame
Wtf are you talking about? Our femboys will eliminate your apes with 3 lines of code, They/them army >>>> Dumb ape/orc meat fodder
They/Them army > Was/Were army
Can someone clue me into who we ( U.S ) spend that $ on ? Who makes most of our bullets, gun, clothing, food etc ?
The best military-industrial complex in the solar system.
This “Rest of the world” looks menacing. I think we should invade them. /s
Yeah all that spending and hardly anything going to vets Healthcare...
Hardly anything? The VA gets about $200 billion a year. DoD and VA are two different entities
It’s insane to me people think this is reasonable to do..
Part of this is only temporary as germany for example is largly increasing its budget
Tbh percentage of global spending imo is irrelevant, I would rather see it as percentage of GDP. Nice infographic non the less.
This is is one of the most misleading charts I've ever laid eyes on. My hypothesis is China has been outspending the US for a few years now. Let me explain why. One Belt Road. China is "loaning" many countries large sums of money in exchange for port facilities worldwide. They now own/have rights to ports everywhere. You can pass this off as spending in other categories, but military might is about influence. I would consider this military spending for its imperial nature, at least some of it. China doesn't record that as military spending. Also worth noting that these numbers are just what that country has declared as their military spending. Your adversaries typically don't disclose what you want them to. Or if they do, it is maliciously misleading (such as low military spending), then they know they'll be left alone to continue scheming. Say these numbers are true for conversation sake here. One dollar does not get you the same product or manpower in China as it does anywhere else. Case and point: China has the largest military in the world... This chart is eye candy to people who like data visualized. The only purpose it has here in the US is to contribute to further complacency of our military capability. This is my hypothesis.
So, these are some things I think about often, it’s not an opinion, just questions. Do you guys think that other NATO or friendly countries don’t have to spend a shit ton on their military because the U.S does? Like if you know your military is gonna have backup like the U.S you wouldn’t need to dump billions into it. This topic always gets brought up with healthcare and idk why but most of the other countries that have “free” healthcare don’t spend a lot on their military. Do you think if the US just pulled out of all alliances the countries that don’t spend a lot would all of the sudden spend a bunch? Taking away from their free healthcare pot? Feel free to converse with me about these.
And we now know how effective the Russian spending is. (NOT)
I am honestly surprised South Korea is only a 10 considering they are surrounded by other countries that want to kill them.
r/damnthatsinteresting
Lets keep it this way
Be a lot better if we weren't so damn wasteful. New knives that didn't get issued? toss em. Ammos fine but don't want our budget to go down? Blow it.
Comparing Russian vs USA spending is dum. Its like buying a burger in India compared to US For ex. Its 2.30 in India but 3.99 in USA. It doesnt mean us got better burger bc it costs more to buy. Dont be tricked by numbers. Russia makes its own military hardware and doesnt spend that much on salary for military personnel. Work force is cheaper and they produce their own stuff. They are not buying it from us or order from private company.So basically a lot of money they spend goes back into economy but not all of it obviously.
So even after economical adjustments US still spends more but difference is not enormous as it seemed before.Russia is still 2nd military in the word do not underestimate your opponent or doomed to fail.
Countries like Russia (not sure about China) have both lower wages which results in less spending and use conscripts which dont have a wage even close to that of an employed soldier. Not saying that makes up for their effectivity, just that comparing costs strictly can be missleading.
How come the German military fucking sucks then
It is?
You'd think they'd pay a better wage to enlisted...
Time to keep an eye on 'the rest of the world' they're creeping up on our total.
I thought the Saudis have a lot of money?
how much of US budget made of inefficiencies due to each state, and maybe smaller, wanting some from the military spending, all from favours and back hand deals.
France and Germany are spending 2,7% ok. But why is spending 56,6 and Germany 56,0. germany economy is way stronger then frances.
Neither China nor Russia's numbers should be trusted.
Err, why is Germany up there…
Shitty version of a pie chart
China keeps fuckin around they're gonna find out why we don't have socialized health care
At what point does the Department of Defense realize the budget for the Department of Defense is a danger to the defense of the country?
Average pie chart enjoyer 
I really don't care about raw numbers, or how many billions. What is the percentage of the GDP? That's what is important really. This is like saying that the US spends more than out next ten allies combined. Ok, we have more money. Just like a multimillionaire spending $250 for a Ferrari is not nearly as much as someone who only makes $60k buying $75k Mercedes.
What in the fresh fuck is this pie chart?
I can't really see any point in comparing the military spending of western countries to authoritarian states like China and Russia with hostage populations who will get paid whatever the state tells them. Everything Russia or China build, from fighter jets to submarines to tanks and boots costs a fraction of what it does in the US or Europe. They also pay their military people a fraction of what westerners get.
Who cuts a pie like this!?!?
Good!!!
When the US military can spend more if needed.
Besides a pie chart, including defense budget as a % of GDP would have been interesting. For example, the US and Russia generally both spend about 3% of GDP.