(April 4, 2011 at 9:18 pm)Aerzia Saerules Arktuos Wrote:(April 4, 2011 at 7:40 pm)orogenicman Wrote:Quote:Almost all of it could be better spent. That doesn't mean we shouldn't spend a great deal on defense (and especially offense).
How much is enough? How many nukes do we need to ensure our safety? From my perspective, even one is one too many. How many tens of millions do we need to spend on each aircraft while our foot soldeirs don't have enough basic equipment? Now, imagine spending those 100s of billions of dollars on efforts to bring peace. Would that not also make us more safe?
If you don't have any nukes, you are defenseless in a world that has them. We are kept in check by each of us not wanting to be annihilated. The destruction is mutually assured. Why the USA didn't rip every other nation into shreds when it finally developed nukes is beyond me. We missed our window of advantage. Maybe there was a good reason for it though. As for how many is enough: I do not know, but i don't see how you can have enough tactical nukes until you have too many to use.
As for aircraft, it depends on how good it is and what kind of war you are fighting. Are you suggesting that the infantry does not have basic equipment?
Peace is only achievable through death. No, it would not make you more safe to disarm yourself. Switzerland may be 'neutral', but it only remains so because it has an army and nobody wants their little chunk of land anyway.
Wow, that just takes my breath away.
hock:
'The difference between a Miracle and a Fact is exactly the difference between a mermaid and seal. It could not be expressed better.'
-- Samuel "Mark Twain" Clemens
"I think that in the discussion of natural problems we ought to begin not with the scriptures, but with experiments, demonstrations, and observations".
- Galileo Galilei (1564-1642)
"In short, Meyer has shown that his first disastrous book was not a fluke: he is capable of going into any field in which he has no training or research experience and botching it just as badly as he did molecular biology. As I've written before, if you are a complete amateur and don't understand a subject, don't demonstrate the Dunning-Kruger effect by writing a book about it and proving your ignorance to everyone else! "
- Dr. Donald Prothero
-- Samuel "Mark Twain" Clemens
"I think that in the discussion of natural problems we ought to begin not with the scriptures, but with experiments, demonstrations, and observations".
- Galileo Galilei (1564-1642)
"In short, Meyer has shown that his first disastrous book was not a fluke: he is capable of going into any field in which he has no training or research experience and botching it just as badly as he did molecular biology. As I've written before, if you are a complete amateur and don't understand a subject, don't demonstrate the Dunning-Kruger effect by writing a book about it and proving your ignorance to everyone else! "
- Dr. Donald Prothero
