The US Military Evolves I remember talked about this with my dad a few years back. Forgive me if I find the subject fascinating. My dad says the reorganization of the military to fight terrorist units and the increasing roles of unmanned vehicles and weapons are the bigggest changes happening in the military right now.
The US Military, to me, is one of the coolest things in the world. Probably because I'm a teenage boy. Here is a documentary I found interesting. ( It's long. ) http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6708686897899858973&q=the+men+who+stare+at+goats&total=15&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=0
i think the us military are overhyped in the media but are the strongest in the world right now. even though i am not american as a young boy i wished to be a marine
I belive the US army is overhyped as a whole, and all these unmanned weapons is another example of the US having too much money to spend. However, I'm all for them if they can be proved to save lives.
The Marines are cool. I always prefered the Army but I think the Marines have the much more interesting history when it comes to reading a history book on them. EDIT: The military probably is overhyped (I find that these days almost everything is overhyped). Yes the US military does have way to much money. Check this out its insane: Military Spending by NATO Nations Compare the US to the number two nation (The UK). Thats alot of money XD (Probably way more than we really need). I like it though. The way this country is going, an excellent military is about all thats left to make me proud of my homeland. I'm actually against the robots thing. I don't think humans should be taken out of war. We should fight our own battles instead of setting up a bunch of remote controlled machines to do it for us. I don't mind the UAV's or the like the bomb defusing bots but unmanned attack aircraft and such I'm against. ANOTHER EDIT: World Wide Military Expenditures This list has a bit more up to date info (And lists future expediture predictions) than my other link (Which hasn't been updated it seems since 2002). The US miltiary actually spends more now, though I'm not surprised by that. Its actually at the point where I'm thinking we should scale it back a bit. 5 Billion Plus a year seems like a bit much.
What about good Education? Lowering Crime Rates and Political Freedoms for the populous? I mean, a strong millitery is good and all, but there are other, and more important things to be patriotic for.
That's pretty much what he was saying, since out of what you just listed... next to none of it is actually there.
LOL. Me too! Forgive me if I laugh. We have a good college system in the US for sure but public education here may very well be the worst in the Industrial nations. Indeeed it is excellent! But crime in the US has been on a down turn since the 70's so its nothing new. It went up in the 20-50's, staggered in the sixties and then dropped. But crime world wide is going down (If we're talking about the western nations that is). I hate to say it but I'm still waiting to see how much longer Freedom lasts in the US.
Don't worry I saw lol. I was typing my last post up before you posted so I didn't see it till after posting . That happens to me alot these days it seems.
Personally, I think that the British forces have the deepest and most interesting history (but that may be because I'm British). Particularly the Royal Navy, and the Grenadier Guards (though the RAF is pretty darn fascinating, too). Sorry, I'm a bit of a buff for military history, but the US military has never really inspired me all that much. It's always just struck me as a case of "throwing money at the problem".
I would say the most interesting Army is either the Japanise, Mongolians, the Russians or the Greeks. But thats just me.
The RAF is indeed interesting. THe Battle of Britain is probably one of the coolest moments in military history, right up there withThermoploye, Agincourt (Misspelled), D-Day, and Iwo Jima. I agree with you too. The US Military kinda does have a current policy of throwing money at the problem. Actually now that I think of it, the US Military is really cool (My favoirte military with the British and old fashion Romans right behind them) but the european armies have this certain romance about them. Maybe its just because thye have such a longer history that travels back to the days of the epic hero and the climatic victory, whicht he US sort of missed out on. The Closest we have to old fashion epic heroes are Washington and Jackson.
We spend more, but only because we make more. The percentage of our GDP we spend on the military is actually one of the lowest in the world. Less than 2%, but I can't remember exactly.
I think I remember it being 1.8% of our GDP in 2005 which actually isn't that much at all. Its like pennies in comparison.
I love pennies! Why don't we just shoot those at people? Certainly cheaper than bullets. Penny-Rail-guns ahoy!
In terms of cost effectiveness a Quarter Rail Gun is much deadlier and only costs us 24 more cents a round .
Why not stack the pennies? I'd say 3 or 4 cents weigh as much as a quarter, if not much more - and it's even cheaper!
But what is it evolving into? (Aside from a moving violation) Consider S.L.A. Marshall's assertion in Men Against Fire: The Problem of Battle Command (1947): Mechanized infantry remove human compassion from battle and increase the likelihood that enemy combatants - and stray civilians - will be fired upon, though it is hard to argue that the US military has much of any compassion after the scandalous treatment of its prisoners.
