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America will gain nothing by increasing defense spending

House Passes $768 Billion Defense Spending Bill

Shankar Narayan
8 min readDec 8, 2021

The United States spends more on its military than any other country in the world. Not just any one country. The combined total spent by the following nine countries is still less than the United States.

The world’s leading military spender, who accounts for nearly 40% of global military spending, has the following to show for it.

  • Afghanistan is as bad as it was twenty years before.
  • Iraq may be slightly better without Saddam Hussein at the top, but still remains an unholy mess.
  • Russia ate Crimea for dinner. President Putin is planning to eat Ukraine as lunch someday.
  • China expands its borders every year.

Please note that we are only talking about military budgets. If we include the additional spending the United States assumed due to multiple overseas wars in the last 30 years, total military-related spending will run into tens of trillions.

The United States could have used the money to reduce debt. Offered healthcare for all Americans. Transformed the public school system. Reduced student loans. Heck, it could have lifted billions of humans around the world out of poverty.

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Shankar Narayan
Shankar Narayan

Written by Shankar Narayan

He didn't care what he had or what he had left, he cared only about what he must do.

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