We Americans don’t even account for half of the world’s military spending. Ike was a fool to warn us against our Military Industrial Complex: We need more guns and less butter!
Data from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute’s military expenditure database show that the United States spent $728 billion on its military in 2010, or about 45 percent of the world’s $1.6 trillion total, more than the next 14 largest military spenders combined and nearly six times more than the next biggest spender, China. Most of the other countries at the top of the list are American allies. With or without the automatic cuts to defense from the Budget Control Act of 2011, the United States will remain the biggest global military power for at least a generation.
