Why does USA spend so much on its army

Question

As if they are under the threat of outer invasion or something.

Won't it be better to spend this money for the benefit of Americans?

list of countries by military expenditures:

1 United States 583,283,000,000

2 France 74,690,470,000

3 United Kingdom 68,911,000,000

4 China 59,000,000,000

5 Japan 48,860,000,000

6 Germany 45,930,000,000

7 Russia 41,050,000,000

8 Italy 40,060,000,000

9 Saudi Arabia 31,050,000,000

10 South Korea 28,940,000,000

Answer 1

Because the defense industry has a grip on politics .

Somewhere we felt obligated to be the world police.

"We The People" don't hold out politicians accountable.

Answer 2

Maybe because we are still the leader of the free world and if we didn't have our military ready to go at all times there may not be much of a free world left.

Answer 3

Because George W. Bush is paranoid

Because d**k Cheney is one of the owners of Halliburton, which makes MOST of the equipment for U.S. Soldiers. If George W. can convince Congress to give more money to the Military, d**k Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld get rich from the profits made by Halliburton.

Answer 4

The simplest answer is because we don't want to fight fair, we want to win!

The United States wants to have total military dominance in any conflict that we may face. This means that we want the best technology, the most highly trained troops (not to mention the number of troops) and the best quality of life for our servicemembers and their families. Think about it, aircraft Carriers, submarines, the B2 Bomber, the F-22, military bases, education & training facilities, research & development of new technology, jet fuel, airlift operations, humanitarian aid (food & medical) and the millions of servicemembers paychecks, healthcare and insurance, all of that equates to big bucks. Other countries don't have what we have and can't do what we can do and it shows year after year, decade after decade.

No America is not perfect and yes our current administration has made some mistakes, but throw all politics out the window and look at things from a global perspective. Yes education, healthcare, and other local concerns are very important to Americans, but what good is any of that if it can be taken away in an instant by a terrorist attack?

If we only spent as much money as say....France, then our military would essentially be on an equal playing field with other governments (some of which are enemies of democracy). If our military was only as good as theirs, we would not win wars. We would also not be able to defend America as well as we do. We could easily be defeated by another country not to mention terrorists. Spending money on the military IS done for the benefit of Americans. If we didn't, the American way of life could easily be made much worse than it is.

The United States is the only "superpower" left in the world and we are the biggest enforcers of democracy, the biggest resistance to international terrorism and the biggest obstacle to communism. Without our military superiority, we would not be! It's really that simple. No country on the face of the planet has a military that can defeat the United States military. In a ground war China is the only country that would be able to defeat us because they have way more people, but ground only wars are not fought today. If we ever went to war with China the only way they could defeat us is by forcing a ground war and the only way we could defeat them is with nuclear weapons. So they are still considered our biggest potential military threat right now. Russia used to be our biggest threat but that is no longer the case. A war between the US and China would result in either a stalemate or the end of the world because neither country would defeat the other! We could destroy them, but launching nuclear weapons woud result in other nations launching theirs and a nuclear holocost would be the result.

Answer 5

They spend so much money on our troops because they want to better our soldiers safety.  When new armor comes out they want them to have it.  When they make a vehicle that will make them safer from road side bombs they will get it.  I don't think we spend enough on our soldiers.  If you were to walk a day in a pair of combat boots you would feel the same way.  They issue them the most uncomfortable ones they have because they are the cheapest.  

Answer 6

Well we have been at war for 7 years in Afaganistan and Iraq, also it nevers hurts to invest some money into a kick *** super sonic fighter jet.

Answer 7

Quite simply, we have the most technologically advanced and best-trained military. Everything from realistic training (expensive) to fuel to power our vehicles and aircraft (expensive) to state-of-the-art weapons (expensive) to all sorts of equipment like infrared and night vision (expensive) to maintenance...you get the point.

Answer 8

Of course it would benefit U.S. citizens more to spend the money on domestic programs like schools/healthcare/finding sustainable energy sources...  

Unfortunately, it's easier to keep people scared and fund the military industrial machine, from which lots of politicians and their friends benefit.

We spend more than 8 times the nearest country on our military.   Crazy.

Answer 9

Deterrence