Is Your Country Spending Enough On Defense?

[MrPresident]

In your country do you think that more needs to be done to defend your country from the increasing threats of the world. Are you spending enough to protect your freedom and secure your borders. Whatever your reasons (please post them below) should more taxpayers money be spent on missiles, tanks, ammo, weapons of mass destruction, the missile defense shield (only for Americans), Jet fighters, etc? Or should that money be spent on other government-funding things? If you were in charge of your country would you increase the defense budget? Would you keep it the same? Or would you decrease it?

 

[Juize]

No. Funland uses so little money to army that even the army in Dhubai is better.
Yet it has over 1000 km borderline with Russia.

 

[dannyevilcat]

Yes, yes, yes! Canada should spend more, so it can contribute more.
Canadians complain when we don't get our due recognition, but we refrain from committing to anything other than Peace-keeping (a slight exaggeration, but barely). I'd like to think we care about more than just preserving peace--like maybe preserving ideals, policies, etc.

I remember when after the 9/11 attacks, the Canadian media made it out like we were sooo proud to offer hugs for everyone. How quaint.
I also think it's sad that an ally is at war, and Canada is able to offer so little, even though the U.S. doesn't require much.

 

[animepornstar]

i think it´s just israel that spends more on the defence per capita then sweden. the cold war is over so i think we are spending too much.

 

[Mr Spice]

Originally posted by animepornstar
i think it´s just israel that spends more on the defence per capita then sweden. the cold war is over so i think we are spending too much.

I totally agree.

 

[duke o' york]

As one of rmsharpe's loathed liberals, I think that the UK spend far too much on defence. Ideally, everything would be sorted out through diplomacy, but this will never happen, humans being as dumb as they are and so I accept that we require some kind of defense budget, but at the moment the government are operating on the principle that having a large army is good because it reduces unemployment. This is a disgraceful way to run a defense initiative, and we should be concentrating on having fewer, better equipped troops than on making the government's unemployment record look better.

If the UK were to have a 1000k border with Russia then I wouldn't be worried in the slightest. The Russian state is no longer a major threat in a land war, as the reforms there have meant that they accept peace as the best option. The major danger posed by Russia is if a rogue group were to get their hands on one of Russia's many nuclear missiles, that are being decommissioned even slower than I am typing this. And no amount of troops stationed on your borders are going to stop a nuke.

 

[knowltok2]

Maybe it is just me, but I find it amusing to see someone from Finnland saying they don't spend enough because of the Russian menance, and then people from Sweeden saying they spend too much. I know it is unrealistic, so don't point it out, but if Finnland is invaded by Russia, then it will be Sweeden with the over 1000 km border with Russia. Sorry, just the concept of one nation thinking it spends too much, while its neighbor thinks that they spend too little.

Of course, Russia isn't the only threat. I wouldn't trust those Norwegians not to stab you in the back either.

This post is not meant in any seriousness.

 

[TheDuckOfFlanders]

We have about the crappy'st army in the modern world.Almost tottaly consisting of usefull war-weaponry like transport plane's and minesweeper's.

Our millitary budget is about 0.6% of our BNP ,that's about the lowest in the world i think.

Yet ,i don't think we don't spend enough in millitary.What the hell do we need a millitary for.To defend ourself's from the evil superpower's around us? (ega. Germany,France,Uk)
Even if they would declare war on us (very unlikely) we would be toast anyway ,even with a 6% bnp defense budget.

Or maybe we should invade Luxembourgh?

No any new war in western Europe is very unlikely.And if war would come to the Belgium Area ,we would be defended by Nato superpower's if we would be a member or not.Antwerp is a to important harbor to lose in a western Europe war case scenario.
So with Antwerp Belgium has enough military importance to be defended by our allies.

And in case off ,well we still gotten some nuke's from the American's we can use ,in the most desperate of circumstance's.

Anyway ,on a millitary scale Belgium is about one of the safest place's to live in in the whole world.We have nothing to fear.

 

[Mr Spice]

Originally posted by knowltok2
Maybe it is just me, but I find it amusing to see someone from Finnland saying they don't spend enough because of the Russian menance, and then people from Sweeden saying they spend too much.

Well, with a Finnish increase and a Swedish decrease in military spending we will be on about the same level.

 

[amadeus]

Originally posted by duke o' york
As one of rmsharpe's loathed liberals, I think that the UK spend far too much on defence.

Yeah, and then when another Stalin comes around, it's back to the United States to defend the world

 

[Juize]

Originally posted by Mr Spice


Well, with a Finnish increase and a Swedish decrease in military spending we will be on about the same level.

My point exactly. Excluding those 1 500 peacekeepers, finnish army has about 2 planes,
ww2 and ww1 germanys old rifles and 90-year old generals.

 

[Hitro]

I'm against the army's involvement abroad and therefore also against spending more on it. Defense alone can't be a reason to spend more, in fact against who should we defend? The cold war is over, the evil evil russians won't invade...

Anyway, the first thing to do has to be abandoning compulsory service, aren't we living in the 21st century?
A small an better equipped army for peacekeeping missions (if you think we need that) is quite okay, but the present state of it is useless more or less.

 

[Adebisi]

edit

 

[Kublai-Khan]

The argentinean military is "adequate" but i suffered a lot because of our economical crisis.
Tthe salaries of the military were cut a 13% and the military budget was seriously cut.
For example we are not prepared at all to defend ourselves from our traditional enemy, rival "Chile".
The USA government recently sold ten F-16 to, now Chile has a strong advantage.

 

[duke o' york]

rmsharpe posted some guff about another Stalin

Do you think that these things happen in regular cycles, or are you just using paranoia to justify increased outlay on bigger and better guns? In fact, looking back, I don't think that Stalin ever did anything to further his dream (assuming that such was the case) of taking over the world. All the Warsaw Pact countries were put under Russian control as part of an agreement signed by the allies too remember. He may have made war, but it was nothing more than the cold war the Americans were engaging in too, with intervention in other countries' wars and supply of arms but no invasion on any the scale of Hitler's. Or is Stalin the boogyman that you right wing fanatics threaten kids with if they don't go to bed in the evening? Sure, I'm not defending Stalin from the charge that he was a homicidal maniac, but he would have had very little chance of taking over the world and never tried to do so overtly.

 

[Simon Darkshade]

Yes, most definitely we must spend more on defence.
A couple of dozen billion more would be a small start.
There are a lot of requirements: a nuclear weapons program, a surface fleet, a modern airforce, proper supplies of munitions, a bigger army, missiles, radar programs, two or three nuclear carriers... I could go on for a while.
And it could be done.
And it will be done.

 

[Pellaken]

WE NEED MORE $$$ FOR OUR MILITARY!!

canada needs 3X the people, and 2X the per capita spending. so I think.

 

[IceBlaZe]

I think only USA and Israel are the western countries that need a strong army, excluding south america.
I mean, who would attack any country in europe? its the most peaceful place these days, and there is no sign of a war coming in the next 100 years IMO.
USA needs a strong army because... well they are usa
And we all know why Israel needs a strong army.
that about sums up my thoughts.

 

[Simon Darkshade]

Originally posted by IceBlaZe
I think only USA and Israel are the western countries that need a strong army, excluding south america.
I mean, who would attack any country in europe? its the most peaceful place these days, and there is no sign of a war coming in the next 100 years IMO.
USA needs a strong army because... well they are usa
And we all know why Israel needs a strong army.
that about sums up my thoughts.

Hey! We need an army for when we invade Indonesia and the rest of the region in an orgy of bloodthirsty slaughter and crusade!

 

[basta72]

I don´t think Sweden spends much per capita compared to the rest of the world. During the cold war we had a very strong military because we are neutral. But when the cold war ended we cut military expenses with half, didn´t we? But I may be wrong.

Today we are building a much smaller, a much more high-tec and more effective military then the invasion protection army we had during the cold war.

It´s very expensive for a small nation to develop their own
high-tec fighter jets, submarines, ships and so on. Sweden is the only small nation that does that, again because of the neutrality. Other nations buy much of their weapons from the major powers.

Also, I belive that the swedish military is 100% defensive. We don´t invest money in offensive weapons like bombers and stuff.

I heard that Sweden could have been one of the first nuclear weapons powers in the world during the 50´s. But it was voted down by the government. Thank god for that

And now to the question, I belive Sweden spends to much on military. I also belive that all other nations spends to much. The more weapons the more insecure. No weapons then what is there to fear?

Invest all the money in education, third world development, health care and so on. Then we would be much better off.

Most people in this forum will probably disagree with me.