Global Trump
But it’s hard to support a case that the U.S. is spending too much to defend the global order that it built after the Second World War. The U.S., Canada, the European Union, Japan, South Korea, and Australia—the rich inner circle of what used to be called the Free World—today constitute almost sixty per cent of the world’s economy. According to the World Bank, in 2014 the U.S. spent about three and a half per cent of its G.D.P. on the military. That’s down from more than five per cent during the late Cold War. As an investment in shared prosperity (or, if you prefer, global hegemony), the running cost of American military power may be one of history’s better bargains.
.. It would be better if those allies spent a little more, but it’s not obvious that America’s forthcoming global challenges—such as managing China’s rise and Russia’s revanchism—would be advanced by more German and Japanese militarism. Because the U.S. military is so much larger and more effective than any other, and because militaries are so hierarchical, it is more efficient to defend the core alliances disproportionately, from Washington. In any event, defense treaties among democratic societies are really compacts among peoples, through their elected governments, to sacrifice and even die for one another if circumstances require it. Demeaning those commitments as if they were transactional protection rackets is corrosive and self-defeating.
.. Saudi Arabia already devotes about a tenth of its G.D.P. to defense, one of the highest rates in the world.
.. As Pericles reportedly said of an Athenian empire, “It may have been wrong to take it; it is certainly dangerous to let it go.”
.. We do need to rebuild bridges, airports, railways, and telecommunications. But defense spending isn’t stopping us from doing so; the problem is the Republican anti-tax extremists in Congress, who refuse to either raise revenues or take advantage of historically low long-term interest rates.