I would like to see someone carry out some version(s) of the following exercise. Have they?
Estimate "excess military spending" in the United States over time by a regression of world military spending against: - population - GDP - land mass - indicator variable for NATO membership - indicator variable for UNSC P5 - indicator variable for G20. The motivation behind this exercise is this: if you stop the next person on the street wearing a suit in DC and say, "the US spends way more than anybody else," the odds are that person is not going to be scandalized at all. Because most people in Washington who wear suits deeply believe in American Exceptionalism. So, their reaction is likely to be, so? We're special. We're the United States of f*king America. We have special responsibilities. Of course we spend way more than anybody else, duh. The idea of the exercise is to concede that point. Fine. We're special. We're the US of f*king A. We have special responsibilities. *Exactly how much more should we have to pay for that*? Build into the model that the US is very special. How much are we paying in excess compared to other countries, *even conceding the point that the US is very special*? Of all the countries in the world, there are only five that are UNSC P5. There are only three that are both NATO and UNSC P5. And there is only one country - the United States - that is NATO and UNSC P5 and a major economic power. So the fact that the US is very, very special is built into the model. Even conceding the point that the US is very, very special, how much are we paying in excess? === Robert Naiman Policy Director Just Foreign Policy www.justforeignpolicy.org [email protected] (202) 448-2898 x1
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