this post was submitted on 15 Dec 2025
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Oh, that's true, and I've also forgotten to add that I agree that spendings are definnitely not managed properly, and there's a lot that cpuld, and should be done better as far as budgets are considered.
But the point was that I don't really agree that we should single out military spending when talking about this, just because that makes the title the easiest clickbait.
Especially because right now, it is important and there is already a huge push of anti-war populistic rethoric that's affecting elections and popular opinion, even though it doesn't make sense - not preparing for war will wastly increase your chances of being in one, in the current situation. It's also made worse because it's catch 22 - spending on army and not getting into war will get you blamed by populists that it was thrown away money, and of you get into one you'll get blamed that you invited it by arming up (which isn't true, bit that's not how dezinfo and populism works. It sounds true).
So, I'm not saying we have to choose between defense and salaries, but that there's a lot of other places and problems in the budgets that can be focused on, without giving ammunition to the Russian hybrid war that's trying to make us not spend money or defense.
Of course, it's possible (and I'd say probable) that that was the point of this video. But I'm assuming innocence.
There's also a lot of people who of course think this is a very hawkish way to look at it and that it's basically stating that war is peace.
From a Spanish perspective, I understand it. For people in countries bordering Russia, and especially former Soviet republics, things look a little different.
For me, the more important caution is that military spending is a massive amount of private purchasing for something we ultimately don't want to happen. Private purchasing by the state begets private purchasing by the state, it creates an enemy of the people and worsens the system of governance. Those companies want not to provide means of defense but to make money. The only way to consistently make more money, or maybe the easiest, when your wares are only purchasable by the state is to encourage the state to buy more.
This is a systemic method for warping any countries budget, like the USA, and encouraging war - not preventing it. The more you spend on defense the more your country will use it and the worse it'll be for the world when they decide to.
It's simultaneously removing money from the places that benefit people the most, creating a systemic enemy of the people, and building a pathway to future wars. Prevention could just as easily be guaranteed with economic and cultural infrastructure/exchange/ties.
Yeah, there's good reason to study the US and to avoid doing whatever the hell they have been doing with their military industrial complex. I think the US has however been spectacularly stupid and corrupt - the shit they have gotten themselves into seems hugely avoidable.
As for "economic and cultural infrastructure/exchange/ties", it's nice when it works, but building Nord Stream and sucking up to Putin for decades did not exactly get us very far in terms of peace in our time. History is full of culturally rich civilizations with deep economic and cultural ties being completely fucked over by stronger military powers.
I mean, I agree but there's a difference between attempting to utilize demographic ties with democratic countries and authoritarian ones. Russia is a great reason for us to invest in a military, but we should be doing it entirely through the EU and with extremely thorough systems for deescalation.