this post was submitted on 31 Mar 2025
10 points (85.7% liked)

AskHistorians

1388 readers
18 users here now

QUESTIONS

  1. Be civil.
  2. Be specific.
  3. Historical topic must be from at least 20 years ago.
  4. Post questions in the title. Elaboration is for the text box.

RESPONSES

  1. Be civil.
  2. Provide comprehensive answers.
  3. Please provide primary and secondary sources upon good faith request. Tertiary sources, like Wikipedia, are not accepted.

askhistorians is a community for academic answers to questions about history. Polls, opinions, bigotry, grammar pedantry, and personal insults will be removed.

Be sure to check out our sister community at: !askscience@lemmy.world


founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
all 4 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] Carrolade@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

No.

Rome fell (among many reasons) due to overextension beyond their ability to maintain and concentrate sufficient forces, alongside military invasion by multiple groups over many years.

Germany was going to fall in one of two ways, either economic collapse from a grossly unaffordable military buildup that was on track to bankrupt them, or getting into wars with powerful countries in order to help pay for said military buildup. They went with option B.

The US has no issues concentrating and deploying sufficient military force to defend itself, and isn't spending anywhere near enough on defense to make it unaffordable, spending about 13% of our budget on defense. (compared to over 100% [edit: of annual income, I mixed my figures inappropriately here] for the Germans) Most of our deficit comes from domestic expenses like health care.

[–] KnitWit@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

13% of the budget goes to the military? In the US? And medical expenditure is the driver of the government budget? Please take me to your timeline. Cause that isn’t this one.

[–] Carrolade@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago

You're probably operating from outdated information, we don't have the same budget we had 10-20 years ago. Here ya go:

https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide/federal-spending/