Source : Breaking Defence
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
It’s become a commonplace to say the US spends much more on defense than any other country — but what if that’s not exactly true? Inspired by something Army Chief of Staff Mark Milley said to the Senate, I pulled together some numbers that suggest America’s superior spending power erodes dramatically when you compare actual purchasing power. Once you factor in how much the US military spends on pay and benefits for uniformed and civilian personnel — almost half the budget by some measures — as opposed to weapons, operations, and training, then China’s defense budget may actually be bigger.
We aren’t econometricians here at Breaking Defense, so our methodology is admittedly very rough. What we are good at is listening to Pentagon and Hill leaders very carefully, and I was struck by an exchange last week at a hearing of the Senate appropriations subcommittee on defense.
“I’m going to ask you all a town hall question; it’s the kind of thing you might run into in any town in America,” said Sen. Dick Durbin, the subcommittee’s ranking Democrat. “You tell us that one of our biggest threats, greatest enemies, is Russia; turns out we read recently that Russia spends about $80 billion a year on its military…..So let me get this straight: We’re spending $600, $700 billion against an enemy that’s spending $80 billion. Why is this even a contest?”
Read more at: https://breakingdefense.com/2018/05/us-defense-budget-not-that-much-bigger-than-china-russia-gen-milley/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+BreakingDefense+%28Breaking+Defense%29