![]() And if that figures seems too high, or if you are shocked, or in denial, then consider this. The reality is that the USA has killed around 20 million people since WWII and the vast, vast preponderance of those killed, were civilians. These actions were almost always described to the public as defending the lives and rights of civilian populations, yet the military tactics employed often left behind massive civilian "collateral damage." Estimates on the death tolls are extremely difficult to verify, but we do have some pretty sound ball-park figures to work with. Putting WWII aside, but including events such as the use of the army to put down the 1943 Black Rebellion in Detroit, the USA military has been engaged in no fewer than 87 separate actions for the most part, against countries a fraction of their own size. So we'll just look at it in terms of numbers. You are aware of -I'm sure - the big stuff like Vietnam and Korea, but it's important to take the rest in too. Now, you probably don't have a list of U.S military interventions in your head like I do (which is OK because it's not your job to do that,) so citing Honduras 1924-25, China in 1948, Guatemala in 1954 and so on, isn't all that helpful. There have been other attacks of course, on military bases and embassies, but for the most part, we are left with one actual attack in the strictly military sense of the word. has been directly attacked only once, during the criminal and deplorable events of 9/11. I'm not going to quote Clausewitz at you, but I'm sure you can appreciate that the idea of 'defense' is only one, very narrow part of the military equation. Name change aside, it's still the Ministry of War. The Ministry of Defense in the UK used to be called the Ministry of War back in the days when we were more honest about such things. I'm merely pointing out they don't protect the nation, at least not in the way you think. That's not to say there is zero threat, that's not to say that the military is not needed. The USA is under no threat of invasion from anyone, period. There is reality and there is hysteria and your observation lies somewhere between those two points. Broadly speaking, I would agree that a liberal is less likely to be upset at the prospect than a conservative. Having said that, the supposition that liberals in America are more likely to want to effect military budget cuts isn't wholly inaccurate. She recognized that the UK was a much diminished power and that it had to start acting the part it was actually playing, instead of the one it wanted to be playing. ![]() It was for example, Margaret Thatcher, a conservative Prime Minister who insisted on massive cuts to the British armed forces in the infamous 1981 defense spending white paper. There are times when fiscal conservatism is called for and I think that conservatives generally do have a better grasp of these things than liberals, if only because they live and die by their ability to provide never-ending tax cuts to the rich. In fact, most people would accuse me of being a communist (although I reject almost everything Marx had to say about the world that he did not borrow directly from Hegel.) That being said, I have no ideological objection to fiscal conservatism whatsoever, (social conservatism on the other hand is a waste of time and energy since it's, you know, doomed to failure.) I would be described as a radical by U.S. Not all liberals want to cut defense spending and not all conservatives want to maintain it. Herein lies the first flaw in the question's assumption. To begin with, neither group is as homogeneous as the other accuses them of being. The whole thing is mostly, though not entirely, irrational. ![]() At its most extreme, it boils down to outright hatred of one another. Both are mutually suspicious of one another and both have disdain for the other's opinions. The term 'Liberal' and 'Conservative' is part of a very modern form of prejudice. Why do Liberals want to cut defense spending? Let's break it down before tackling the question as a whole. ![]() Why do liberals want to cut defense spending? It's an interesting question and it begins with some interesting and frankly, questionable assumptions. in political science, author at, twitter: Read more about the partnership here.Īnswer from Ian Jackson, Ph.d. Quora Questions are part of a partnership between Newsweek and Quora, through which we'll be posting relevant and interesting answers from Quora contributors throughout the week.
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