The Costs of Empire

[La_Serpiente]

The Costs of Empire - Part 1

Part 1 - Starting with a solid base

Somewhere on the Yale University campus, Paul Michael Kennedy must be smiling. Remember Paul Kennedy? Back in 1987 the then relatively unknown history professor published the book The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, and almost instantaneously introduced the expression "imperial overstretch" into popular discourse. Although it did not take long for right-wing commentators to attack him, saying that it was the Soviet, not the US empire that had overstretched, his basic point remains the same.

As he wrote 10 years later in Atlantic Magazine: "The United States now runs the risk, so familiar to historians of the rise and fall of Great Powers, of what might be called 'imperial overstretch': that is to say, decision-makers in Washington must face the awkward and enduring fact that the total of the United States's global interests and obligations is nowadays far too large for the country to be able to defend them all simultaneously."

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Part 1 - Starting with a solid base - Part I

The Costs of Empire - Part II

Part 2: Counting the dollars and cents

To paraphrase the well-known saying of former US Senator Everett Dirksen, a division sent here, a division over there, and pretty soon you are talking about real empire.

However, a real empire costs money, lots of money; especially when it involves stationing or deploying military forces around the world.

How much money? Let's turn to the budget. For fiscal year (FY) 2004, Congress approved about US$400 billion for "national defense", or in plain English, military spending. But hold on to your hats because, as they say on Broadway, you ain't seen nothing yet.

In FY 2004, military spending accounted for over half of all US federal discretionary spending. The annual military appropriations bill is expected to grow from $369 billion this year to nearly $600 billion by 2013, according to the US Congressional Budget Office.

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Part 2: Counting the dollars and cents

[izzie]

1. And what a waste.

What we need in a man with some view of the world. That oil is going to run out and we need a mass inter structure of ways to get people around with out spending a gal. of gas per each person for every mile.Homes that are not so large that they use fuel enough for 100 people, CEO's that do not male 4000% more than a worker. 1/4 of blacks in jail run by business for profits, using them for cheap labor,oh I could go on. I guess it is not very interesting when you can dress up in uniforms and say you are the leader of the world. We do not want God to give us Kings.