United States Military consists of United States Army, United
States Navy, United States Air Force, United
States Marine Corps, and United States Coast Guard. The Coast Guard of the
US Military reports to the Department of Homeland Security during peacetime
and to the US Navy during wartime. The United States Military
altogether consists of 1.4 million active duty personnel and has several hundred
thousands of personnel in both the Reserves and National Guard.
The United States Military budget is the largest in the world. There are many
reasons for this. The US Military has the capability to fight
and win wars overseas to defend the American allies and indirectly controlling
the high seas to protect the American trade. Therefore, it maintains a global
presence to uphold democracy and maintain international stability. It should
be able to fight and win multiple wars at the same time and deal with unexpected
global events.
The next simple reason for the huge spending of the United States Military
is that it can afford such large spending on the US Military. Though the aggregate
amount of military spending is very large, it actually represents a very meager
fraction of the total US economy. Another reason is that although the national
consensus within the United States is to maintain a military of global capability,
yet the human cost in terms of possible casualties and the overall size of the
military has to be at a minimum. This has led to extensive developments and
researches in technology yielding many breakthroughs like space explorations,
computers and Internet, nuclear energy, bulletproof vests, lasers to shoot down
missiles and so on.
Another relatively important point in consideration for the high spending of
the United States Military is that the buying power of money is different in
different places. The general living standards are high in America and the US
Military has to pay decent salaries to all the categories of soldiers.
