Even a broken clock has the correct time twice a day.
Some direct contradiction to those that think giving big money to foreign wars is a good idea.
I'll focus on the implications of MacGregor's comments with respect to defense spending and our role in the world - an issue he often turns to in his commentary. His concerns with respect to immigration and similar issues in this interview reflect much of what has been commented by others in this thread.
@375 Ruger Fan pretty much nailed it.
On the whole, MacGregor both deliberately lies and alternatively believes all sorts of things harmful to our actual national interest. He does this out a very personal sense of grievance with respect to this country and the Department of Defense specifically - an agency which failed to appropriately reward his self-evident military and leadership acumen.
I think most of us would agree that fewer wars are, on the whole a good thing. Though I am not aware of one we are fighting at the moment. But, I strongly believe the warning of Publius Flavius Vegetius Renatus in the 4th century AD was never more important than now in the opening decades of the twenty-first century -
Si vis pacem, para bellum.
Critics of American power always point to our "wasteful" defense spending as if those DOD dollars are taken out to the south parking lot of the Pentagon and burned in a large bonfire each year. That, of course, is hardly the case. These critics get away with it because the average American doesn't understand anything about economics. A couple of observations which the good colonel forgot to add to his discussion.
The US develops nearly all its weapon systems in this country. Therefore, virtually all procurement and R&D dollars directly bolster economic activity. After all, Defense corporations do not stuff mattresses with contract payments. Those dollars are invested in salaries, campuses, and additional R&D. The vast majority of our uniformed and civilian DOD employees spend and invest their salaries here in the US. Even their medical care, particularly retirees, represents meaningful patient load to doctors and hospitals across the country. Operational and maintenance costs for deployed forces represent a higher percentage of off-shore expense than any other category of Defense spending, but there too, the vast majority ends up back in the US economy in one form or another.
Even with respect to Ukraine, a frequent target of Macgregor's ire, DOD funding for that country's support is almost all actually invested here in one form or another.
Defense spending also makes up less of a percentage of national GDP today - 3.4% - than at any point since 1960 when it represented 8.9%. The highwater mark was 1967 when the US invested 9.4% of GDP on defense.
So spare me both MacGregor's histrionics and the questions of the simpleton interviewing him.
Military expenditures data from SIPRI are derived from the NATO definition, which includes all current and capital expenditures on the armed forces, including peacekeeping forces; defense ministries and other government agencies engaged in defense projects; paramilitary forces, if these are...
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