Quote:
Originally Posted by clickity click
So you are spending 13% of GDP on defence...
The UK spends 1.85% of GDP on defence
|
How much more might the UK have to spend if the US cut its defense spending 45%?
The UK couldn't call for help like Winnie did in 1939 -- Sprechen Sie Deutsch or you might still be spending a fortune in lives and material defending an island with no 'Empire' left to defend ...
- The US could save 30% of that budget by just saying it's none of our business if some insignificant country wants to exterminate some segment of its own population or that of another sovereign nation. We could just let the ''blue helmets'' enforce the rule of international law (as they do so well now
)
- The US could save another 5% of that budget by not protecting any other nation's trading interests (piracy -- shipping at sea). Wait: that would not work-- there would be open piracy at sea again like there was until the last half of the 1800's.
- The US could save another 10% of that budget by scrapping most of our offshore navy and relying on nuclear missiles for defense -- under this scenario the Middle East would be a hole that glowed in the dark. The US response to 9/11 could have been a much greater, and in immediate dollar terms, a more cost efficient attack. Wait -- that wouldn't work -- we would end up breathing our own fallout (maybe) -- Hiroshima and Nagasaki were not a problem -- we could produce better nuclear weapons (neutron bombs -- limited fallout) more cost efficiently.
Number built 115 as of November 2014[7]
Program cost $59.2B for development, $261B for procurement, $590B for operations & sustainment in 2012[8]
Unit cost
F-35A: US$98M (low rate initial production, full production in 2018 to be $85M)[9][10]
F-35B: US$104M (low rate initial production)[9][10]
F-35C: US$116M (low rate initial production)[9][10]
Be careful of what you ask for you may just get it.
Remember the US is a society of 90 million crazy cowboys armed and ready to lock and load ...