DeletedUser
Thought of posting this in the "Taxation" thread, but decided that this should be a topic all its own.
As you probably know, the US maintains a massive military presence around the world. Here's a map to illustrate its extent:
The Military has approximately 197,000 personnel stationed outside United States soil (not including those in Iraq and Afghanistan), spread over 737 bases. Most of these, as you can see, are located in Europe and East Asia, remnants of our Cold War military complex. As it has been two decades since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the majority of these are useless. Now, with the ever-worsening Federal budget crisis, the notion of curtailing our spending on these overseas bases is becoming more relevant.
To those interested, I suggest you read this document, a 2004 Congressional Budget Office report about this issue and some possible solutions to it: http://www.cbo.gov/doc.cfm?index=5415
Here's an excerpt:
Discuss
As you probably know, the US maintains a massive military presence around the world. Here's a map to illustrate its extent:
The Military has approximately 197,000 personnel stationed outside United States soil (not including those in Iraq and Afghanistan), spread over 737 bases. Most of these, as you can see, are located in Europe and East Asia, remnants of our Cold War military complex. As it has been two decades since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the majority of these are useless. Now, with the ever-worsening Federal budget crisis, the notion of curtailing our spending on these overseas bases is becoming more relevant.
To those interested, I suggest you read this document, a 2004 Congressional Budget Office report about this issue and some possible solutions to it: http://www.cbo.gov/doc.cfm?index=5415
Here's an excerpt:
Congressional Budget Office Report said:There would be limited annual savings to offset the
large initial investment needed to restation U.S.
forces, unless U.S. presence overseas was greatly reduced.
In that case, annual savings could exceed
$1 billion, but the net up-front investment would be
substantial—on the order of $7 billion.
Discuss