UK "must slash defense spending"

Ding-ding-ding! We have a winner. Now if only our politicians had the guts to fight the military-industrial complex that is bleeding our country dry.
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The UK should consider slashing defence spending by up to £24bn and revisit plans to renew its Trident nuclear deterrent, a think-tank report says.

Britain cannot afford much of the defence equipment it plans to buy, the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) report says.

Its authors include former defence secretary Lord Robertson and the ex-Lib Dem leader, Lord Ashdown.

The government said it remained committed to renewing Trident.

More at:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/8125466.stm

The UK wants to be prepared to fight a war over its claim to antarctic territories, as well as to wield influence in NATO. Their defense policy is complicated - not that I support their continuing spending on their nuclear deterrent, but to some a permanent seat on the security council would be jeopardized if they gave it up.

would cut military spending to the bone. The U.S. will take care of it. They outspend everyone on military hardware.

U. S. population is approximately 5 times greater than Great Britain's: 304 million vs. 61 million.

U. S. defense expenditures are approximately 10 times greater than Britain's. $651 billion vs. $64 billion. The true difference is probably significantly greater as many obvious military costs are buried in other budgets: Department of Energy (nuclear weapons), NASA, the CIA, the VA, and the current biggie- special appropriations for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Links here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_expenditures
and here: http://www.wisegeek.com/what-countries-have-the-highest-military-expenditures.htm

The American military-industrial complex is a parasite which is sucking the life blood out of it's host.

then that would definitely fund a good chunk of healthcare for everyone.

It's a crying shame that America spends less on healthcare than defence. UK covers its population for about $190 billion (about £115 bln). A trillion dollars would easily cover the whole of the USA, if and only if the vast majority of hospitals and clinics and other associated facilities were brought under government control.

Dessert Storm.

Rinse and repeat.

If the USA wants to survive as anything resembling a world power by the second decade of this century, we will transform our existing military-industrial complex into an energy-industrial complex in the next 4 years. This has the added benefits of working to tackle 3 major issues at the same time:

1) it cuts wasteful military spending to the bone and reinvests those dollars into energy R&D and deployment of renewable energy across the nation as a bonus...

2) it avoids displacing the people who are currently in weapons manufacture and research and gives them a new mission with a similar goal - insure the preeminence of the USA as a by-product of their labors...

3) it legitimately addresses actions needed to get the country off oil (especially foreign imports which are ALSO bleeding the country dry) and denies the world's petro-dictators the necessary revenue to maintain control in their nations...

We CAN do this, all we need is the courage of a few in leadership to make the case over and over and over again to the public until they realize that we either do this now - voluntarily and with future benefits to ourselves, or we do it under the direction of our creditor nations and do so to work off debts owed to them in perpetuity...

We must accept the fact that there is pain out there beyond what is already being felt and we must accept the fact that delaying the day of reckoning only makes the end game worse...