Two overshadowed vice presidential candidates briefly emerged into the media spotlight on Tuesday night. Their areas of agreement turned out to be more telling than their disagreements.
Despite Michael Pence’s claim that we need to begin by “rebuilding our military,” the U.S. is not even close to losing its overwhelming military dominance.
Last year, the United States spent $600 billion on its military – roughly as much as the next eight countries put together. According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, U.S. military spending accounts for more than a third of the entire world’s military spending.
Military spending is also 40 percent higher than it was on 9/11, despite President Obama’s withdrawals from Iraq and Afghanistan.