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Date: Wed, 15 Oct 1997 22:37:59 -0700 (PDT)
From: Annelise Anderson <andrsn@andrsn.stanford.edu>
To: "Jordan K. Hubbard" <jkh@time.cdrom.com>
cc: Mike Smith <mike@smith.net.au>, chat@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject: Re: F1.17 (was Re: C2 Trusted FreeBSD?) 
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On Tue, 14 Oct 1997, Jordan K. Hubbard wrote:

> battlefields over the last 4 generations.  We also spend more of our
> money (whether the average citizen likes it or not) on military
> hardware than just about anyone these days, save perhaps India, since
> the Soviet Union collapsed.  That also tends alter one's perspective,

I doubt that any country's military budget (or just the hardware part
of it) is larger than that of the United States.

Nevertheless, the percentage of Gross Domestic Product spent on 
defense (function 050 of the federal budget) has dropped from 6.3%
in 1987 to about 3.5% in 1997, and declined in real terms (outlays
adjusted for inflation) by about 30 percent.  The GDP percentage is
lower (and going below 3 percent in a few years) than at any time
since BEFORE World War II.  This is, in effect, a rapid demobilization,
with cutbacks across the board--R&D, procurement, personnel, training,
etc. 

The defense budget varies quite a lot (as a percentage of GDP) over
time, and there are considerable pressures to reduce defense spending (and
spend on other things), so while the defense budget remains pretty big
($250+ billion), it's basically never really out of control; unlike
spending on health and retirement, it's not politically untouchable.
Federal outlays for social security are greater than those for
national defense, as are federal outlays for Medicare + Medicaid.

Well, those are just a few facts.  I'm just not sure we really know
at this point what we might not be capable of doing--the view is
generally that we couldn't do today what we did in the Gulf War.  My
view of being the world's cop is being able just to say "Hey you
over there, I wouldn't do that if I were you...."

	Annelise