"STRONG ON DEFENSE"

That's a GOP mantra but I wonder how much we really need to spend considering what the rest of the world spends.

Global Security estimates that in 2004, the entire world spent about $950 billion while the U.S. spent about $467 billion. Thus, we accounted for slightly over 49% of the entire world's spending on defense.

In 2005, Global Issues estimates that U.S. spending accounts for about 48% of the world's spending.

There are some differences in figures reported by different organizations but it seems clear that we account for at least 40% of the entire world's spending, even if we ignore Fredo's wars.

Do we really need to spend that much? The neo-cons would say "yes" but they aren't sober analysts of our needs.