The over glorification of war in America has led to an over bloated budget for the military, America’s interruption of foreign conflicts, and the voluntary killing of innocent people. I have always been passionate about this issue and I am aware of the current events circulating around this issue. Here are some of the ideas that I have collected over my time with this topic.

First of all America has this misconception that “We are the greatest country of all time” and it really doesn’t help our case when we are dealing with a tense Middle East. As we can see from our attempt at a nuclear deal with Iran and the trouble reaching a deal our relations with Iran have become stressed. The last delusion about America that Iran wants to hear is that America is “The greatest country of all time”. But I think that what it really means is that “We have the biggest military so you can’t argue with me about it.” This idea makes us a lot more vulnerable than not having a big military would. It makes us a target, if the world had a party America would be the guy to show up to the party drunk off of it’s own ignorance. America needs to take a step back and stop being so narcissistic to take everyone off edge.

As most people probably know America has a very long history of glorifying war. Its history dates all the way back to the revolution when men were encouraged to go and fight for independence and that was understandable, that was fighting for your freedom. But, now war has turned into a way for America to enter conflicts that they should never be involved in and get them to turn out the way that they would like them to. By glorifying war we give ourselves the right to walk into a situation we should stay out of. For example America caused the revolution in the Middle East by removing a leader that the majority loved and imposing the “shah” who took away many rights from all people and implemented sharia law which took away from women’s already restricted rights. So if America had never interveined then the Middle East might not be what it is today. So the glorification of war in America has led to some major messups in today’s modern world.

This over glorification of war has allowed the US to increase the military’s budget to an enormous size when we're not even really fighting a war. The military spent $610.096 billion dollars in 2011. Compared to some other budgets such as public health which was only 80 billion dollars in 2013. I see that the military can be seen as a public safety force. But, the way that we are being offensive with our military power versus defensive with our military power shows that we are not using the military in the correct way.  Last year the US spent 618 billion dollars on the military. Our next competitor China, only spent 171 billion on the military. China is what I would call a success financially and they are only spending 171 billion on the military (USA Today). America owes a lot of money to China and if they asked for the money back we’d all go overboard. China gets by just fine with a decent sized military, right? So in that case why does America have to spend so much on the military? I am certain that the glorification of war in America has led to more men and women heading off to their own deaths than any other country that is not currently engaged in a war on its own territory.

So in conclusion I don’t think that war for a real purpose is wrong like fighting for your freedom or even a coup or defending your country. But when we start to spend hundreds of billions of dollars on the military that is not necessary at all, and allows us to change the outcomes of foreign conflicts and be offensive that is where we go wrong with our military forces. That is what we need to change in this country. This will allow better relations with tense countries in the middle east and around the world because we won’t be forcing certain things to turn out certain ways. So the over glorification of war in America has lead to an over bloated budget for the military, the interruption of foreign conflicts that we should never be involved in and the voluntary killing of innocent people.

REFERENCES

Frohlich, Thomas C and Kent, Alexander. “Countries Spending the Most on the Military.” USA TODAY. 12 July 2014.