U.S. Military Spending has maxed out the country's credit card

There's a very interesting article on military spending on the MIT Centre for International Studies Web-Site.

"At the beginning of the twenty-first century, the United States is in a position of military preponderance, both in terms of its ability to project power abroad and wage conventional war. To maintain this military advantage, the U.S. has spent annually between $332 and $513 billion annually since the end of the Cold War. The end of the communist military threat gave rise to hope of a “peace dividend” and to political efforts both to reduce the defense budget and redirect spending from the military to domestic social programs, but the American defense budget never fell below 85% of the highest Cold War levels achieved during the Reagan buildup in the late 1980s. The U.S. accounts for nearly half the world’s military expenditure, outspending on defense the next fourteen largest military powers combined." (read more....)