Military Expenditure In The United States

Military expenditures in the former Soviet Union were a great burden on the Soviet economy, draining resources that might otherwise have been available to improve the economic circumstances of the people. While Russia's centralized economy could provide the organization for an effective military establishment, it could not efficiently manage the complex distribution system of a consumer-based society. The Soviet Union was a great military power, but its people lived in disadvantaged circumstances throughout the Cold War.

Military expenditures in the United States also drained resources and talent that would otherwise have been available to the private economy. By the 1970,s, the United States, once the dominant economy in the world, had fallen behind Japan and West Germany in the competition for high quality consumer goods. Two decades of negative balances of trade caused the United States to become the largest debtor nation in the world. The preoccupation with the military race against the Soviet Union is, in part, the reason.

The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 marked the beginning of the disappearance of old borders and a new global era of unparalleled human movement and interaction. Although the new global arena has created economic opportunities and growth, the benefits have not been equally distributed, and the risks—especially the health risks—of this increasingly interconnected and fast-paced world continue to grow. As people, products, food, and capital travel the world in unprecedented numbers and at historic speeds, so, too, do the myriad of disease-causing