What do folks think are reasonable% of GDP to spend on military? Canada I
think is around 1-2% and we're the low end. I think anyone over 20% is
in
land of too-much-spending. So here are some guestimates for the future
powers (Feedback is good!).
Pop is Laserlight's(?) est of 1988 Pop and GDP. (I'm going to use these to
derive some 2180 figures later). The missing ones reflect me missing bits of
this info if Chris provided it.
%MS is the percentage of military spending I suggest each power expends.
Pop GDP %MS
NAC 685.6 5,848.1 0.06 * enough, but not too much
burden on the taxpayer
ESU 2,183.5 1,853.7 0.17 * what must be spent to
protect the state, etc.
FSE 189.4 1,320.5 0.08 * vaguely militant (vive la
France!)
NSL 123.1 1,139.0 0.07 * I think the german GDP
will relatively improve
IF 422.9 546.4 0.15 * Amirs and Caliphs must look
potent
PAU 469.2 241.1 0.12 * Militant, but have more
internal issues of concern
IC 527.2 235.0 0.15
Japan 124.0 2400.0 0.05 * Militant enough to ensure
their sovereignty
OU 23.7 219.4 0.08 * Make a little go a long way
FCT 40.0 212.4 0.08 * Independence requires
constant vigilance
Israel 4.4 27 0.20 * Gotta keep up with the
Smiths RH? 0.11 * A bleak, militant tradition Swiss 0.07 UNSC 0.10 *
Moderately high taxes, a decent GDP per capita LLAR 0.12 * Still fighting for
their place KNG 0.08 * A professional military, well respected internally
Though, just looking at the numbers, I have no idea how Israel is supposed to
withstand any serious attack from the IF. Their only hope lies in the vast
divisions in the IF block. If the IF ever got its act together, Israel would
be toast (again).
Thoughts? Am I on the high side? Did I under or over rate anyone? Smaller
nations in dire straights can get away with some higher tax rates. I don't
think 20% is supportable over the long term (witness Russia) but neither is 1
or 2% (witness Canada). If the Canadian experience is any indication,
maintaining your forces (if they are small) will cost you 1-2% of GDP.
That means if that is your budget, capital expenditures to replace aging kit
are hard to come by. I assume the ESU forces would cost the better part of
10-12% of GDP to maintain, leaving only about 5% for new expenditures.
> What do folks think are reasonable % of GDP to spend on
I covered this in mid December too. Going off memory, most Third World
countries without an immediate threat are in the
1-2% range. Most Western Bloc countries are in the 5% range.
Russia in the Cold War was around 19% as was Israel. I think the winner of the
"Militarize Your Economy Into the Stone Age" was Angola at 37%. The lowest I
recall seeing listed was 0.8%.
At some point I'll try to work up figures on how "spending too much on your
military" affects your economy.
> Though, just looking at the numbers, I have no idea how Israel
Which is why I specificied the IF structure to be as internally competitive as
I did.
> What do folks think are reasonable % of GDP to spend on military?
Canada I
> think is around 1-2% and we're the low end. I think anyone over 20% is
Actually, anything getting above 10% is unsustainable for too long without
degredation of infrastructure.
Laserlight spake thus:
I covered this in mid December too.
** Sorry, I didn't see that post when I reviewed the archives.
Going off memory, most Third World countries without an immediate threat are
in the
1-2% range. Most Western Bloc countries are in the 5% range.
Russia in the Cold War was around 19% as was Israel. I think the winner of the
"Militarize Your Economy Into the Stone Age" was Angola at 37%. The lowest I
recall seeing listed was 0.8%.
** It struck me that the% of GDP is only a partial measure. Does it correspond
directly with nominal tax rate? That is to say,% of GDP represents percentage
of your whole economy (personal, business, financial, other sectors).% of
personal taxation is probably another indicator, related but not directly
correlated in all cases. I'm sure from economy to economy, the% of GDP made up
by different sectors varies, and how much of
the military budget comes from perosnal taxes does too - or at least I
suspect so.
** But,% GDP is good enough for the purposes we probably care about. You
quoted most Western Block countries as around 5%. That was, I assume, through
the Cold War. However, these same countries (NAC, NSL, FSE) have been involved
in several major shooting wars in the last hundred years or so and one
recently (by 2180's). I think they might actually be a tad higher in
their defence budgets (say 6-8%) especially given an unknown potential
alien threat.
** I get the impression from relative equality of tech in FT/FB that the
ESU, IC, IF, etc have come up so there is at least a near parity of
technology. The size of the ESU fleet suggests they have probably increased
their per capita GDP (relative to their position vis a vis the NAC in
1988-90) and the NSL are likely also to increase their GDP per capita.
(In fact, if the figures you originally used were 1988, you'd find their GDP
has
grown and will probably grow a lot more - Germany can be quite a
powerhouse once it gets rolling). Now, how we account for the various crises
of the 2000's and 2100's... well that's still open for conjecture.
** Now, the UN is an interesting entity to envision from a funding
perspective. There are some clear indications in canon that they hold some
land and entertain some independence from their conventional funding (maybe
owning patents, licensing companies for some exploration ventures, etc).
However, do we suspect they get NO money from the governments that formerly
composed the UN? Are the UN in effect just the same as all the other powers?
Or do they receive some percentage of their funding either voluntarily or by
enforcable tarrif from their member states? And does this come out of the
member states military GDP? A UN that gets even 1% from each of its member
state-blocks is quite impressive, even without adding in its own
independent revenues. A UN that no longer gets any contributions and must rely
solely on its own revenues is far less so, and begs the question of what they
exist for. If the UN is still a representative body for the mass of humanity
(most or all countries would have some representation) with some limited
independence of action and command, then they likely still get funding from
their member countries in some measure. Though, as always, some states may pay
up.... reluctantly.... (and how would the NAC go? I don't think Canada and
Britain are slow with the payments usually, but the US has been known to drag
heels when it had motivation...).
Just some thoughts. Tom.
> On 14-Jan-00 at 12:24, Thomas.Barclay (Thomas.Barclay@sofkin.ca) wrote:
You
> quoted most Western Block countries as around 5%. That was, I assume,
have
> been involved in several major shooting wars in the last hundred years
I wouldn't really expect that. What I would expect is because they are worried
about shooting wars ships would be more likely to end up mothballed (and space
is wonderful for mothballing a ship) than scrapped.
> ** Now, the UN is an interesting entity to envision from a funding
I would assume that if any of the larger powers went head-to-head with
the UN they would roll over the UN rather easily. The UN gets to play politics
and balance of power. The UN exists to enforce policies decided on by the
member nations. They would not normally be tasked with defending worlds. If
you don't have to worry about defense any offensive actions can be done with a
significant portion of your fleet. If the action is too big for the UN fleet
the member nations can step in and assist. Mostly the UN is about politics and
embargos though.
Tom Barclay's points are **'d paragraphs, unstarred parts are mine:
> ** It struck me that the % of GDP is only a partial measure.
Does it
> correspond directly with nominal tax rate? That is to say, % of
I don't care what sector it comes from, since the objective is to see how much
money we have to buy ships with. Whether we get it by taxing personal income,
corporate income, national sales tax, or sales of vodka (the Czar financed the
war against Napoleon by a tax on vodka, which provided something like 30% of
the government's revenue. I believe that figure is now down to 20%) is
irrelevant.
> ** But, % GDP is good enough for the purposes we probably care
Correct
> However, these same countries (NAC, NSL, FSE) have
Agree. In a really desperate situation (eg 1944 for a number of countries) you
might perhaps get as high as 50%. It is not clear to me how much actual
fighting is going on vs the Kra'Vak;
and if the NAC-ESU war has tapered off, a lower tempo of
operations may mean the navies actually have more money now to build up ships.
> ** I get the impression from relative equality of tech in FT/FB
One of my assumptions was that the IF has limited ability to build FTL, and I
see no reason to assume the IF, IC, PAU and
others have the same tech as the Big Four. I grant you the PAU
has bought ESU ships including Rostov BC's, just as I postulate
the IF buys FSE-built FTL drives, but that doesn't mean they can
build it on their own. A South American country and a
European--I'll say Argentina and Germany although that may not
be right--were going to build ships for Argentine Navy, building
the first in Germany, second in Argentina, third in Germany, and
alternating. Only the German-built ships got completed and
passed trials.
> The size of the ESU fleet suggests they have probably increased
They were.
> you'd find their GDP has
"Germany keeps taking on the rest of the world, and not quite winning."
> Laserlight wrote:
Lots of similar examples exist, eg Indian-built German Subs. In many
cases, even if the native ones get built, they're never put into service
as they fall short in many respects from the high-quality imports.
But there are one or two counter-examples: I can think of one country
where the subs built with foreign-made components are relegated to
training, while the native ones are of much higher quality.
G'day guys,
I was just wondering about something when this thread came back up again.
When you were throwing around %GDP were they peace-time or war-time,
I've seen it written that Germany plowed 45% GDP into WWII, but I'm not sure
if
that's true and its obviously not sustainable - guess that's why we get
the "peace within war" bits of the Solar Wars.
As to the UN...
I think they probably do get some funding from member nations, but I'd guess
having learnt all too well from how crippling dependency on such things were
for both the League of Nations and the UN (our UN) then they will have a
sizeable direct funding scheme of their own, be it
colonies/patents/protection-racket whatever. I'd interrpreted the
GZG-fiction to suggest they were kick-ass now and that they KEPT the
peace
in the Inner systems and we're just ABIDED by - OK they'd get kicked if
they tried to do the same in the outer systems, but in the Inner systems
they are a serious body - and so would need their own finance system. I
know this doesn't fit with everybody's view of them though (most people
responding to the poll saw them as as much of a token force as they believe
the UN is today, begs the question as to how they did keep the Solar Wars out
of the Inner systems then).
Just some slightly relevant raving for you.
Beth
In a message dated 1/16/00 7:01:58 PM Eastern Standard Time,
> beth.fulton@marine.csiro.au writes:
> (most people
Same reason it generally keeps the peace now--it's in everybody's best
interests. Plus they can tip the balance against the one who breaks the
rules, which doesn't take an enourmous force, but a decent one.
And if I remember my Canon history, they didn't keep it completely out of the
Inner Colonies, just the Core.
Rob