I personally don't want that to be China. Not because I think they'd do a bunch of crazy things but because I think they'd slowly and methodically subvert other countries just like they're doing in the South China Sea.
While I agree 1000% we need to minimize the USA military, we also need a plan for other (UN) countries to contribute to a shared force or something similar that can police in place of the USA military. Even in turn policing the USA in cases of military overstepping.
EDIT: What I'm saying is this article points to a problem, but it's complex. I imagine with UN oversight a military force might actually be less of a polluter and we might slow down arms races as well.
China is trying to steal territory from the Philippines, they arguably don't have the power to fight China. Without allies in the USA they'd have no recourse.
If every country was equal I'd agree with you, but they aren't, so we need protections for the smaller countries out there that get rolled over by the big countries.
Edit: Ideally we wouldn't need a police force, and I don't use Police force to mean what the US is doing in the middle east. I'm all about anti-interventionist policies. But I also don't want to see big governments roll over smaller ones, I think the UN is a good counter to that.
This is what I meant by South China Sea. https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&c... Hopefully that link resolves correclty.
Also, it's a bit unfair to say "US Military" as if it is a single unified organization. I would bet the US Navy specifically is the biggest offender.
I bet "US Military" is smaller than "China Factories" though.
"U.S. military action there has resulted in the desertification of 90 percent of Iraqi territory, crippling the country's agricultural industry and forcing it to import more than 80 percent of its food"
I can't find any citations in the source - most of the places I am looking talk about the destruction of irrigation systems at the hand of the Iraqi state. So at best the military is only partly responsible.
* The uranium mines mentioned belonged to the DOE.
* The link purportedly explaining why we caused desertification in Iraq carries no sources explaining this, other than a vague mention of US military policies (which in most cases are civilian political policies).
* The article in language is saying the military is currently the worlds biggest polluter, while mostly touching on issues from the cold war, before there were environmental rules of note.
This doesn't even touch on the absolute environmental devastation that the Soviet system left too.
In General the Military-Industrial complex is dirty, and left in its wake over the 40 years of the cold war, an environmental mess than will take 80 years to clean up, but that doesn't make any military currently the worlds largest anything, except possibly a waste of money.
https://www.nrdc.org/experts/christian-stirling-haig/budget-...
https://www.energydigital.com/renewable-energy/us-military-w...
https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/for-the-u-s-mil...
I'm not saying there isn't a long way to go, but they're definitely aware of the problem.
