Afghanistan Math Part 2

Yesterday we examined how much the Afghanistan campaign and our tendency to deploy troops all over the world was costing the American taxpayer. We also reviewed how many of the world's leading economies (Japan, China, Brazil, India, etc.) were contributing nothing to the terrorism fight in Afghanistan and were strengthening their economies as we were weakening ours. Today, lets look at two ways how our allies in the Afghanistan conflict are actually supporting us.

In the first approach, I increased the current U.S. deployment in Afghanistan by 30,000 troops, and divided the new total by the population in the United States (in millions). This ratio gives me the number of deployed troops in country per million U.S. citizens. I also did the same thing for the rest of our allies in Afghanistan, dividing their number of in-country troops by their country's population (in millions). The results are very interesting:

• After the increase in troops deployed according to President Obama's directive, the United States will have about 308 troops deployed for every million citizens.
• This ratio is about 50% higher than the nearest country which is Estonia at 222 troops per million in population.
• The top six contributors, after the United States, based on population are Estonia, Britain (174), Denmark (136), The Netherlands (130), Norway (100), and Canada (84).
• Our traditional European allies from NATO were ranked way down the list at 16th (Germany), 19th (France), 20th (Italy), and Spain (25th).
• Spain's contributions are especially disappointing since they have suffered first hand from terrorist attacks several years ago, you would expect and hope they would be more active.
• If you do this analysis on the total troop deployment of our allies, you find that they would have to increase their deployment by fivefold in order to match the United States troop deployment levels, relative to their population levels.

Now, one could say this is not a valid analysis since many of these allies are not as wealthy as us so lets do another analysis where we calculate a ratio based on each country's Gross Domestic Product. I divided the number of troops deployed by each nation's annual GDP level in billions. The results are as follows:

• The United States has deployed about 6.6 soldiers for every billion dollars in GDP.
• However, this analysis places us seventh among our allies with Romania, Albania, Macedonia, Georgia, Estonia, and Bulgaria ahead of us in deployment based on economy size.
• Our traditional European allies are also poor performers according to this ratio with Italy ranked 22nd, Germany ranked 23rd, France ranked 24th, and Spain ranked a woeful 29th.
• This poor showing is put to shame by the six countries ahead of the United States along with Lithuania ranked 8th, Latvia ranked 9th, Croatia ranked 10th, Britain ranked 11th, and Poland ranked 12th.
• If you do this analysis on the total troop deployment levels of our allies, you find that they would have to increase their commitment by a factor of 2.5 to match the United States commitment based on GDP.
• I find it interesting that ten of the top twelve contributors are from eastern Europe, countries that spent decades behind the Iron Curtain. Perhaps they have a greater appreciation of freedom than Germany, France, et al.

Bottom line today is the same as yesterday: for the most part the United States is shouldering a disproportionate amount of the fight against terrorism, whether measured by population, GDP, or those countries who contribute nothing such as Japan, Brazil, and the like. That is why Step 30 in "Love My Country, Loathe My Government" is so important. We must reduce our troop global footprint to be consistent with today's domestic and international needs. The status quo is from a different time and a different world. Our economy, our freedom, and our future need to be our priorities. Saving Afghanistan makes no difference if we destroy our economy and our Federal budget in the process.

Visit our website at www.loathemygovernment.com to order an autographed copy of the book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government -Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom and Destroying The American Political Class" and to sign up for the cause. The book is also available online at Amazon and Barnes And Noble.

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