The US budget: in the grip of the financial crisis

Already, all financial analysts of the world are considering the astronomical deficit that the US federal budget is experiencing, as one of the main threats to the status of the United States as a "superpower". Since the reign of President George W. Bush, the hole in the US budget has steadily increased with unenviable stability annually, gluttonously absorbing more and more new means of ordinary taxpayers.

And under the presidency of Barack Obama, the US budget began to crack at the seams, and its deficit has already exceeded the critical figure of one trillion dollars. Of course, not the least role was played by colossal allocations for defense (more precisely, the attack) and gigantic expenditures on all sorts of space programs of highbrow masters from NASA that are extremely necessary for the average American taxpayer.

The highest deficits that the US budget has experienced have already led to an unprecedented increase in public debt, which is now above the critical level of sixteen trillion dollars. What regularly causes a flurry of tough criticism of the presidential administration by parliamentarians from the Republican Party.

Special attention in this aspect deserves the US military budget, which is the largest in the world. In 2013, it is $ 701.8 billion. For comparison, according to data released by the Stockholm Peace Research Institute, the total military spending of all other states of the world is 1.339 trillion. Dollars. The US budget allocates for the Pentagon's needs a little less than four percent of the country's total GDP. Which, of course, is much inferior to a similar indicator of the Cold War era, when the maintenance of its military machine the United States spent about 5.7% of its gross domestic product. But it is also noticeable against the backdrop of the continually growing "black hole" of the budget, which threatens to devour the entire economy of America.

And one more little illustration on the topic. According to authoritative international studies, in 2007 the US budget allocated the Pentagon 547 billion of evergreen dollars. In the same period, Britain's defense spending amounted to less than $ 60 billion, China - almost 58.3 billion in the same currency, Russia - 35.4 billion dollars, France - 53.6 billion, Saudi Arabia - less than thirty-four billion. The difference is more than palpable!

If this trend persists, the United States Navy is projected to be forced to limit its presence and significantly reduce activity in the Pacific-Asia region by about a third. The result can be a much greater freedom of maneuver between China and Iran, which will have a significant impact on the changing geopolitical situation in this region of the globe.

Also, a reduction in the cost of maintaining the military department will entail a reduction in the American military presence on the European continent. Until now, the United States has been carrying the main financial burden on NATO's spending and maintaining the Alliance's overall combat readiness. This combat readiness, as the operation against Libya visually demonstrated, is very problematic. And now it can become even depressing. All this will inevitably lead to a change in the geopolitical alignment of forces.