As I noted in POLI 1140 today, your blog assignment for this week is to write a post related to anything in Chapters 1 or 2 of the Mingst and Arreguin-Toft textbook. You have until midnight, Friday January 20 to publish your post. Here is an example of what I would consider to be a good post–format, content, and length.
On p. 3 of Chapter 1 of the text (in the Thinking Theoretically section), the authors write:
In brief, realism posits that states exist in an anarchic international system. Each state bases its policies on an interpretation of national interest defined in terms of power.
While there are many types of power–economic, political, prestige, etc.,–the most important source of power and the one which states generally seek to increase as much as possible, is military power. Because of anarchy, realists believe that states are constantly concerned about their security. States that feel more insecure seek to increase their power, thereby increasing the sizes of their military, all else being equal. It would be interesting to find out which states spend a lot on their military, and which states spend less. Fortunately, Globalsecurity.org has compiled the data for us. In their most recent summary of global military expenditures (from 2011), we find some interesting data. I have copied the top 20 (in terms of absolute dollars spent) in the table below. For a list of all countries, click on the link above.
| WORLD | Gross Domestic Product | Military Spending | |||
| State | GDP | rank | % GDP mil |
rank | Military spending |
| WORLD | $70,155,374,950,000.00 | $2,157,172,000,000.00 | |||
| United States | $14,120,000,000,000.00 | 2 | 5.20% | 25 | $741,200,000,000.00 |
| China | $8,818,000,000,000.00 | 3 | 4.30% | 23 | $380,000,000,000.00 |
| India | $3,680,000,000,000.00 | 5 | 2.50% | 62 | $92,000,000,000.00 |
| Russia | $2,116,000,000,000.00 | 8 | 3.90% | 27 | $82,500,000,000.00 |
| Saudi Arabia | $590,900,000,000.00 | 23 | 10.00% | 3 | $59,090,000,000.00 |
| France | $2,094,000,000,000.00 | 9 | 2.60% | 57 | $54,444,000,000.00 |
| United Kingdom | $2,123,000,000,000.00 | 7 | 2.40% | 63 | $50,952,000,000.00 |
| Turkey | $879,900,000,000.00 | 17 | 5.30% | 16 | $46,634,700,000.00 |
| Germany | $2,815,000,000,000.00 | 6 | 1.50% | 102 | $42,225,000,000.00 |
| Korea, South | $1,362,000,000,000.00 | 13 | 2.70% | 53 | $36,774,000,000.00 |
| Brazil | $2,010,000,000,000.00 | 10 | 1.70% | 89 | $34,170,000,000.00 |
| Japan | $4,149,000,000,000.00 | 4 | 0.80% | 150 | $33,192,000,000.00 |
| Italy | $1,737,000,000,000.00 | 11 | 1.80% | 86 | $31,266,000,000.00 |
| Indonesia | $960,200,000,000.00 | 16 | 3.00% | 47 | $28,806,000,000.00 |
| Iran | $825,900,000,000.00 | 19 | 2.50% | 60 | $20,647,500,000.00 |
| Spain | $1,359,000,000,000.00 | 14 | 1.20% | 122 | $16,308,000,000.00 |
| Taiwan | $734,300,000,000.00 | 20 | 2.20% | 68 | $16,154,600,000.00 |
| Israel | $206,900,000,000.00 | 51 | 7.30% | 6 | $15,103,700,000.00 |
| Greece | $332,900,000,000.00 | 35 | 4.30% | 24 | $14,314,700,000.00 |
| Canada | $1,277,000,000,000.00 | 15 | 1.10% | 127 | $14,047,000,000.00 |
Continue reading “Chapter 1 or Chapter 2 Post–Global Military Expenditures”
Clouds, Clocks, and Sitting at Tables 
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