Why is US defense budget so high?

[TeknoVagrant]

1. US - 553.10 billion
2. UK - 72.00 billion
3. France - 67.60 billion
4. Germany - 52.00 billion
5. Japan - 49.10 billion
???????????????

[Supermoose]

ummmmmmmmm Iraq?

[Monkeyboy]

its all those UFO's?

[conman1000]

We have the 3rd largest country, = major defense
We are the target of terroist attacks= $$$$

Those are 2 major reasons why.

[LiNuX]

well the budget increased dramatically since the bush administration came into play and thats a huge reason why our debt grew by a trillion dollars in the past year alone

[Scott]

It's not really as high, especially when you look at it in terms of GDP (it is 27th according to the CIA World Factbook as of June 2007).

[wifi]

lol $20 billion shy of beating the UK by half a trillion, US kicks @$$ when it comes to funding the military

[Toxic]

ummmmmmmmm Iraq?
No

its all those UFO's?

And no.

[DeadCell]

It's so high because the US is developing more nuclear weapons as they get rid of the old ones. Do you really think that the US will really get rid of their weapons of mass destruction. The US has always been like this (especially in the Cold War) we need to be one step ahead of everyone else.

We tell other countries to get rid of their WMD's while we are developing them along with other crazy killing machine.

[Mr Cool]

It's so high because the US is developing more nuclear weapons as they get rid of the old ones. Do you really think that the US will really get rid of their weapons of mass destruction. The US has always been like this (especially in the Cold War) we need to be one step ahead of everyone else.

We tell other countries to get rid of their WMD's while we are developing them along with other crazy killing machine.

We don't need nukes. We have Bush as a weapon of mass destruction

[Scott]

Yeah, so apparently reading comprehension isn't a big deal here.