War Elephant

Gibbon notes in his “Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire” that stable empires commit about 1% of their resources to the army; more being wasteful and less, dangerous. By Gibbon’s metric, the US “Defense” department should receive about $140 B (US GDP ~$14T), roughly one-fifth of its current budget. Sure, it’s arbitrary, but it also makes sense relative to the other countries.