And to crudely compare mass to resource allocation, the article claims more than 1.2kg of immune mass for the 73kg model individual, or 1.6% of total mass. The US military budget is about 3% of GDP.

The resource devotion of most all nation states seems to settle in this 1-3% range, excluding those with more active security tensions. Ukraine for example running an absolute fever at 34% and Israel chronically stressed at 4.5%. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_...

The middle east in general seems to over allocate on their immune system. This would actually align with what I've been reading recently that modern Islamic culture is much more of a physical might makes right system. And that overspend on aggression and displays of power is part of what hampers their economic vitality while the more peace loving west gets to devote more resources to non destructive pursuits. Turning the other cheek and meeting in the middle is seen as weakness in the Middle East, but it counter intuitively is the reason that the west is the stronger system.

Similarly, those who get their vaccines spend less time sick with their immune system inflamed, and so get to be more productive at work or athletic pursuits and compete better than those that abstain.

I think you'd want to add the police.

Edit: one of the core functions of the immune system is identifying and eliminating pre-cancerous cells from your own body, if you downvote this out of reflexive politics you are a clown.

I agree. Those numbers are just harder to come by.

> if you downvote this out of reflexive politics you are a clown

It is not that serious... The emphasis that you yourself added is counterproductive to your point and deliberately precludes discussing viewpoints that would be valid because nobody wants to deal with a "hyper-reactive".

It was at -1 within a few minutes of posting, so I think the edit was deserved.

> And that overspend on aggression and displays of power is part of what hampers their economic vitality while the more peace loving west gets to devote more resources to non destructive pursuits.

I'm sure this has nothing to do with centuries of western imperialism in that region.

I'd be (non-sarcastically) interested in reading any materials/sources you have on this specific topic. Is this view simply because dumping on the west is popular nowadays, or are there really strong ties on islamic culture and its relationship with the west?

But isn’t the us military unusually large (or is that just a media perception?)

The US military is unusually large, but that's primarily because the US economy is unusually large.

The US does spend more than average, but we're talking 3.5% vs the global average of 2.2% of GDP. So, the overwhelming might of the US military isn't because Americans are rapid warmongers, but because the US economy is the most productive per capita of all large countries by a massive margin.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_...

It is unusually well-funded, and also large in absolute numbers, but not proportionally to the population. Greece and South Korea, for instance, have 1.3% and 1.1% of their populations in active service.

When you include reservists (of varying quality) the cake goes to North Korea with 30% (!), but notably also Cuba (11%), Taiwan (7.8%), Israel (7.6%).

During WWII, many nations managed to cumulatively mobilize 10-15% of their population (about 9%, 16 million, for the USA).

Not propotionally, no. The US comes 77th out of 150 or so countries in number of active military personnel per capita. Small countries with an existential threat looming over them like the two Koreas and Cuba have unusually large militaries compared to their size.

The US is the third most populous country so its military is still exceptionally big in absolute terms.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_number_...

US defense spending is large in absolute terms, and per GDP for a liberal democratic state.

The US military isn't large in terms of personnel in uniform as a share of population, though.

It's proportionally large because the other liberal democratic states conveniently depend on the US for protection.

The military in terms of personnel or spending? US military spending is large.

Depends on whether you consider the argument that it's indirectly protecting other countries too, I think.

No. Rather, it's that many other countries are benefitting the US-led global peace since WW2 such that they can afford to keep unusually small militaries compared to historical norms. Pre-modern states spent way more on defense, and that is what would happen if US dominance weakens and large wars become plausible again.

> US-led global peace since WW2

This reads like a euphemism.

I get where you're coming from, considering the many smaller and proxy wars that the U.S. has involved itself in since WWII but the point of the other comment is also true to a great extent:

First, if you think Stalin wouldn't have taken his armies right to the Atlantic coast of France after crushing the Nazis, you'd be badly mistaken. It was specifically U.S. military power (and the atomic bomb) that stopped him from trying this. The rest of the allied powers were too exhausted and small to be credible deterrents.

After that, over the following decades on multiple occasions, the same thing applied, a major power, like the USSR or China was tacitly or openly stopped from taking things further or attacking more specifically because of US presence in the background. This applies to South Korea for sure, but also to many places in central Europe and elsewhere.

Today, the U.S. remains as the biggest deterrent of further Russian encroachment into places aside from those that it specifically considers its rightful domains (Ukraine, for example, where even foreign threats of retaliation couldn't stop a nationalistic sense of having the right to attack). I'd argue that this is one of the major reasons why Finland wasn't invaded long ago. (U.S. presence and the dawning realization among the Russian leadership that its supposedly strong remodernized military is much shittier, weaker and more corrupt than it was "supposed" to be.)

[delayed]

Technically you should add police too