Today in America I believe that we view our country as being “all powerful” and in some aspects this assumption may be true. However, I do not believe that we are becoming more militarized by any sense. Sure we may have spend more money on homeland security and deployed more troops overseas than in the recent couple decades but, it is not a drastic enough increase to deem it a substantial increase. If you look at numbers of troops and money spent from the 1940s during world war II, it is drastically larger than anything we see today.
On the other hand, I believe we must define the term “Militarized”. If we are talking about amount or strength of weapons we are in possession of, then yes, maybe I would have to assume that the US is becoming more militarized than in the past. This could also only be from increased technology and threats. If we define militarized as aggressiveness or amount of troops deployed then I would say we are probably not. In my opinion, the US must adjust to each situation it faces and determine militarization accordingly.
I disagree, I think the increase in military spending has been very substantial. For example, military spending increased 85% from 2000 to 2011. We are becoming more militarized not only in the money we allocate to military spending, but in the way that militarization has become an integral part of our cultural. In his blog, Matthew mentioned that militarization is something we have become too accustomed to and that we have become desensitized to America’s seemingly constant military involvement in other countries. So, American militarization is reflected not only in our budget, but in our cultural.
Also, I agree that like every question we address we have to be clear with our definitions. But it seems to me that no matter how you define militarization we will still conclude that the US is becoming not only more militarized but too militarized.