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The week's question
In March 2025, in the thread "Re: OT, out", Umm asked the members: "Do you think it is because America is made up of magical soil that makes businesses based in America magically profitable?" This week it is put to everyone again. The button below opens the small thread re-asking it - read what others have said so far, then give your own answer as an ordinary reply.
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Author: albaby1 ✶❂🐝 GOLD
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Number: of 86252 
Subject: Re: Canada is seeking new friends
Date: 09/15/26 4:14 PM
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Of pretty much reducing their national defense capability to zero. Do I need to show you the numbers?

You keep missing the point. Maintaining good relations with other countries is not solely or exclusively determined by whether they have good national defense capability. You keep acting as though the UK not having good national defense capability is a good reason for damaging our relations with them, and when people point out that it's not you keep falling back to acting as if the debate is about the quality of their national defense.

It's not. It's dumb to damage your relations with an ally even if that ally doesn't have the same level of national defense expenditures or readiness than you do. Mostly that's because allies are important in a vast number of arenas, not just active military combat. Allies are important in diplomacy and international institutions and economic interactions and regulatory systems and financial matters and a host of other things. It's not just about the military readiness - especially in a world where our chief geopolitical rival is competing strongly in the economic and alliance game, not just the military game.

I am curious about the numbers, though. The UK seems to be generally rated as having one of the strongest militaries in the world:

globalfirepower.com - Countries listing
gosoced.org - Strongest military in the world
forceindex.militarywatchmagazine.com - National ranking
worldpopulationreview.com - Military strength by country

In the Top 10 in every ranking I could find. Doesn't seem consistent with "reducing their national defense capability to zero."

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This community has written 86,214 posts about US Policy. The article-length ones it recommended most:
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