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Subject: US Forces 'black' budget = 2nd biggest military on Earth
Duubz    5/8/2009 6:10:50 AM
There's controversy already in America regarding the first Obama administration detailed Defense budget plans, announced yesterday. Some are painting the plans as a cuts package, others disagree. What's clear is that the US military's top-secret (or "black") budget is now on the same level as the whole of UK defence spending - and the UK has the second biggest defence budget in the world. According to veteran black-budget watcher and secret-plane journalist Bill Sweetman, editor of Defense Technology International, the planned black budget for fiscal year 2010 is just over $50bn. That's about £33bn at current rates, a bit less than the total UK defence budget - but only a bit. It wouldn't be inaccurate in money terms to say that one could rank the top few armed forces in the world thus: 1) Mainstream US armed forces $490bn-odd 2) UK armed forces $60bn 3) Chinese armed forces $58bn 4) French armed forces $54bn 5) "Black" US forces $50bn+ 6) Japanese Self-Defence forces $44bn And indeed there's probably more secret US military funding than this. The US government declines to disclose exactly what the CIA's budget is, but both the Agency and other non-military spooks do get money of their own. Some of this is spent on military or quasi-military activities: for example the CIA were heavily involved in development of the famous SR-71 "Blackbird" turbo-ramjet spy plane back in the Cold War, and it was sometimes flown by CIA pilots. Likewise the CIA is known to have deployed significant numbers of armed "paramilitary" operatives on foreign soil from time to time - sometimes local mercenaries, sometimes US personnel. It's an open secret that the agency has a significant fleet of armed Predator drones which it uses to eliminate people in places like Yemen and Pakistan. So one could probably add at least a few CIA paramilitary billions to the Defense black budget, putting the US secret forces up in the number three or even two spot. To be sure, much of the secret cash - probably a majority - is nowadays spent building and operating spy satellites, which aren't weapons in a conventional sense. Even so, that in itself is fairly jaw-dropping. Say $20bn or $30bn for the black space programme, then - and compare that to the entire NASA budget for 2008, at just over $17bn. However you slice it, America's secret services alone are a fairly high-ranking world power in their own right - and nobody except them (and perhaps a few politicians in Washington) has a good handle on what they're doing. ® Article from http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/05/08/us_dod_black_budget/
 
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stbretnco       5/8/2009 6:17:50 AM
Chinese armed forces $58Bn?
 
Tell me another story, sunshine.
 
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Duubz       5/8/2009 6:18:28 AM
Bit of a contradiction between the name of the article and the article itself but an interesting article anyway. Makes you wonder exactly what sort of black projects are going on with that sort of cash being pumped into them.
 
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Duubz       5/8/2009 6:22:41 AM

Chinese armed forces $58Bn?

 

Tell me another story, sunshine.



I see estimates of the Chinese armed forces budget from anywhere between $53 billion and $70+ billion. I think the author of this article was probably going for one of the official estimates, not including all the little extras which would make sense considering they're looking at the U.S budget in the same was in this article.
 
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stbretnco       5/8/2009 6:42:05 AM
From Global Security:
 
China?s declared military budget in 2003 was $22.3 billion at official exchange rates. Accurately estimating Chinese military expenditures is a difficult process due to the lack of accounting transparency. Various government and independent calculations for the PLA?s expenditures for 2003 ? the most recent year for which a significant number of institutions published estimates ? ranged from $30.6 billion to $141 billion based on official exchange rates or purchasing power parity (PPP) models.
 
$141 billion I'd believe, but it would be hard to get a real figure. Slave Labor and technology theft do cut down a touch on the personnel and R+D budgets.
 
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french stratege       5/8/2009 11:50:50 AM
Non western countries like China or Iran are entirely blacks for their armed force budgeting.
They can say what they want.Nobody inside their country will contradict what official papers say.
 
Even in France (or some other Europeans countries like Germany) we have some stuffs which are not publicly known abroad or inside France.However in France it is done differently than in USA just because armed forces are not compelled to give detailled spending to parlement.
In Israel they don't publish a detailled budget.Try to find on internet detailled Israeli budget;You will not find anything.
US needs black programs because US normal constitutional law ask for detailled reporting to Congress.
 
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french stratege       5/8/2009 11:55:26 AM
And UK is far to be the second defense budget
Russian or China spend much more in purchasing power parity.
When your manpower cost 3 to 10 time less, of course military purchasing power parity has to be adjusted.
 
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Nanheyangrouchuan       5/8/2009 11:55:35 PM




Chinese armed forces $58Bn?



 



Tell me another story, sunshine.








I see estimates of the Chinese armed forces budget from anywhere between $53 billion and $70+ billion. I think the author of this article was probably going for one of the official estimates, not including all the little extras which would make sense considering they're looking at the U.S budget in the same was in this article.


 
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Spiky       5/10/2009 12:34:49 AM
Lets see if these are the numbers:
Total base line budget for 2010 is $533.8 billion given to Congress by the Pentagon.
$490 billion (Mainstream U.S. Armed Forces)  +  $50 billion (Black U.S. Forces)  =  $540 billion
$540 B - $533.8 B  =  $6.2 B (Approximate Difference)
 
This does not even include the the extra war funding for Iraq and Afghanistan for 2010 which is $130 billion.
So now we are looking at:
$540 B (Armed Forces & Black Funding)  +  $130 B (Iraq & Afghan)  =  $670 Billion Total for just 2010 alone.
 
Let's put this in perspective to something we are familiar with:
Obama's $877 Billion (Stimulus Package)  -  $670 Billion (Armed Forces, Black, War Funding)  =  $200 Billion Difference.
 
 
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Spiky       5/10/2009 12:40:49 AM
My bad, that last figure should be $207 Billion Difference.
 
(That is what happens when I do math and type quickly in my head)
 
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xylene       5/10/2009 12:54:10 AM
Regarding purchasing power parity, the USA is not getting an absolute 400 billion dollar advantage over China or Russia. I believe a sizable portion of the US military budget is spent on salaries, benefits and healthcare to spouses/dependents, housing, retirements, and education.
 
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