Speaker 1: Guess what, mango, what's that? Well? Alright, so I was
Speaker 1: reading this article from the Guardian. This was back in
Speaker 1: two thousand twelve, I think, and it was about the
Speaker 1: Swiss Air Force. So there was this emergency with this
Speaker 1: hijack plane over Swiss territory, so like no small deal,
Speaker 1: something they really needed to deal with. But instead of
Speaker 1: the Swiss Air Force escorting the troubled plane back to
Speaker 1: Geneva and that would be typical, it was actually handled
Speaker 1: by the French and Italian air forces. So, um, why
Speaker 1: is that? Well, because it was six oh two am
Speaker 1: and apparently that was two hours before the Swiss Air
Speaker 1: Force came to work on and that can't be true. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they at least it wasn't two thousand fourteen. So here's
Speaker 1: a quote I found from the Guardian. It says, um,
Speaker 1: there's something almost too civilized about a country whose fighter
Speaker 1: jet stick to office hours. I mean, this is crazy.
Speaker 1: So they supposedly keep this eight to five schedule, they'll
Speaker 1: break for an hour and a half for lunch, and
Speaker 1: until two thousand seventeen there was no service on weekends.
Speaker 1: It's pretty crazy. And I know this all sounds crazy,
Speaker 1: but it was also because the Swiss didn't feel the
Speaker 1: need for it, and they're military budget and so they
Speaker 1: just they'd make arrangements when neighboring air forces to you know,
Speaker 1: be on call whenever they were off. And it's an
Speaker 1: interesting way to spend military money. I don't think this
Speaker 1: is how it's done in the U. S. If I'm
Speaker 1: not mistaken, but it did make me wonder like, how
Speaker 1: much does our country spend on the military and where
Speaker 1: exactly does that money go? And that's what today's episode
Speaker 1: is all about. Hey, their podcast listeners, Welcome to Part
Speaker 1: Time Genius. I'm Will Pearson and as always I'm joined
Speaker 1: by my good friend man gues Ticketer, and the man
Speaker 1: on the other side of the soundproof glass wearing camo
Speaker 1: in honor of today's topic is our friend and producer
Speaker 1: Tristan McNeil. He's always so prepared noticed this. Oh wait,
Speaker 1: he's saluting us, thinking, good job, Kristen. All right, so
Speaker 1: today we're answering the question how big is the U. S. Military?
Speaker 1: And we're gonna be answering that from a few different angles.
Speaker 1: You know, how much money has been how many people
Speaker 1: are employed by the military, how many bases does the
Speaker 1: US have and then other questions like how many countries
Speaker 1: are we obligated to protect based on treaties and you
Speaker 1: know things like this. Yeah, and our goal with this
Speaker 1: episode is to answer these questions out of pure curiosity,
Speaker 1: not to make any sort of political point. It's kind
Speaker 1: of funny when you cover a topic like these, people
Speaker 1: are always a little on edge and so ready to
Speaker 1: pounce if they sense any bias. It always makes me
Speaker 1: think about that time in Mental Floss and the year
Speaker 1: we published a cover of the magazine with the headline
Speaker 1: Wildest Rides to the White House. Yeah, and keep in
Speaker 1: mind this was about a decade ago. Anyway. The cover
Speaker 1: showed to roller coaster ride and in the roller coaster
Speaker 1: was I think Nixon and Teddy Roosevelt, Jimmy Carter and
Speaker 1: of course Hillary Clinton. Well, and if you remember, you
Speaker 1: could see Lincoln's hat flying off in the background. And
Speaker 1: now again, we we always tried to stay pretty free
Speaker 1: of politics Mental Flaws because we saw ourselves as kind
Speaker 1: of this break from the news and all of that.
Speaker 1: But that issue generated so much angry male like more
Speaker 1: than any other issue did from both sides of the
Speaker 1: political spectrum, and those on the left were angry that
Speaker 1: we used the photo of Hillary looking like she was screaming,
Speaker 1: and and those on the right, we're angry because Hillary
Speaker 1: didn't belong in that car, having never been a president.
Speaker 1: But the reality is we felt we had no other
Speaker 1: choice but to use that photo because there were no
Speaker 1: fewer than like a hundred photos online of Hillary doing
Speaker 1: the roller coaster face at least there are so many
Speaker 1: to choose from it. But you're right, I mean, it
Speaker 1: looked so real And you can actually google image search
Speaker 1: this cover today. Just type in mental Flaws, Wildest Rise
Speaker 1: to the White House and you'll see the cover that
Speaker 1: we're talking about. That's a great example of what we're
Speaker 1: dealing with here, And so as you listen to the episode,
Speaker 1: try to keep in mind what our goal is, and
Speaker 1: that's to answer this question. All right, So let's get started.
Speaker 1: You know, the timing on this topic is pretty interesting
Speaker 1: because while we're watching all of the fighting going on
Speaker 1: over healthcare and a new tax plan and things like
Speaker 1: the National Anthem, it almost went unnoticed that a couple
Speaker 1: of weeks ago, the Senate passed their version of the
Speaker 1: National Defense Authorization Act, and unlike so many other votes
Speaker 1: these days, this one wasn't even close. The vote was
Speaker 1: I think like eighty nine to eight, and they passed
Speaker 1: this authorization of a seven hundred billion dollar funding for
Speaker 1: the military for the upcoming fiscal year. And that happens
Speaker 1: to be even more than the Trump administration had proposed,
Speaker 1: which is crazy. And I thought it was a bill
Speaker 1: of over twelve hundred pages, and you know, well, one
Speaker 1: of these days I want to do an episode entirely
Speaker 1: on how bills of that length are actually drafted, because
Speaker 1: that's a lot of pages. Kidding, I wonder if anybody
Speaker 1: read all twelve hundred pages. But yeah, that's seven hundred
Speaker 1: billion included six hundred forty billion for basic Pentagon operations
Speaker 1: and then another sixty billion for ongoing war operations. So
Speaker 1: we're talking places like Iraq and Syria, Afghanistan, you know,
Speaker 1: those are the biggies in the group. Yeah, and so
Speaker 1: most of that funding goes to the Department of Defense,
Speaker 1: but there are additional funds to the Department of Energy,
Speaker 1: which is is uh, you know, responsible for the US
Speaker 1: nuclear program, the Department of Homeland Security, the Veterans Administration,
Speaker 1: the Military Retirement Trust Fund, and also health care for
Speaker 1: retired military members as well. As allocations for intelligence agencies
Speaker 1: because they have specific defense assignments. Yeah, and and and
Speaker 1: those also have money authorized separately. So there are some
Speaker 1: estimates you know that when you look at all the
Speaker 1: agencies involved in our national security and military it it
Speaker 1: may actually be closer to a trillion dollars annually. So
Speaker 1: if we go with that seven billion dollar figure, the
Speaker 1: military comes in second in terms of the largest federal expenditures.
Speaker 1: You know what's first? What's that Social Security that comes
Speaker 1: in around one trillion dollars? But where does that put
Speaker 1: us in comparison to other countries? Well, you can look
Speaker 1: at this in a few ways, but I think maybe
Speaker 1: we should look at it into So first you can
Speaker 1: look at it as total dollar amounts spent um, and
Speaker 1: then you can also look at it as a percentage
Speaker 1: of GDP. Now, in terms of total dollar amounts, the
Speaker 1: US spends more each year than the next eight countries combined.
Speaker 1: So what I want to tell me what those eight
Speaker 1: countries are? No, I want you to guess. All right,
Speaker 1: I'm looking at the two thousand sixteen figures here and
Speaker 1: and the estimates on the US spending from that year
Speaker 1: were about six hundred billion. Actually a little bit more
Speaker 1: than six hundred billion. So I mean, I probably have
Speaker 1: to guess the first two or past the US are
Speaker 1: China and Russia. Maybe yeah, you'd be right to guess
Speaker 1: them in exactly that order, but they're not as close
Speaker 1: as you might think. So the estimates I was looking
Speaker 1: at have China spending about two hundred and fifteen billion
Speaker 1: on their military and Russia only spending about sixty nine billion.
Speaker 1: So that's less than a third of what China spent.
Speaker 1: That's crazy, Um, But I mean I guess it kind
Speaker 1: of makes sense when you think about the population, because
Speaker 1: I think China's population is about like ten times that
Speaker 1: of Russia and they have something like one point four
Speaker 1: billion people. I think, yeah, that's a good point. But
Speaker 1: I feel like you're just kind of stalling. Here are
Speaker 1: you looking at your phone? I'm just texting with my mom. Okay,
Speaker 1: all right, Well what's your next guest? Um? Germany? I
Speaker 1: guess yeah, they coming at number nine at forty one
Speaker 1: billion dollars, And uh, what you know, North Korea is
Speaker 1: in the news. How where where do they fit into this? Well,
Speaker 1: you know, they spend a massive amount on their military.
Speaker 1: We all know that. But because they're so secretive we
Speaker 1: actually really can't know, so they're not included in the
Speaker 1: list that I'm looking at here, So we're gonna put
Speaker 1: them aside for now. But alright, one more guests and
Speaker 1: then I'll just go ahead and tell you the rest
Speaker 1: of the list. How about the UK, Yeah, they coming
Speaker 1: at number six at about forty eight billions. So let's
Speaker 1: go back to the top ones here at fourth is
Speaker 1: Saudi Arabia sixty yeah, and then India at fifty five billion.
Speaker 1: And one of the things surprised me the most in
Speaker 1: terms of just how high they ranked is France at
Speaker 1: fifty six billion dollars. Then you've got the UK as
Speaker 1: we mentioned, Japan, Germany as we also mentioned, and then
Speaker 1: South Korea rounding at the top ten at about thirty
Speaker 1: seven billion dollars. So I think you're saying it's a
Speaker 1: slightly different picture if you look at the spending as
Speaker 1: a percentage of the g d P. Yeah, it's you know,
Speaker 1: it's interesting, not just to look at it in terms
Speaker 1: of how much other countries spend and comparing it to that,
Speaker 1: but even looking at it, you know, it's compared to
Speaker 1: previous decades. So the US spends a smaller percentage of
Speaker 1: its GDP on military now than it did in the
Speaker 1: mid twentieth century. And that's also the case for most
Speaker 1: countries in Europe and the Americas. So let's go back
Speaker 1: to nineteen sixty and we were talking about in the
Speaker 1: neighborhood of like eight point four percent of our GDP
Speaker 1: being spent on the military at that time here in
Speaker 1: the US at least, and in two thousand and sixteen
Speaker 1: that was only three point three percent. So it's a
Speaker 1: significant decline when you're looking at it in those terms.
Speaker 1: And according to the World Bank, the world average in
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty was around six percent. Today it's around two
Speaker 1: point two percent. So you've seen a decline really across
Speaker 1: the globe in terms of percent of GDP. But last year,
Speaker 1: the country that spent the most on their military as
Speaker 1: a percentage of GDP was Oman at thirteen point seven
Speaker 1: uh Saudi Arabia being a close a second there, let's
Speaker 1: see they were at just under ten percent, and then
Speaker 1: the Democratic Republic of the Congo at a little over
Speaker 1: seven percent. Now, again keep in mind that because North
Speaker 1: Korea is so secretive about all this, we really don't
Speaker 1: know exactly what they spend. But I've seen some reports
Speaker 1: that were guessing around thirty of their GDP being spent
Speaker 1: on the military, which I clearly that that isn't that surprising.
Speaker 1: But so, so back to the u S. How is
Speaker 1: that money divvied up? All? Right? Well, since the vast
Speaker 1: majority goes to the Department of Defenses budget, so let's
Speaker 1: let's look at that right now. The biggest percentage of
Speaker 1: that at about goes to their general day to day
Speaker 1: operation and maintenance. So you know, this includes things like
Speaker 1: equipment maintenance and training and healthcare program. And you know,
Speaker 1: it's also where civilian employees and contractors go, which I
Speaker 1: feel like we should talk about in a bit, But
Speaker 1: this isn't where the members of the military go. Now,
Speaker 1: that's a separate category of its own, and that makes
Speaker 1: up about twenty seven or twenty eight percent, And that
Speaker 1: includes not just the pay for those in uniform, but
Speaker 1: things like housing and subsistence allowances and other costs like
Speaker 1: those moving you know, military families to new locations stuff
Speaker 1: like that. So I'm scribbling these numbers down fort Okay, so,
Speaker 1: speaking of military families living on bases around the world,
Speaker 1: I just wanted to do this quick Tangent. Do you
Speaker 1: know that stores on military basis don't accept pennies and nickels?
Speaker 1: Apparently they're not worth their costs and shipping because they
Speaker 1: way too much. But back to your Matthew, I scribbled
Speaker 1: it down and it looks like it's at about sixty
Speaker 1: seven or sixty eight percent between those two. So what
Speaker 1: else is on there? Well, first of all, I enjoyed
Speaker 1: that Tangent. I did not know that. Well, the other
Speaker 1: big category, about thirty one percent, combines all the investment
Speaker 1: in new technologies, you know, R and D, as well
Speaker 1: as testing an evaluation of that R and D work,
Speaker 1: and this is some really fascinating stuff and it's no
Speaker 1: surprise that it would require a ton of money to
Speaker 1: stay on top of the latest technologies, really in many
Speaker 1: ways to create the latest technologies, when you think about
Speaker 1: how important that is for the military. So let me
Speaker 1: just give an example of this. And as a side note,
Speaker 1: it's super interesting to look through the various budget allowances
Speaker 1: for specific R and D projects, and you can do
Speaker 1: this through the Department of Defense Investment budgets search. Alright,
Speaker 1: So so the example here the armies zero six zero
Speaker 1: three seven one zero A night Vision Advanced Technology. I
Speaker 1: have no idea what those numbers stand for, but I
Speaker 1: kind of like saying that to just make me sound official.
Speaker 1: I know, I was gonna ask if you're sequence in
Speaker 1: the army Army reserves. Yeah, I'm not at liberty to
Speaker 1: say a mango, so but but but anyway, the cost
Speaker 1: for the fiscal year two thousand and seventeen is just
Speaker 1: shy of forty five billion dollars. And here's the description
Speaker 1: of that project. Project Case seven zero pursues technologies that
Speaker 1: improve the soldiers ability to see at night and provide
Speaker 1: rapid wide area search to enable passive long range target identification.
Speaker 1: Evaluate sensors and algorithms designed to detect targets, you know,
Speaker 1: whether that's vehicles or personnel, and in camouflage or concealment
Speaker 1: and deception from airborne platforms. So this is some super
Speaker 1: sophisticated stuff. Yeah, and and I mean they're spending four
Speaker 1: million dollars on it, so it's got to be pretty incredible.
Speaker 1: But uh so, according to my map based on your number,
Speaker 1: is I think that all adds up to about eight
Speaker 1: or of my calculations are correct. Yeah, there's a few
Speaker 1: other things there, so that the remaining like two ish
Speaker 1: person is a combination of smaller things like military construction
Speaker 1: or family housing, just a few odds and ends that
Speaker 1: all add up right there. So this is the thing
Speaker 1: that just like baffles me with with such a huge
Speaker 1: budget and so many people involved in making these spending decisions, like,
Speaker 1: how is all of that managed? Well, it's definitely not easy,
Speaker 1: and they've actually had some issues with this, and so
Speaker 1: they brought in some people from Mackenzie to even consult
Speaker 1: on this and and just to make sure they could
Speaker 1: wrap their heads around how all the money was being spent.
Speaker 1: So this was back in two thousand, fourteen and fifteen,
Speaker 1: and the Department of Defense found that it was spending
Speaker 1: about a fourth of its budget on overhead and administrative matters.
Speaker 1: So that's a ton of people in it, and you
Speaker 1: can imagine that it's difficult to really keep a handle
Speaker 1: on that and easy to see how that could swell
Speaker 1: out of control in some ways, or at least do
Speaker 1: so in a way that they don't know exactly how
Speaker 1: it's being spent. So, in fact, the Pentagon's back office
Speaker 1: bureaucracy employed over a million people, so that's about three
Speaker 1: hundred thousand of those being in the military, almost four
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty thousand of those being civilians, and then
Speaker 1: another two hundred sixty eight thousand I think it was
Speaker 1: being contractors. It's a lot of people. So Mackenzie and
Speaker 1: this advisory board, they worked to help the Department of
Speaker 1: Defense kind of you get a much better handle on
Speaker 1: what they were spending. And after their analysis, they realized
Speaker 1: the department was spending about fifty more than they'd previously
Speaker 1: guessed on business operations alone. That's kind of crazy. So well,
Speaker 1: I I definitely have a couple of other questions for
Speaker 1: you before we get to the size of the military
Speaker 1: from a personal perspective, which I actually looked into. But
Speaker 1: before we tackle any of that, why don't we break
Speaker 1: for a quick quiz? All right, mango, So it's time
Speaker 1: to play a little quiz. And as you know, we've
Speaker 1: allowed some of our listeners to write in and tell
Speaker 1: us why they should be on the show. And one
Speaker 1: of those wrote in. His name is Liam and he
Speaker 1: was a nuclear trained electrician on submarines in the Navy.
Speaker 1: How perfect an episode on How Big is the US Military?
Speaker 1: But Liam, welcome to Part time Genius. Thank you, glad
Speaker 1: to be here and where are you joining us from
Speaker 1: Hampton Roads, Virginia? Okay, terrific? All right, well, you know,
Speaker 1: let's let's start with that fact that you were a
Speaker 1: nuclear trained electrician on submarines in the Navy. So, so
Speaker 1: what exactly is a nuclear trained electrician? So? Uh? By rate?
Speaker 1: Uh or you know, job description. When I joined the Navy,
Speaker 1: I was an electrician. I went to school for that,
Speaker 1: and then later went to school to learn how to
Speaker 1: operate and maintain a nuclear power plant because all of
Speaker 1: our submarines are nuclear powered and the aircraft carriers are
Speaker 1: also nuclear powered, and that was that was the job
Speaker 1: I got to do. Wow, well, thank you for doing
Speaker 1: a good job with that. That's really cool. Um. And
Speaker 1: so how long were you on submarines for? Uh? Well,
Speaker 1: I was in the Navy for thirteen years. Most of
Speaker 1: that time was was on board submarines, with a short
Speaker 1: stint at a shore duty command and the training before that,
Speaker 1: so I don't say about eight of those years I
Speaker 1: was on submarines. Wow, what's the most fun thing that
Speaker 1: happens on submarines? The most fun thing? Well, I'd probably
Speaker 1: say halfway night, um, halfway through underway and schedule underway.
Speaker 1: We have a little celebration just getting to that port
Speaker 1: point and knowing that, you know, it's all down hail
Speaker 1: from there. We're heading home soon. That's awesome. Yeah. Well, well, Liam,
Speaker 1: you may have thought it was a tough job to
Speaker 1: to be an electrician in the Navy, but but actually
Speaker 1: we've got something even tougher for you. We've got one
Speaker 1: of our very important quizzes. Mango. What's the name of
Speaker 1: today's quiz. It's called Oh captain, my captain? All right,
Speaker 1: So every answer is a fictional captain, and we're gonna
Speaker 1: see how many of these eight fictional captains you can
Speaker 1: get right in. What are we saying? Ninety seconds? So
Speaker 1: we're gonna set the clock to ninety seconds. This is
Speaker 1: some high press your stuff, just like summer in, just
Speaker 1: like submarines. Are you ready, Liam, I'm ready? All right,
Speaker 1: here we go. We'll get started. The captain that hung
Speaker 1: out with Spock on the Enterprise. Also his middle name
Speaker 1: is Tiberius Captain Kirk, that's right. This captain is featured
Speaker 1: on cereal boxes and sales the s s Guppy Captain Crunch.
Speaker 1: This captain considers Peter Pan his nemesis, but he's more
Speaker 1: afraid of crocodiles. Hook Hook Hook. This captain is from
Speaker 1: a kid show played by Bob Keishan was named for
Speaker 1: a marsupial. Oh Captain, Kangaroo. That's right. This captain sits
Speaker 1: on the label of spiced rum bottles. Oh Captain. This
Speaker 1: captain once punched Hitler on the cover of his comic
Speaker 1: book Captain America. This captain was featured in Moby Dick
Speaker 1: Moby Dick that one my mom would would would kill
Speaker 1: me for not knowing that she was big in the literature.
Speaker 1: But don't remember that. Let's go to the last one
Speaker 1: real quick. This captain slash environmental superhero used to save
Speaker 1: the Earth on Saturday mornings. Captain Planet. He's a hero.
Speaker 1: So Liam went seven for eight. He still had thirty
Speaker 1: seconds on o'clock and he just missed Captain Ahab. That's
Speaker 1: the only one in which which I think probably qualifies
Speaker 1: in for a big prize. What do you think. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we're gonna send you a big box of Captain crunch. Well, Liam,
Speaker 1: thanks so much for all the work you did in
Speaker 1: the U. S. Navy, and thanks so much for joining
Speaker 1: us on part time genius. Oh thanks for having me, guys,
Speaker 1: I I really enjoyed it. Thank you. Welcome back to
Speaker 1: part time Genius now le Mango. Before the break, you
Speaker 1: were saying you had a couple more questions and before
Speaker 1: we dive into personnel and look at our bases around
Speaker 1: the world, let's let's talk about those. Yes, something I've
Speaker 1: seen several reporters write about only is something they referred
Speaker 1: to as the quote black budget. Okay, can you explain
Speaker 1: what that is? Yeah? Sure, that this is where the
Speaker 1: funding for you know, covert military programs comes from. And
Speaker 1: and in most recent years it appears this was something
Speaker 1: like fifty to sixty billion dollars allocated to to this
Speaker 1: black budget. And there was a really interesting Wired article
Speaker 1: back in two thousand and twelve, and the quote from
Speaker 1: that it says, to put it in perspective, the Pentagon
Speaker 1: is still spending more unclassified projects than most nations spend
Speaker 1: on their entire military forces in a year. So that
Speaker 1: doesn't include the regular budget for intelligence funding, right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So when you include the funding from you know, the
Speaker 1: national intelligence program, which is where agencies like the CIA
Speaker 1: would fall, we're talking another fifty billion or so. So
Speaker 1: when it's all added up, we're probably looking at like
Speaker 1: a hundred and twenty billion dollars for these black accounts,
Speaker 1: as you call them. Sure, and and these days the
Speaker 1: US is covert and intelligence gathering operations are super important
Speaker 1: and a big part of the way the government looks
Speaker 1: to protect citizens from terrorist attacks or other dangers. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and and the amounts have fallen in a pretty similar
Speaker 1: range for many years now. And and during the Cold
Speaker 1: War spending was almost certainly about the same, though it's
Speaker 1: really difficult to pull historical data on intelligence spending for
Speaker 1: for reasons that aren't all that surprising. But all right, well,
Speaker 1: why don't we jump to personnel now, since this is
Speaker 1: something that you looked into, So why don't you tell
Speaker 1: me what you got. Sure, So, I've pulled a lot
Speaker 1: of numbers, and and here's the overall sense of it.
Speaker 1: In two thousand fifteen, the U s is total number
Speaker 1: of active duty military personnel was a million threety seven thousand,
Speaker 1: And that's just shy of five percent of the total
Speaker 1: number of active duty military personnel in the entire world. So,
Speaker 1: and that's if you combine all the militaries of all
Speaker 1: the countries, and then if you include the reserve forces,
Speaker 1: the current number of military personnel is over three point
Speaker 1: five million. That means that about point four percent of
Speaker 1: the US population is on active duty and a little
Speaker 1: over one percent or either active duty or reserve personnel.
Speaker 1: And how does that compare to previous years? I mean,
Speaker 1: I feel like that total number is down a little
Speaker 1: bit over the past couple of decades. Right, Yeah, So
Speaker 1: if you go back to like two thousand, the total
Speaker 1: number of active duty is a little over five percent
Speaker 1: smaller now than it was back in two thousand. And
Speaker 1: if you go back to all military branches except for
Speaker 1: the Coastguard, have really seen a decrease in active duty members,
Speaker 1: Like the current military is active duty is historically small
Speaker 1: for everything post World War Two. All right, well, why
Speaker 1: don't you tell me what the breakdown looks branch by branch.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think the Army is the largest, right,
Speaker 1: So I've got these numbers here. The Army has just
Speaker 1: over four hundred sixty thousand on active duty, The Navy
Speaker 1: has about three twenty thousand, the Air Force has about
Speaker 1: three hundred eighteen thousand, and the Marines have about a
Speaker 1: hundred eighty five thousand. And then you've got the Coast
Speaker 1: Guard with much smaller. It's at forty thousand. Actually, I
Speaker 1: didn't realize the Navy and the Air Force were so
Speaker 1: close in size. I mean, I kind of always assumed
Speaker 1: the Navy was much bigger for some reason. But speaking
Speaker 1: of the Air Force, I know it's time for you
Speaker 1: to go to Tangent Town. I know you would bring
Speaker 1: up this fact, so I'm gonna go ahead and tee
Speaker 1: you up for it. But I'm assuming you know some
Speaker 1: of our listeners probably know this, but just in case,
Speaker 1: we've got got Bob Ross to talk about. Yeah, Bob Ross,
Speaker 1: And I suppose this one's pretty well known, kind of
Speaker 1: like the Julia child being a spy thing, but it's
Speaker 1: still pretty great. So you know, Bob Ross, who everyone
Speaker 1: knows is the guy who painted happy little trees and
Speaker 1: I could do that in his sleep and helped us
Speaker 1: all find inner peace through his art. He was actually
Speaker 1: a master sergeant in the US Air Force, and he
Speaker 1: was apparently required to be mean and tough. He even
Speaker 1: said he was the guy who would be forced to
Speaker 1: yell at you to clean a latrine until it sparkled.
Speaker 1: And after twenty years in the military he decided enough
Speaker 1: was enough and he would never scream again, and that
Speaker 1: was three years before he started The Joy of Painting.
Speaker 1: I never saw him scream on that. Also, he hated
Speaker 1: his perm Oh nice tangent. All right, Well, I've got
Speaker 1: a couple of quick facts on my own here about
Speaker 1: the Coast Guard, which often gets ignored when people talk
Speaker 1: about the military because you know, it is pretty small,
Speaker 1: and actually it's even smaller than the size of the
Speaker 1: New York City Police Department. I don't know if you
Speaker 1: do that as far as personnel goes, but they're definitely
Speaker 1: an active force. I saw one stat according to military
Speaker 1: dot Com, the Coast Guard sees is a hundred and
Speaker 1: sixty nine pounds of marijuana and three hundred and six
Speaker 1: pounds of cocaine, worth just shy of ten million dollars
Speaker 1: every single day, every day. What do they do with
Speaker 1: all those drugs? Well, I think they've got this like
Speaker 1: massive toilet that they flush it down. Actually have no
Speaker 1: idea what they do with all of it. I mean,
Speaker 1: if that's every single day, that's an enormous amount. But
Speaker 1: it's crazy. Alright. So, so you mentioned the active duty forces,
Speaker 1: but but we've also got the reserve forces, and that's
Speaker 1: not a small number. Of people. Yeah, the various divisions
Speaker 1: of the U S Military serve Forces are are where
Speaker 1: you'll find another eight hundred twenty six thousand people in
Speaker 1: the selected reserves. So this would include members of the
Speaker 1: National Guard and those in the reserves that be called
Speaker 1: into active duty. About two thirds of these come from
Speaker 1: the Army National art and the Army Reserves. But in addition,
Speaker 1: you've got you know, the Navy Reserve, of the Marine Corps, Reserve,
Speaker 1: of the Air National Guard, the Air Force Reserve, and
Speaker 1: also the Coastguard Reserve. Wow. That's a lot to keep
Speaker 1: up with. But all right, well, let's get to our
Speaker 1: presence around the world. And I'm guessing you're talking about
Speaker 1: the hundred seventy golf courses around the world that the
Speaker 1: military is responsible for. No. I mean, but somebody's got
Speaker 1: to keep those greens green and those sand traps trappy. Right,
Speaker 1: that's an old saying, I think, Are you serious A
Speaker 1: hundred and seventy golf courses. Yes, these are on militaries
Speaker 1: or it's their recreation spots in various places around the world.
Speaker 1: But let's back up a little and talk about those numbers.
Speaker 1: If you count the small installations the US military currently
Speaker 1: has about eight hundred bases abroad and in about eighty countries,
Speaker 1: and all other countries combined have about thirty bases outside
Speaker 1: their own borders. Oh wow, So that's eight hundred bases
Speaker 1: around the world for the US and just thirty for
Speaker 1: all other countries combined. Is way more than thirty. I'm
Speaker 1: pretty sure where we went on that, and that's incredible.
Speaker 1: All right, Well, I'm hoping you can walk us through
Speaker 1: how this came to be, but but actually, first, can
Speaker 1: you just explain like how a base is defined? Yeah, so,
Speaker 1: so the definition can vary a bit based on who
Speaker 1: you ask, But according to David Vine, the author of
Speaker 1: Base Nation Quote, bases come in all sizes and shapes,
Speaker 1: from massive sides in Germany and Japan to small radar
Speaker 1: facilities in Peru and Puerto Rico. Other bases include posts
Speaker 1: and air fields, repair facilities, nuclear weapon installations, warehouses, military schools,
Speaker 1: drone bases, military hospitals. It's all that type of thing.
Speaker 1: And even military resorts and recreation areas in places like
Speaker 1: Tuscany and Soul those are also kind of bases. And
Speaker 1: that's where we get the hundred seventy golf courses that
Speaker 1: is a lot. Actually, I was reading about one of
Speaker 1: these bases. I've never heard about this before, but in
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty have you have you heard of Camp Century.
Speaker 1: So it was this top secret US military base and
Speaker 1: they were looking for a place to house certain missiles,
Speaker 1: and so they built this base under the ice sheets
Speaker 1: in Greenland. Was just unbelievable, and it was, you know,
Speaker 1: they pretended that this place was there for climate research,
Speaker 1: and so there was something like two people there and
Speaker 1: it was actually powered by the world's first portable nuclear reactors.
Speaker 1: So it's a pretty fascinating place. And it went without
Speaker 1: anyone knowing about it until Denmark uncovered this base. I
Speaker 1: think it was in like nine so we're talking like
Speaker 1: thirty years or so before anybody realized this thing was there.
Speaker 1: That's crazy, all right, But but I guess what may
Speaker 1: be more surprising to me, since we, you know, we
Speaker 1: grew up knowing that our military head bases all over
Speaker 1: the world, is that other really big countries have so few. Yeah. So,
Speaker 1: according to a couple counts, I saw, the US has
Speaker 1: somewhere around of the world's foreign basis, and yet China
Speaker 1: just opened its first military base abroad in Djibouty last month.
Speaker 1: That really is surprising. So as far as our presence
Speaker 1: around the world, I mean, how did this come to be?
Speaker 1: I'm assuming like World War Two was a big part
Speaker 1: of this. Yeah, the U. S. Began building military bases abroad,
Speaker 1: and by the end of World War Two we had
Speaker 1: over two thousand, and now about half of those were
Speaker 1: abandoned after the war. And and then you see this
Speaker 1: up and down as we built more during the Korean
Speaker 1: and Vietnam Wars and then declined after each and then
Speaker 1: back up again during the Cold War. During the nineties,
Speaker 1: the military abandoned a little more than half of those,
Speaker 1: and and today we have about half as many bases,
Speaker 1: but in twice as many countries as we did in Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's just looking back that number you mentioned at the
Speaker 1: end of World War two, so two thousand bases around
Speaker 1: the world. Yeah, and if you consider how quickly they
Speaker 1: were built, it's also really wild. So according to mine,
Speaker 1: by ninety five, the U. S. Military was building base
Speaker 1: facilities at a rate of a hundred twelve a month,
Speaker 1: and in only five years, the US had developed history's
Speaker 1: first truly global network of bases. And he says it
Speaker 1: vastly overshadowed out of the British Empire upon which the
Speaker 1: sun never set. It's definitely an impressive accomplishment for sure.
Speaker 1: And you know, it makes more sense when I look
Speaker 1: back at the annual budget and see that the maintenance
Speaker 1: of bases costs somewhere like five ninety billion dollars each year. Well,
Speaker 1: there's one other piece of this that I think we
Speaker 1: need to know, and that's the obligation the US has
Speaker 1: to provide military to others. What do you mean by that? Well,
Speaker 1: this political science professor from Tufts his his name's Michael Beckley.
Speaker 1: He looked at the network of treaties and all the
Speaker 1: defensive packs we've entered into since World War Two, and
Speaker 1: through those we're actually bound to protect sixty nine nations
Speaker 1: comprising of the world's population. But you know that there's
Speaker 1: an economic and economic stability aspect to these nations also
Speaker 1: represent of the global economy in terms of output. Wow,
Speaker 1: so t of the world's population, and I have to
Speaker 1: assume some of these came about from these like big
Speaker 1: multi nation agreements that we've entered in over the years. Yeah, definitely,
Speaker 1: So you've got the big ease like the Organization of
Speaker 1: American States, the os or NATO UM, the Australian New
Speaker 1: Zealand and U. S. Security Treaty, and and then there's
Speaker 1: several like by Lateral Defensive fact so um, most of
Speaker 1: these we signed in the fifties and early sixties, but
Speaker 1: there were places like Israel, Japan, Pakistan, Philippine and South Korea, Taiwan.
Speaker 1: I mean there's just a few of them. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: I mean I guess I would add it to a
Speaker 1: significant percentage of the world's population. So well, I don't
Speaker 1: know about you, but I definitely learned a lot about
Speaker 1: how big the US military is today. But we're not
Speaker 1: done yet because there's one more really important thing to
Speaker 1: take care of, the PGG fact off. That's right, ye,
Speaker 1: all right, so I'll kick us off here. So we've
Speaker 1: been talking about how much larger the U. S. Military
Speaker 1: is than all other countries. So it's not a surprise
Speaker 1: that the U. S. Air Force is the largest air
Speaker 1: force in the world. But you know what the second
Speaker 1: largest air force in the world is. It's the U. S. Navy.
Speaker 1: It's a true question. Got you on that one. Well,
Speaker 1: speaking of lots of planes, I I laughed when I
Speaker 1: saw a fact that after off Gun came out in
Speaker 1: six the Navy saw this huge increase in the number
Speaker 1: of men who wanted to become naval aviators, reportedly by
Speaker 1: as much as five. Apparently they're just low high five.
Speaker 1: And all right, Well, I guess we're just gonna keep
Speaker 1: talking about big records here. So take a guess who
Speaker 1: the largest employer in America is the Army. No, it's
Speaker 1: another trick question. It's Walmart whatever, two million employees. I
Speaker 1: think it's actually like two point two million. About one
Speaker 1: point three million of those are actually based in the US.
Speaker 1: But the Army comes in second with about a million
Speaker 1: and active duty or the reserves. Okay, so I'm going
Speaker 1: to go back to the Air Force for another fact. Apparently,
Speaker 1: after researchers looked into how bumblebees fly, the Air Force
Speaker 1: was so inspired to use the air dynamics discovered from
Speaker 1: the research that they developed the F one seventeen fighter.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, that's pretty crazy. Well, there's this really interesting
Speaker 1: article for Atlas Obscure that's definitely worth looking up, and
Speaker 1: it's about how the US government spent more than twenty
Speaker 1: million dollars over the course of a couple of decades,
Speaker 1: and they did is to train telepaths to help the military.
Speaker 1: Curious how that all turned out. Um, So you may
Speaker 1: remember from a few years ago a few people try
Speaker 1: to make a big deal online about a marine holding
Speaker 1: this umbrella over President Obama and the rain. Everyone was
Speaker 1: up in arms because while female Marines are allowed to
Speaker 1: carry umbrella, as male marines are instructed early on that
Speaker 1: they're not to hold an umbrella no matter how hard
Speaker 1: it's raining. However, as Marine spokesman Captain Eric Flanagan told
Speaker 1: The Washington Post, according to the US Code, marines are
Speaker 1: to quote perform such other duties as the President may direct.
Speaker 1: So that means if the President says he wants an
Speaker 1: umbrella held over him, he's gonna get an umbrella held
Speaker 1: over him. I vaguely remember this, but that's some serious
Speaker 1: controversy there, And you know, I feel like a fact
Speaker 1: about an umbrella controversy is worthy of the PTG Trophy.
Speaker 1: So I'm going to give you today's prize. So congratulations.
Speaker 1: But before we go, what episodes that we have coming
Speaker 1: up manga? We've got some good ones, right, Yeah, We've
Speaker 1: got two really good ones in works. We've got the
Speaker 1: incredibly important history of Breakfast Cereal. I know we're both
Speaker 1: huge fans of Cereals, so that should be a good one.
Speaker 1: And and then next week we're looking at the worst
Speaker 1: jobs in America. Yeah, both of those are going to
Speaker 1: be really fun. And thank you again to all our
Speaker 1: listeners who are writing to us at Part Time Genius
Speaker 1: and How Stuff Works dot com or calling seven Fact hotline.
Speaker 1: It is still seven magas one eight four four pt Genius,
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Speaker 1: Thanks so much for listening, Thanks again for listening. Part
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