Here is a map of the World with each country resized to reflect its net exports of crude oil. The big giant green blob is of course Saudi Arabia. One expects the Persian Gulf to be huge but its surprising to see how big Norway and Britain are, or for that matter Africa. See if you can name all the countries.
And here is one by military spending. The United States accounts for as much as the rest of the World combined.
These are both from WorldMapper. Check it out for more awesome maps.
On the latter map, it should be noted that the pieces related to germany and japan are not independent of the US. I’ve heard different sources that go so far as to say that the expense of us military bases in japan are shouldered by the japanese. Not sure of the details though.
True, both are basically paying the US to occupy them. Also not included are two huge components – the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (these are 2002 numbers) and of course veteran care and pensions. To be sure, the latter is excluded from other numbers too. Would love to see the real numbers that are current.
Sent from my iPad