http://www.globalsecurity.org/milita...d/spending.htm
US - $466 billion
China – $65 billion

http://www.policyalmanac.org/world/d...spending.shtml
Summary of the FY 2003 Defense Budget
(signed into law on October 23, 2002)
House Republicans: Committee Central
The bill reported by the Defense Appropriations Conference provides a total of $355.1 billion in new discretionary spending authority for the Defense Department for FY 2003, a reduction of $1.6 billion to the budget request (not including the $10 billion reserve). It is also an increase of $37.5 billion over FY 2002 levels (not including supplementals).
Note only the USN has supercarriers, no other country can touch the US here and really many of the countries with smaller carriers are allied to the US.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Current...craft_Carriers
[edit] Aircraft Carriers
The USN has 11 active duty aircraft carriers, all supercarriers: One each of the Kitty Hawk and Enterprise classes, and nine of the Nimitz class. It formerly retained two carriers of the Forrestal class and one of the Kitty Hawk class in reserve (all three were stricken for disposal between 2003 and 2005, with USS Ranger (CV-61) placed on donation hold), and one carrier of the Nimitz class is under construction (USS George H. W. Bush (CVN-77)). The USN's aircraft carriers are its capital ships, and the largest extant example of naval shipbuilding in the world.
Kitty Hawk class aircraft carrier
USS Kitty Hawk (CV-63)
Enterprise class (one-ship class)
USS Enterprise (CVN-65)
Nimitz class
USS Nimitz (CVN-68)
USS Dwight D. Eisenhower (CVN-69)
USS Carl Vinson (CVN-70)
USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN-71)
USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN-72)
USS George Washington (CVN-73)
USS John C. Stennis (CVN-74)
USS Harry S. Truman (CVN-75)
USS Ronald Reagan (CVN-76)
USS George H. W. Bush (CVN-77) (commission anticipated for 2009)
Ford class
USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78) (Awarded)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aircraf...carriers_today
Nine countries maintain a total of 20 aircraft carriers in active service: United States, United Kingdom, France, Russia, Italy, India, Spain, Brazil, and Thailand. In addition the People's Republic of China's People's Liberation Army Navy possesses the former Soviet aircraft carrier Varyag, but most naval analysts believe that they have no intention to operate it, but instead are using Varyag to learn about carrier operations for future Chinese aircraft carriers.
If your seriouse about the Chinese as a threat you have to consider that in a war with them the US could have south korea, japan, australia.
Only two ‘empires’ have tried to run on a deficit, the Romans the the US.
The US needs to cut spending, the miltary is not the cause of this (you have to look at total of GDP). They dont want to end up like the USSR in the 1980's.
How much money has been wasted on projects that don’t work or arent working that could have been used elsewhere.
Another good ww2 compairson is the poor use of production and super weapons the Nazis did. Although it wouldn’t be such a bad comparison if they had won the war.
It is so important the the US stays ahead militarily and technologically of future peer competitors in the Naval and Air spheres. At the same time I think a lot of the spending could be trimmed.