America's global reach costs big bucks.

• Position: Graph Exercise

"Superpower" is the term countries around the world use to refer to the economic and military giant that is the United States. As the map on page 23 shows, U.S. military forces are on duty around the globe. Supporters and opponents of this policy can debate its merits, but no one can deny that the U.S. is the world's strongest military power. Of course, all this military muscle costs money--lots of it. As this graph indicates, the U.S. spends more on its military than any other country. This graph shows the most recent publicly available military budgets for 20 countries. Use the graph data to answer the questions below.

Sources: International Institute for Strategic Studies, U.S. Department of Defense.

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1. Approximately how many times larger than Russia's military budget is that of the United States?

   a three times

   b four times

   c five times

   d six times

2. Besides the US., three other Western Hemisphere countries--Brazil, Canada, and Mexico---are shown. What is the total of their military budgets combined?

   a $20 billion

   b $25 billion

   c $30 billion

   d $35 billion

3. The military budget of one Western European country is exactly the same as that of the total combined budgets of the three countries identified in question three, above. Which country? --

4. Cut 90 percent out of the U.S. military budget and you obtain a figure that is approximately the same as the military budget of a country that was a major U.S. ally during the war in Iraq. Which country? --

5. The current military budget of the U.S. is nearly 400 times larger than the most recent military budget of Iraq, a country not shown on the graph. Approximately how much did Iraq budget for its military?

   a $1 billion

   b $1 million

   c $100 million

   d $10 billion

6. The military budgets of...