How Much Military Is Enough?

[Samson]

How large of a military you want or need depends greatly on the role you want to play in the world and how dangerous the world around you is for myself I would rather have a large military all of which I might not need than have a small military and find out it was not nearly enough.

I'd rather have a three guys in a missil silo: The USA has only ONE CHOICE.

 

[Oldguy]

The U.S. once regarded a standing army as a form of tyranny. Now it spends more on defense than all other nations combined. Photograph by Grant Cornett.

Sixty-two legislators sit on the House Armed Services Committee, the largest committee in Congress. Since January, 2011, when Republicans took control of the House, the committee has been chaired by Howard P. McKeon, who goes by Buck. He has never served in the military, but this month he begins his third decade representing California’s Twenty-fifth Congressional District, the home of a naval weapons station, an Army fort, an Air Force base, and, for the Marines, a place to train for mountain warfare. McKeon believes that it’s his job to protect the Pentagon from budget cuts. On New Year’s Day, after a thirteenth-hour deal was sealed with spit in the Senate, McKeon issued a press statement lamenting that the compromise had failed to “shield a wartime military from further reductions.”

The debate about taxes is over, which is one of the few good things that can be said for it. The debate about spending, which has already proved narrow and grubby, is pending.

The United States spends more on defense than all the other nations of the world combined. Between 1998 and 2011, military spending doubled, reaching more than seven hundred billion dollars a year—more, in adjusted dollars, than at any time since the Allies were fighting the Axis. The 2011 Budget Control Act, which raised the debt ceiling and created both the fiscal cliff and a Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction, which was supposed to find a way to steer clear of it, required four hundred and eighty-seven billion dollars in cuts to military spending, spread over the next ten years. The cliff-fall mandates an additional defense-budget reduction of fifty-five billion dollars annually. None of these cuts have gone into effect. McKeon has been maneuvering to hold the line.

Much More: Jill Lepore: How Much Military Is Enough? : The New Yorker

We need a large enough armed forces to fight two regional, short-term conflicts at once (short term meaning 30 days or less) and to project our influence overseas on short notice.

That means a large, active duty Navy, bigger than we have now, and one with additional carrier battle groups and more littoral vessels capable of operating in shallow waters, including rivers.

We need an Air Force about the size we have now, but made up of mostly reserve wings instead of active duty. Enough active duty wings must be maintained for instant use, located at key points around the world, but most of our air power can be held in reserve until needed, SO LONG AS pilots get enough air time to remain skilled. Airlift capability must be increased.

We need an Army capable of responding rapidly to emergencies, but again most of it can be reserve or national guard. Rapidly deployable forces like the 82nd Airborne or light Infantry units can be airlifted almost on a moments notice, but they lack the heavy firepower necessary for a prolonged engagement. That would be provided by the first tier reserve or guard units which would fall in on pre-positioned equipment and be ready to go within 24 hours. That standby duty would be rotated among guard units monthly and they would require semi-monthly training and two annual exercises to be ready go. Second tier reserve or guard units would make up the bulk of forces needed for a longer conflict and would be programed to deploy within 30 days. Their off-rotation training would be monthly and once a year.

Along with that would be mandatory military training for all young people, male or female, with an assignment to a deployable unit for the first 2 or 3 years and regular training. After that period, they would move into the third tier inactive reserves and eventually end their military commitment totally. Six years ought to suffice.

A new DOD level office of technological innovation should be established to keep up R&D and actual production of new weapons systems, but their mission would be to design and create platforms and weapons which would be useable by all services, not just one in particular as is often done now. Interoperability and cost would be their driving force.

A regular, peace-time building and maintenance program would be established to keep repair and construction facilities busy so that skilled labor and processes would be available if rapid expansion should ever be necessary. It is cheaper in the long run, for instance, to keep a shipyard working than to build a brand new one, and train new workers, when it's needed.

There would be no Marine Corps. It's redundant and could be folded into the Army.

There's more, but that's the basics of my ideas.

 

[jknowgood]

Samson whats the % of minorities on welfare? Obama did stop a voucher system in wahington, then had to reinstate it after the outrage. You never answered my question, are you for school vouchers?

If this was a thread about school vouchers, in the Education Forum, then I'd discuss education vouchers.

Otherwise I'm correcting the ignorant remark you made, Put the welfare cut towards educating minorities and not following your red herring.



Return to Stormfront where moronic racist blather isn't challenged.

No, actually your showing your stupidity. I first stated if liberals wanted as always, to cut military spending then cut welfare the same. Then put the cuts in military spending towards the debt, and welfare cuts into education. Of course a liberal will say minorities get a great education. Good enough to get goverment housing, goverment food stamps, goverment paid utilities, goverment healthcare, goverment phones, and goverment tax credits. All for a vote. Why not spend some of that money on education?

 

[Samson]

Samson whats the % of minorities on welfare? Obama did stop a voucher system in wahington, then had to reinstate it after the outrage. You never answered my question, are you for school vouchers?

If this was a thread about school vouchers, in the Education Forum, then I'd discuss education vouchers.

Otherwise I'm correcting the ignorant remark you made, Put the welfare cut towards educating minorities and not following your red herring.



Return to Stormfront where moronic racist blather isn't challenged.

No, actually your showing your stupidity. I first stated if liberals wanted as always, to cut military spending then cut welfare the same. Then put the cuts in military spending towards the debt, and welfare cuts into education. Of course a liberal will say minorities get a great education. Good enough to get goverment housing, goverment food stamps, goverment paid utilities, goverment healthcare, goverment phones, and goverment tax credits. All for a vote. Why not spend some of that money on education?

= Blather


Thanks for playing.

 

[jknowgood]

Samson, yeah blaaa blaa blaa thats what liberals do. I made a great point, but you know you cannot lose the idiot vote.

 

[skye]

Cutting the military now ...will not make a happy man to Obama and family... traitors like him will not have a happy life after....


Does not matter how many bodyguards ....will try to keep him safe.....

Moron BUM

 

[Lakhota]

The United States spends more on defense than all the other nations of the world combined.

Why? This doesn't make sense to me. Are we that afraid?

 

[skye]

Being a traitor President like this traitor Hussein.... is not joke.


He will pay for the rest of his life. Mark my words,

 

[skye]

Military people DO NOT LIKE HUSSEIN!

 

[jknowgood]

The United States spends more on defense than all the other nations of the world combined.

Why? This doesn't make sense to me. Are we that afraid?

Well after clinton gutted the military, we got 911. Anymore questions?

 

[Oldguy]

The United States spends more on defense than all the other nations of the world combined.

Why? This doesn't make sense to me. Are we that afraid?

Well after clinton gutted the military, we got 911. Anymore questions?

Psssst...Clinton only continued the downsizing policy begun under G.H.W. Bush and his SecDef Dick Cheney. Remember how they said we'd get a "peace dividend" after the fall of the Soviet Union and started drastically cutting the size of our armed forces?

 

[Si modo]

The USA is far from being or having any economic power...it's been that way for a few years, now.

And, military related exports is the biggest national product we have left. Labor ruined any edge we had in other products.

Sparta...not an unsuccessful city state for quite some time.

Deal with it....this is all the USA has left.

But, of course, many want to ruin my country. I completely understand that.

 

[Mushroom]

I would cut defense spending in HALF over a ten-year period - but NOT active military personnel

Well, considering some of the largest expenditures of the military is pay, housing and dependent care, I really can't see how you can do one without the other.

The #1 expenditure of the military budget is "Operations & Maintenance", and that includes training. So I guess you could just stop training, and stop repairing our equipment. It would save a lot of money if we did not do those any more.

Then $2 is pay. But you are not going to touch that, so I guess that will quickly become the #1 expenditure, what else to cut?

Well, #3 is "Procurement", that is new equipment. Since we are no longer fixing our old stuff, makes no sense to buy new stuff.

#4, R&D. Well, no reason to spend anything there at all. Just wait for more soldiers in body bags, then rush to completion some new project. After all, any research is a waste unless you can justify the expense by saving money on SGLI payments.

#5 & 6 is construction. And a lot of this is in barracks and dependent housing. I guess to cut this down, we simply forbid the military from getting married. Simple, and we no longer need to spend so much on dependent housing.

This is what I really love about people who make such proposals. They really have absolutely no idea where and how the military budget is spent.

And the VA has nothing to do with the military. Totally different Cabinet level position, totally different budget.

 

[Mushroom]

Psssst...Clinton only continued the downsizing policy begun under G.H.W. Bush and his SecDef Dick Cheney. Remember how they said we'd get a "peace dividend" after the fall of the Soviet Union and started drastically cutting the size of our armed forces?

Sorry, but not true. The RIFs (Reduction in Force - "Layoffs") proposed by President Bush was simply to allow the natural attrition of the military to downsize itself. By simply reducing enlistment, the natural exiting of people who completed their terms of service would have decreased the military within 2-4 years.

What President Clinton did was to actually accellerate that. And I should know, I was one of them. I remember seeing Staff Sergeants having their enlistments cut short, and I was denied a medical waiver and reclassiffication. And we saw this increase within weeks of the election.

We did not see RIFs under President Bush, but we sure saw them under President Clinton.

http://isme.tamu.edu/JSCOPE93/ParshleyKeifer93.pdf

In 1993, we had 610k soldiers, 541k sailors, 184k Marines, and 470k airmen. In 2000, we had 481k soldiers, 373k sailors, 173k Marines, and 354k airmen. So for anybody to even try to claim that that was the plan of President Bush in 1991 is simply ignorant.

Yes, a drawdown was promised, but unless you can prove that President Bush intended an almost 1/3 reduction, you are just whistling in the dark here.

 

[Wicked Jester]

I would cut defense spending in HALF over a ten-year period - but NOT active military personnel or veterans' benefits and would make sure the VA is well-funded to care for veterans.

And what areas within the military would YOU cut, and how would YOU avoid cutting active duty?, while YOU cut defense spending in half?

And you do realize that as YOU cut, China and Russia will continue to grow their forces, while continuing to grow and supply their allies forces, correct?

I know that trying to get answers from YOU is akin to pulling teeth with a pair tweezers, but i'll throw it out there anyway.

 

[Mushroom]

I would cut defense spending in HALF over a ten-year period - but NOT active military personnel or veterans' benefits and would make sure the VA is well-funded to care for veterans.

And what areas within the military would YOU cut, and how would YOU avoid cutting active duty?, while YOU cut defense spending in half?

And you do realize that as YOU cut, China and Russia will continue to grow their forces, while continuing to grow and supply their allies forces, correct?

Most people seem to have absolutely no idea what makes up the military budget of the US and other countries.

In the US, your average 1 term soldier (E-3) brings home around $2,000 a month in base pay. He or She can get married at will, and any dependents are then covered by benefits such as insuance, military housing, military education, etc, etc, etc.

In China, the average 1 term soldier brings home around $30 a month, and is not allowed to get married until after their term of enlistment is up, or only upon approval of his command.

That is the real reason why a nation like China can have almost twice as many military members, but only spend a fraction as much. Just in base pay alone, they can afford to have almost 100 soldiers on what the US spends to pay just 1 soldier.

To give an idea, after serving in the US military, we give our departing servicemembers a generous education package, worth well over $30,000. China on the other hand offers an annual benefit during enlistment of less then $1,000 per year.

So are those that want to slash the military budget willing to see our soldiers on welfare? To see their sailors on food stamps? To see their Marines let out with absolutely no education benefits at all? To strip away the rights of their Airmen, telling them they are not allowed to get married as long as they are in the military?

I don't think so. But it sould sure slash our military budget.

 

[Oldguy]

Psssst...Clinton only continued the downsizing policy begun under G.H.W. Bush and his SecDef Dick Cheney. Remember how they said we'd get a "peace dividend" after the fall of the Soviet Union and started drastically cutting the size of our armed forces?

Sorry, but not true. The RIFs (Reduction in Force - "Layoffs") proposed by President Bush was simply to allow the natural attrition of the military to downsize itself. By simply reducing enlistment, the natural exiting of people who completed their terms of service would have decreased the military within 2-4 years.

What President Clinton did was to actually accellerate that. And I should know, I was one of them. I remember seeing Staff Sergeants having their enlistments cut short, and I was denied a medical waiver and reclassiffication. And we saw this increase within weeks of the election.

We did not see RIFs under President Bush, but we sure saw them under President Clinton.

http://isme.tamu.edu/JSCOPE93/ParshleyKeifer93.pdf

In 1993, we had 610k soldiers, 541k sailors, 184k Marines, and 470k airmen. In 2000, we had 481k soldiers, 373k sailors, 173k Marines, and 354k airmen. So for anybody to even try to claim that that was the plan of President Bush in 1991 is simply ignorant.

Yes, a drawdown was promised, but unless you can prove that President Bush intended an almost 1/3 reduction, you are just whistling in the dark here.

By the time G.H.W. Bush left office in 1993, the active duty armed forces had already been reduced by 338,000 from it's Ronald Reagan high strength in 1985.

When Clinton left office in 2001, it had been reduced by another 319,000.

Both Presidents had the same policy of reducing end strength. How it was achieved matters little as the overall effect was the same.

Active Duty Military Personnel, 1940?2011 ? Infoplease.com

 

[Wry Catcher]

Obama is a traitor.


He will have to live the rest of his life with that.


That gives me comfort ... that he will pay for all the wrongs he has made.

you are a moron

and an embarrassment.

Actually your ignorant and boderline traitor.

LMAO, it's "you're not "your" MAKING YOU THE THE IGNORAMUS.

 

[Mushroom]

By the time G.H.W. Bush left office in 1993, the active duty armed forces had already been reduced by 338,000 from it's Ronald Reagan high strength in 1985.

When Clinton left office in 2001, it had been reduced by another 319,000.

Both Presidents had the same policy of reducing end strength. How it was achieved matters little as the overall effect was the same.

Actually it does, it matters a lot. Because President Bush did not resort to RIFs to reduce the numbers.

RIF=Laid off, fired, canned, terminated.

And during a pretty bad recession on top of it. You may not think it matters, but what would you think of civilian companies that let go tens of thousands of people just a few years away from becoming fully vested in their pension fund? What would you say if some company announced it was downsizing 1/3 of it's workforce?

I always find it funny that if that happened to any company or government organization (other then the IRS), people would be screaming and moaning and protesting everywhere.

When they announce they are laying off 1/3 of the military, people actually applaud.

Myself, I just look at those who applaud and remember them, because that is when I know who my enemy really is.

 

[Katzndogz]

I posted this on another thread but I say it again here ....

this is part of it

......Obama wants to diminish America's power to just that of another mediocre country, and stop the US as a super power from defending the world against the very obvious enemies!

Single-handedly he is destroying the safety of the world and putting a new politically correct culture into place.

Not everyone agrees that the US should be a super power in order to defend the world.

There will always be a superpower. Who would you rather it be? Russia? China? Iran? Right now, the world is without leadership. There is a void, a vacuum. Nations are vying to fill that void. We have only until the say one nation or other decides to take a short cut in world leadership by world war.