A simple way to reduce the federal budget deficit.

Great Debates
61

So the dictator of Iraq kicks out the dictator of Kuwait and retakes Iraq’s 19th province. So what? Sadders only invaded Kuwait because they were side-drilling into Iraqi territory to get oil that wasn’t theirs. The oil would still have ended up being pumped out of the ground, just sold to the world by a different dictator.

You’re assuming the military is always the answer to everything but in the great scheme of things that isn’t the case. For instance, the US embassy in Kuwait was blown up in 1983 by a terrorist group called Al-Dawa, a group that twenty years later US troops were fighting and dying to keep in power as part of the government in Iraq.
And the Middle East is only relevant because of a nexus of power between the US war industry and the US energy industry, which insist that the US in the 21st century continue to use 19th century methods of geostrategic control to maintain access to 20th century sources of energy, a policy that can only ever end in catastrophic failure. If even since we reinstalled Kuwait’s dictator we’d spent the money that we’ve spent on ridiculous weapon programs on developing alternative sources of energy we’d no longer have to worry which tinpot little Middle Eastern dictator was invading who else and oil would be $5 a barrel or less, a dirty fuel that developing countries bought who couldn’t afford enough of the new US clean energy tech. The Middle East would be as geostrategically important as sub-Saharan Africa.

62

Ah, it’s dirty Mexicans bankrupting America, is it? Got a cite for this broad brush of ignorance here?

But let’s play along for a minute. Let’s assume the military is redeployed with a new mission to simply execute any dirty fucker who crosses the border illegally. This is of course neverminding the fact that the USA hasn’t managed (over a period of several years) to execute the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks but he’s not a dirty Mexican trying to steal social services so what’s the rush?

So Operation Mexican’t commences and illegal immigrants are gunned down en masse. Drug smuggling becomes the world’s most suicidal occupation. Street prices of drugs skyrocket. Availability of drugs drops and demand drops right along with it…

Oh wait, demand doesn’t drop at all. Because the shit is addictive and the whole country is addicted!

Wouldn’t it make more sense to attack the demand side instead of the supply side? Instead of gunning down dirt-poor Mexicans gun down those coke-snorting, pill-popping “Americans” who are leading your nation’s slide into poverty and despair! After all, Lindsay Lohan isn’t going to clean your toilet for a dollar a day no matter how bad her coke habit gets.

63

While I was a nuclear submarine officer, I was teaching at a military school for my last few years of active-duty service, so I wasn’t receiving any sea pay or the like, nor was I receiving the nuclear retention bonus because I was planning on getting out of the service. If I had been serving on a submarine instead of teaching (and receiving all of those additional incentives and bonuses) I would have been making about $20K more than the $70K I was grossing in 2002.

I was actually not counting any pay other than what any other active-duty O-3 (Army Captain or Navy Lieutenant) was getting who lived in my area. This included my base pay, housing allowance (which took into account the cost of housing in my area of the country), and Basic Allowance for Subsistence (BAS). The latter two made up about one-third of my gross pay, and were not counted as taxable income. Note that the housing allowance is increased if you have any dependents, such as a spouse.

In 2010, an O-3 (whether Army, Navy, Air Force, or Marine) with 8 years of service grosses about $65K in base pay, and $25K in untaxed housing allowance and BAS (in this part of the country), for a total of $90K not counting any other incentive pay, sea pay, sub pay, etc. As I stated pay has increased by a larger amount than inflation. Military base pay was increased by 3.4% this year over last year, for instance.

64

:smiley:

65

Well, if Lindsay Lohan won’t clean my toilet for a dollar a day, what the hell use is she? Might as well have somebody shoot her. . .

66

The problem is, one person’s boondoggle is another’s ricebowl, gored ox, etc.

The F22 is being developed to continue superiority over emerging Chinese air capabilities. The F35 (JSF) is being created to get a cheaper version of a multipurpose fighter, across both FMS and all branches except the Army.

67

Posse Comitatus makes this somewhat problematic.

68

Quoth El_Kabong:

Well, sure, but only if they’re mounted on zeppelins, rather than the 747s they’re using now.

69

No, the F-22 was developed to maintain air superiority against the Russians - or at least against Russian-built jets. Specifically, against the Su-27 and MiG-29 which were themselves developed to defeat the F-15 and F-16. Remember, the F-22 program was based on a 1981 Air Force requirement.

China does have its own “fourth and a half” generation fighter, the J-10, but it’s based on Israeli and Russian technology and in all probability is less effective than the F-15.

70

I was referring to the reason for continuing to order them.

I didn’t know that about the J10; less capable than the F15? Does that mean they fall apart on the ground, not in the air?

71

Don’t the French (and several other European nations) sell advanced jet fighters to many countries that might not always be friendly to the US in the future? And I believe the Russians are still developing (and selling) advanced jet fighters as well.

The idea is to produce a fighter plane that is BETTER than any fighter that we might encounter…not produce a fighter that is just as good as everyone else has.

-XT

72

Of the military spending, how much of it is actively paying the personnel? I’d be for giving up a few foreign base camps or cutting them way down if they are that strategically important.
I’m all for getting the fuck out of Iraq and Afghanistan as well. If we can do the two latter things how much do we stand to save?

73

In the end we were successful but how many people died before we won? How much of the world’s economy was wrecked? If the US (and other Western allies) had kept up their armies and stayed engaged it’s possible WW II could have been avoided.

74

I don’t believe that in modern times it’s possible to ramp up to a world war like we did in either the first or second from a low position. Troops aren’t cannon fodder anymore, the weapons are sophisticated and take training to use, and they are not subject to manufacturing by every bicycle company or shaving kit firm out there. Once the weapons are out of the pipeline it would take years to ramp back up to building the things. Once you run through your presumably limited number of ordnance for them you’d be screwed.

Unless we went back to a model of ‘we will trade 6 of our pieces of shit tank for every one of yours’ or ‘we are willing to throw enough bodies at you to overwhelm you in the end’ thinking…which, I’m just not seeing.

-XT

75

The reason for continuing to order them is that we’ve already paid the (staggering) development costs, not to stay ahead of the Chinese. Anyway. we’re not continuing; Obama axed any additional airframe purchases last year, after the initial delivery of 183.

Their capability is pretty much just conjecture, at this point - we only know they’re in service because the Chinese told us, and no Western observer has actually seen an operational J-10 in flight, as far as I can tell.

Still, considering that the current iteration of the F-15 is at least equal to and probably superior to the Su-27 (though perhaps not the Su-30), and the Russians obviously have vastly superior fighter development experience and existing technology to draw on (vs. the Chinese), it’s a pretty safe bet that the F-15 could still easily outfly the J-10.

The Russians will probably have the Sukhoi T-50 in service within 10 years, which on paper looks like it will be comparable to the F-22. Chances are, though, that it won’t; Western observers have always overestimated the capability of new Soviet/Russian fighters, at least since the MiG-15.

The F-35 is designed to be twice as good as any fighter it might encounter. The F-22 is designed to be virtually infinitely better than any fighter it might encounter (lone F-22s can shoot down 6 to 10 F-15s in simulations) and while it’s a phenomenal technical achievement (and lovely, to boot) we don’t need it and won’t need it until 2040.

76

It’s really hard to predict the future. The thing is, you don’t plan for what you think you might need, you take the worst case and you plan around THAT. Otherwise, what happens is that something unexpected happens, and you are caught short.

Again…situations change. I know, for instance, that several European countries are developing next generation fighters that will be close in capabilities to the F-22. Now, you might say that we won’t ever go to war with Europe, so what’s the point in including them in our plans. And we probably won’t go to war with Europe (probably) in the next 30 years…but, as we saw in Iraq, we might go to war with European air craft. Several European nations sell their fighter designs to other countries outside of Europe. Just like the Russians and Chinese sell their fighters to outside countries. You just can’t predict who might have what 30 years from now, or what the geo-political map of the world might look like then.

A quick google search comes up with $159.9 million per plane (and this doesn’t count the live cycle stuff). That’s a lot of money…to you and me. Hell, it’s a lot of money for a single fighter even for the US. But…cutting the program (further than it’s already been cut) would save us, what? A couple billion at this point? Maybe $50 billion, tops? That’s a minuscule fraction of our over all budget. Unless someone has a time machine and can go back to cut the program before all the R&D funding was spent, it’s a bit late now. And, here’s the thing…if we DO need such a fighter in the future, we’ll already have at least some of that R&D done now. If we stop all such programs in the future, it will cost us even more if we have to try and do some kind of crash development (after spending years of trying to cut the budget and building ‘good enough’ weapons systems based on older research).

-XT

77

The thing you have to remember is that modern jet fighters take decades to design, test, and deploy, and they have lifespans measured in decades.

Look at the F-16 - the original spec calling for a fighter with those characteristics was drawn up in 1965. That’s 45 years ago. Production of the F-16 was approved in 1976. The F-16 is still a front-line fighter 34 years later.

Other aircraft still active go back even earlier. There are aircraft active in the U.S. military that date back to the 1950’s.

Not only that, but the trend is growing longer as aircraft development becomes more complex and more expensive. The original spec for the F-22 was drawn up in 1981 - 30 years ago. Production was ordered in 1991, but the first production model wasn’t delivered to the air force until 2003. It will probably be a front-line fighter for the next 30-40 years, and maybe even longer. Hell, the aircraft could conceivably be in service on the 100th anniversary of its original spec.

You don’t plan a modern military based on the threats you see today - you plan it based on threats you might face in the future. We have no idea what the world will look like in 40 years. In 1910, the world looked fairly peaceful. The U.S. military was small, and the major threats were colonial skirmishes, piracy, and the like. Within 40 years, there had been two world wars, and the Korean war was just starting. Empires rose and fell - the Ottomans, the Soviets, the Red Chinese, the third Reich.

And if you think this level of change was unique, just have a look at what happened since the F-22 was ordered - the Soviet Union collapsed, and we celebrated a ‘peace dividend’. By 2000, there was talk of permanent peace and there were no real signs of trouble anywhere, other than the kinds of local skirmishes, piracy, and terror attacks that were the order of the day in 1900. But within three years, the World Trade Center had been attacked, and the U.S. was in two wars in the Middle East.

Looking out at the horizon today, the world looks a lot more dangerous than it did in 1910. China is growing rapidly, Russia is attempting to restore itself to the heights of the old Soviet Union and becoming aggressive in Eastern Europe, Europe itself is being destabilized by high levels of immigration, low birth rates and high debt. Japan is undergoing a demographic transition that could cause it to lose half its population and destroy its economy. China is growing like mad, but there are signs that its growth is unsustainable and could be yet another bubble economy, waiting to burst.

If you remember the conditions that led to WWII, it was similar. Periods of economic turmoil and the collapse of old political and economic orders are destabilizing.

Anyone who looks around now and concludes that the military isn’t really needed, or that it can be a fraction of its current size, needs to go learn some history, and then take a fresh look at how the world really is and what it could possibly look like in 40 years. It could be a radically different place, with threats that are completely unanticipated today.

Unless you’re in a war, it will always look like you have more military than you need, because your military has to be ready to fight the next war. Scaling it way back because you don’t see current threats is the surest way to trigger a war in the future.

78

The non-military discretionary part of the accounts for about 10% of the budget (none of these numbers reflect the stimulus or health care reform).

The military/national security portion of the budget is about 30%

Medicaid/medicare (pre-health care reform) is about 20%

Social security is about 20%

Interest on the national debt is about 10%

And stuff like unemployemnt welfare and food stamps is another 10%

These are all VERY rough numbers to give an idea of the relative amounts being spent on different things.

I never thought I’d see the day when the Democrats would propose a cut to medicare (an entitlement program) waste (Medicare Part C or medicare advantage costs 15% more per insured than the rest of the medicare system) and get stymied (at least temporarily) by the Republicans. But the poltical will the Democrats showed to pass health care reform (as diluted as it is) in an election year in the face of such vocal opposition has impressed me enough to give me hope that perhaps there is enough political will to get the hard decisions made.

However, since medicare cuts no longer seems to have the support of even a single Republican, it will fall to the Democrats to do things like increase the eligibility age and reduce benefits for medicare and social security (wierd huh?). However any changes in non-discretionary spending requires an act of congress while a change in discretionary spending can be taken care of in committees. We can start and entirely new thread on whether or not these changes are desirable or even feasible considering we would have to depend on the poltical will of democrts to cut entitlements.

In the meanwhile, they could take a look at the largest discretionary part of the budget (the terms discretionary and non-discretionary only refer to whether it is a part of the annual appropriations process, the military is while social security and medicare is not).

In a pre-9/11 world, I think that many of the conservatives would have a very hard time jsutifying our current level of military spending. So I would propose that the proper level of military spending is what we would be willing to pay for today if we didn’t have terrorist concerns and then add something for border and port security. I suspect that we could cut military spending by at least a third by 2020.

Can you name the last time the left screamed bloody murder for not being able to achieve our foreign policy objectives through force? If our military might is the only reason we accomplish anything abroad, you have to wonder whether we aren’t simply bullies.

79

Or we could increase taxes.

80

No, they aren’t. The Dassault Rafale and Eurofighter Typhoon, the next-generation Western European aircraft, might be slightly more maneuverable than the F-22; they’re smaller and lighter. They’re also capable of operating in a ground attack role, which the F-22 isn’t (because it isn’t designed to).

Other than that, they’re not even close. They have reduced radar cross sections compared to their predecessors (the Tornado and Jaguar) but they’re not nearly as stealthy as the F-22 or even the F-35. This is a huge difference in the beyond visual range air combat era.

The F-15 and F-16 have lasted a long time. Most military aircraft do not. The F-14 was in service for only 30 years, and in front-line service for only 20. The F-11 lasted only from 1958 to 1961. The F-117 made it from 1983 to 2008, and hardly flew at all for the last 6 years it was in service.