[QUOTE=Der Trihs]
No one is suicidal enough to do that to a major nuclear power. And even if they were, we could have far less military spending and still crush whomever they were.
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And yet, nations push us all the time. We push back by sending out a carrier or doing a military exercise. Again, your theory only works if we are actually willing to use nuclear weapons to back up our threat. If someone attacks a ship coming to the US with a tanker full of oil, we going to nuke…someone…over that? :dubious: If Iran decides to invade Iraq, or one of it’s other neighbors, are we going to send in the nukes? :dubious: If China decides to put maximum pressure on Taiwan, are we going to nuke China? :dubious: If North Korea decides that we are no longer going to act as a trip wire on the Korean peninsula, are we going to nuke North Korea? :dubious: And on and on. Today, most countries aren’t going to try and do any of that because they know we have an entire bag of tricks to respond to them. If all we have is one trick, a.k.a. nukes, then we are either going to be smashing eggs with mega-ton sledge-hammers or we are going to do nothing because no sane person is going to send in nukes for something relatively minor. We lose a tanker of oil (of 5 or 10) and we think maybe it was Iran who did it…we nuke them? Not happening, even if we have conclusive proof. They know it, and we know it…everyone knows it. Well, except you, who think we actually WOULD nuke someone like Iran over something like that.
So prove it. We have global commitments, and our military is mostly a deterrent force. Your strawman about the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany is irrelevant, since I didn’t make that claim. Feel free to demonstrate that in the world today, the US has more capability than required to fill the actual, real world needs we put on it. If you want to claim we don’t need to fulfill those needs, then demonstrate or at least address why that is. Why we don’t need to protect either our interests or those of our allies.
Again, strawman. I never said anything about ‘great hero and protector of freedom’…I said we defend and protect our vital strategic and nation interests, and those of our allies. We do that for simple and quite selfish reasons that still seem beyond you.
And when they call our bluff, as it would be? Nuke the crap out of them and send them back to the stone age? Glass their ass? Some other ridiculous over the top response that you refuse to think through? Or cave in, because in the end we AREN’T going to nuke every nation that threatens our interests or those of whatever allies we might still have if we decided to bring our marbles home and let someone else protect our collective interests? I’m going with the latter, Alex. You can dream or fantasize that either we WOULD nuke the crap out of anyone who pissed us off or that no one would call our bluff, but I’m more into reality.
If the turkeys in Congress stopped funding weapons systems that the Pentagon says it doesn’t need, you’d probably be able to use one side of the paper.
I’m in the commercial electronics industry, but I know a lot of people in both DoD and in electronics suppliers to the military. They are still debating stuff which we settled on 20 years ago. There are great requirements, but suppliers get away with murder in proving they meet the requirements. Moving to COTS is great, but everyone is so dead set in their ways that the military is wasting tons of money. And yes I know that there are lots of lobbyists working hard to keep this going.
Maybe the Congress will stop building systems to ward off the imminent Russian invasion of Europe.
None of the next ten have any expeditionary abilities to speak of. Everyone relies on the US to provide the world’s muscle. Take the British in the Falklands war. The only reason they succeeded was that Argentina had even less capability to operate outside their home territory. If the British had to take on the Argentinians on their own home soil, they couldn’t have done it successfully. Pretty much every other military in the world is only capable of taking on the countries they share a border with, or rocks like the Falklands that are distant from both combatants. Only the US has the capability of putting major forces half-way around the world in the enemy’s home territory.
On the other hand, Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan are all good arguments that not having that capability might be a good thing. After all, if you don’t have the ability to do a stupid military adventure, you are far less likely to start any stupid military adventures.
The military is so huge that we could cut just about anything. For starters, the Navy has eleven carrier strike groups. I’d be quite happy if we cut that to ten, happier still at nine, eight, seven, … I really find it tough to imagine any realistic circumstance in which we’d need more than one in the Pacific and one in the Atlantic. Similarly, we have currently have 50 fast-attack submarines with more under construction. Why not get rid of most or all of them? The basic fact is that we haven’t had serious ship-to-ship combat for almost 70 years and we’re not going to, so there’s no point in maintaining Naval forces geared towards that. We could cut out the great majority of the Navy and we’d lose nothing but a portion of our deficit.
Someone more knowledgeable than myself could surely offer many other examples of useless weapons and other things that the military wastes its money on.
Sorry if this has already been addressed in the thread, but didn’t going over the fiscal cliff at the beginning of the year include some pretty deep cuts to the military? If not, anyone here know why I thought that? If so, what happened to those cuts?
It does. The notion that South Korea or NATO is getting a free ride at US taxpayer’s expense is an untrue complaint. The ROK has one of the largest militaries in the world, standing at 639,000 active personnel with 2,900,000 regular reserves. It achieves these numbers through universal conscription. It should also be noted that over 300,000 South Koreans served in Vietnam.
Military spending vs civilian spending - Econ 101.
Soldiers get paid to sit in hell holes and keep them clean and safe.
Civilians get paid to produce income
Spending x million for a tank gets very little return unless you happen to need a tank before it becomes obsolete.
Spending the same for a fleet of trucks means goods get to market - an economic benefit.
Do we need to discuss the financial return on obscenely expensive fighter aircraft (which are already obsolete - unmanned missiles and, now, drones are much more efficient - no need for armor and life support systems or displays and switches)?
Hell, we spend billions defending bases in hostile places - why do we have those bases there in the first place? Close them and tell the local to fight their own wars and we save not only the direct costs of operating the base, but the additional costs of defending it.
You silly lib, we need to be able to fight the entire globe single handedly in any conceivable combat theatre, simultaneously to guard our “interests” and spread freedom and democracy.
Spending American tax payer dollars on Americans… spit the idea of it. :mad::mad::mad:
Military spending is a subsidy. Nothing more and nothing less. Corporations get free protection on the seas. They have their overseas assets protected at no cost. Military spending is also a subsidy at home to the military industrial complex. Projects and equipment are developed up with little regard to protecting Americans at home, and much regard to projecting influence overseas for other reasons. Finally military spending is a subsidy to foreign governments, or rebels, who we favor.
In order for the US to substantially cut back military spending, we will have to abandon mercantilism. Not seeing that happening
If we allow the 9 percent reduction in military spending proposed by the Sequester to take place, the rest of the world will smell weakness and leap upon our freedoms like wild dogs.
We are a long, long way from manned aircraft becoming obsolete. What do you imagine launches those unmanned missiles? That’s right, manned combat aircraft. Drones have uses now and potential for the distant future but again we are a long, long way from them replacing manned combat aircraft. They don’t have the payload, survivability, or situational awareness of manned planes. In terms of expense they aren’t nearly as cheap as you’d think; looking at the cost of a drone by itself overlooks the massive satellite uplink and other infrastructure needed for them to operate.
This is just another spin on the factually untrue belief that foreign countries are getting a free ride for their defense at the expense of the US taxpayer that frequently comes from libertarians and isolationists. The South Korean defense budget of ₩ 33.0 trillion (2012), the 12th highest in the world, excludes an additional ₩1.68 trillion given by Korea to United States Forces Korea to maintain the bases there. The virtues of isolationism versus remaining engaged in the world and honoring our defense treaties with South Korea among other places can certainly be debated, but it all too frequently relies on incorrect assumptions.
I do not disagree with you that the military could be pared down or that certain programs were not worth the cost and should have been scrapped. My personal white whale in that regards is the B-2, the most obscenely expensive and unneeded plane in history, with a flyaway cost per planes of $711 million dollars, and when the cost of the entire program (R&D, testing, etc) is divided per plane it comes out to the obscene figure of $2.1 billion per plane.
Considering America outspends the top 15 coutries combined militarily, with probably 12 of them our allies, I don’t think a 9% reduction is going to have anyone wanting to pounce any time soon.
He did not. The South Korean budget is measured in trillions. South Korea’s currency, the Won, is worth a fraction of a penny, so the numbers are quite arresting even though it’s just a conversion thing.
Right, I didn’t intend to imply that South Korea did not or could not defend itself.
Right, NATO accounts for 70% of the world’s military spending. There is no foe that justifies this level of outlay, particularly when there isn’t sufficient revenue to pay for it.