They’re both the same bastards keeping the proletariat down. ::yawn::
Marc
You really do not know about any subject on which you post, do you? Of course Cuba would have wanted them for defensive purposes, however, Cuba was the client of the U.S.S.R. who was supplying them as potentially offensive weapons in the same way that we were establishing missile basis in Turkey to be potentially offensive launch sites. My statement had nothing to do with the “rightness” of Cuba (or Turkey) maintaining missiles, only that the employment of U.S. military forces to reduce those numbers were defensive–which the deployments clearly were. To fail to understand the whole scenario in order to deny reality makes no more sense than your odd claim that Hawaii and Alaska were not U.S. “territory.”
As I noted, you demolish your own credibility when you resort to nonsense.
So…how much should we spend on “war”?
I guess the crazy government decided in their infinite wisdom after WWI and WWII that its better to go to war with evil meglomanic expansionist despots BEFORE they take over half a continent. Now…it might be nice if we used that $400 million to save the manatee or feed starving widows and orphans, but simply saying “blahahh blahh we spend too much on WAR aaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh!!!” is a little simplistic.
[standard comeback]Do you think that $400 Billion a year only goes into CEO’s pockets? It goes into paychecks for Joe Snuffy, too. The Vast Military/Industrial Complex has employees with families.[/standard comeback]
$400B doesn’t seem like that much to me. <shrug> Do you have a point, or do you just like to hear yourself gurgle?
ROFLMAO!
Oh, and Rhum Runner: gurgle. Definately gurgle.
I’m afraid on careful consideration and examination of all available data that I shall have to vote “gurgle”, as well.
Isn’t it interesting that we never see “Chumpsky” and Chomsky in the same room?
Oh, and another vote for “gurgle”.
The burning of Washington took place in August 1814.
The last major battle of the War of 1812 took place just outside New Orleans in January 1815.
What about Midway island? Guam? Weren’t they both American protectorates?
Anyway, one of the reasons the U.S. spends so much on the military is because it has to project its power across the oceans to defend its interests and allies. Carrier battle groups are not cheap. Nor is it cheap to maintain transports that can move a few divisions across an ocean on short notice.
Another reason the U.S. spends so much on the military is because it defends a lot of countries other than itself. Canada, for example, could not defend itself against attack from a major power. South Korea has 50,000 U.S. troops enforcing the DMZ. The American military presence in Europe is huge.
Speaking as a Canadian, I am immensely grateful for the U.S. military. Ask yourself this: What would the world be like if there was no American military? Would Taiwan still exist? Would there be relative peace in the Middle East? Would Israel exist?
Thanks, Americans. That’s not said often enough.
As for Chumpsky, all you have to read is this:
To know that, A) He doesn’t have a clue what he is talking about (hint for Chumpsky: Those weren’t CUBAN missiles…), and B) He is one of those people who would take the word of the Soviet Union at face value, but assume that everything the U.S. says is a lie. Such people cannot learn from history, have poor judgement, and are incapable of learning.
Don’t forget Wake Island.
I can conceive of Cuba offering to allow the installation of Soviet missles in exchange for other economic and military support from the USSR. So there are at least TWO conceivable scenarios.
I can’t even conceive of a reason for the US to attack Cuba in the 60s other than not wanting to have a communist block country 90 miles offshore (because they…uh… might try to launch missles from it)
Well…it seems to me that the $400 billion was well spent.
The OP is definitely an overreach. While I don’t currently agree whatsoever with the current policy on Iraq, and I think much pork could be trimmed…
…simply because current arms and soldiers are not stationed on the U.S. mainland doesn’t mean they aren’t still defending it.
Take the various carrier groups, for example. The chief reason the U.S. mainland is effectively invincible to invasion is because there is no freaking way to transport large amounts of bad guys here. A troop ship would be sunk before it left port, and possibly even before it was loaded. Same with incoming bombers. Conventional attack against the 48 states is doomed, and even the Japanese didn’t get close to Hawaii.
Now here’s a better question. Would the last paragraph still be true if the Navy was cut in half? It would certainly curtail the defense of Taiwan and our Mideast adventures, but would it make much difference for the defense of, say, Pennsylvania?
Those lousy freeloading Pennsylvanians oughta learn to stand on their own two feet.
Maybe Chumpsky has a point…
Why don’t you guys quit your war spending, cut taxes, fatten those welfare cheques and if anyone does attack you, hey, use harsh words, they never fail.
That’s not really true.
In raw dollars, we spend more, but as a percentage of GDP, we’re in the same ballpark as France or the UK.
First
Let’s assume that the 400 Billion figure is OK.
But let’s think what would happen if the figure would be 800 B?
Or 300 B? (A Billion is so big sum that I think I have to use a capital B 
)
I think You would not get a bigger threat or smaller, whichever of these figures You would choose.
Who would threat You?
Secondly.
You have these big planes that carries everything from tanks to smaller objects.
I do not know how many You have, but I would assume that 1.000 - 2.000 of these planes would be sufficent for the following scenarios:
- Someone would attack You or Your ally.
- You need to take Your stuff + 1 million men to a certain place, let’s say a small defendless oil-state in Middle-East, or Alaska.
If it would be othervise possible to have the other stuff, the soldiers, tanks etc. ready, You could obviously reach any point of this world within hours.
Let’s go back to the question who is threating You?
The obvious answer is the terrorists.
What I do not understand, is what do You need those big battleships for? I understand that they were very handy some 50 years ago, but if a power of the size of France or bigger, would be so crazy that they would attack You, what do You think are the easiest targets for missiles?
And what do You think are the most wanted targets of the terrorists?
All honour to the navy, but I think that they are today sitting ducks, not defendless by any mean, but sitting, in a big war.
If You have a ship at Yemen, but need it outside India, how long would that take?
You can spread out 300 tanks and 10.000 solidiers within hours, but how to spread out a big ship. (Ok I know You do not have so much tanks in Your warefare, but it is here just as an example. Anyhow, You have much sophisticated tech You need to spread that around with lorries or whatever does not be slower).
One reason, as I understand, was that these battleships with airplanes were very good some 50 years ago.
But were they needed in Vietnam? Or Iraq? I do not ask were they used, I ask were they needed?
For me it does not matter how You use Your money and how much.
I go back to the, let’s say, 1.500 air-carriers. They obviously need a quite big armada of smaller aircraft which would take the control over any route these carriers has to take. You have air-bases all over the world, and You always get more from the neighbouring countries in whatever crises, so You do not need ships for that?
So if some bad guy, with moustasche, would treathen Your interest, Your President would pick up the telephone and say: “Look buster, if You do not …(what ever), I will send some 500 planes within 3 hours to take care of Your (what ever), and control (what ever),.
Within 24 hours we will have 763 air-carriers coming with xxx.000 solidiers, with double so much equipment as You have.
Within 38,5 hour we will fry your ass…”
I think every dictator in the world would explain “that there has been a misunderstanding… It is moi krazy kommader…”
Now before anyone begins to shout to me “that Henry do not understand anything” I would like to say that these timelines are totally taken from air.
I just want to ask why You spend so much money on ships, when equipment for a few million soldiers storaged where-ever in Your country + the transporting capacity would be enough.
I do not know how many soldiers You need abroad to take care of a reasonable figure of bases in the world so that You could cover, what ever You need to cover. Maybe it would be enough to have Your ally just to keep their army around Your base, protecting it from what ever threat. They should do it for free, if You are defending them for free, shouldn’t they.
I hope You trust Your allies, so much that they can do it.
Someone mentioned that there is very much US soldiers in Europe, e.g…
Let’s say Germany. Do You trust Germany to guard Your facilities, or do You think that there can pop up an enemy to Germany so fast that You would not have time to fly over the Atlantic?
Anyhow, for the most part, Your soldiers could be training at home, in “Pennisylvania” and have a nice dinner with their wifes in the evening.
And the rest of the world could watch Your bases.
Btw. have You ever thought why the USSR fleet was so small?
Because they knew that they could never hope to compete against the established U.S. Navy, and so never tried. (Russia has an abysmal record in terms of naval warfare extending back a few hundred years. They specialized in submarine warfare in which their fleet was roughly comparable to that of the U.S.)
The rest of your scenarios do, indeed, indicate a lack of understanding regarding the logistics of carrying out a war (particularly when the U.S., at the time the fleet was being built, eschewed nuclear first strike declarations*). A carrier force (which is accompanied by the fuel and munitions necessary to make repeated strikes on a target) is better prepared to carry out support for ground forces than having to send a massive fleet of bombers halfway around the world every time a bomb needs to be dropped. Had you paid attention to the use of heavy bombers in Afghanistan, you’d have noticed that each strike required over twelve hours of flight time from Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean (and that the strikes launched from the U.S. took over 24 hours to complete).
If it makes you feel any happier, there is serious discussion among U.S. planners that we might want to change the nature of the fleet from several large carrier-centered task forces to a larger number of rapid-deployment groups, keeping rather fewer of the big carriers. However, that discussion will not result in an overnight change of the fleet characteristics.
- (Of course, Dubya has decided to throw away 60 years of commitment on this point, but he is certainly under the constraints of history that will hinder a rash abuse of the exercise of this threat.)
Because they were concentraiting on land and air forces to deploy in the event of a ground war in Europe?
Except that the fleet wasn’t small. Flipping through Conway’s All The World’s Fighting Ships 1946-1995 I note in the section on the Soviet Union that a very large number of submarines (diesel and nuclear) were built during the Cold War, starting with the Project 613 ‘Whiskey’ boats (215 built in all) and twenty-one Project 633 ‘Romeo’ boats. Later on there were the sixty-two Project 641 ‘Foxtrot’ boats and probably around 100 SSBNs of various types. Not to mention the myriad other submarine types.
What about the hundreds of fast attack missile boats like the 138 Osa class vessels or the forty-five ‘Pauk’ class boats?
This isn’t even mentioning the major surface ships built.
The shame of it is, there’s a case to be made for smarter spending of our military budget. But when uninformed and over-the-top glurge is offered, it may well nudge the uncommitted voter in the opposite direction.
My advice to Chumpsky is to either tighten up his grip on accuracy, or resist the temptation to post. If he’s helping anyone, it’s the other side.
- Rick