Which is exactly what we need to be doing right now, so it’s all good.
Frank Merton-
Welcome to the SDMB. Per the rules of the Great Debates forum, personal insults are not permitted. I’ll let you slide this time because you’re new but further violations of the rules will results in warnings and could lead to the removal of your posting privileges. I’d encourage you to read and learn the rules of posting at the SDMB before you get too agressive.
Jonathan Chance
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Great Debates
I think if this were happening to Alaska, you might think differently; of course there are always people around like you, which is why dictators sometimes get so powerful we end up with major wars and millions of deaths them.
Certainly the joke that the US Army is becoming is worth thinking about.
The US spends as much on military as the next six nations combined. If that’s a joke, I find no humour in it.
Is it just the next 6 nations? I thought it was more.
Why do you think that this is meaningful? What requirements does the next 6 nations military’s have? How much do they ride on OUR military and budget? What percentage of their GDP does whatever they pay represent?
I don’t want to get into a hijack of the thread, but simply stating that the US spends more than X number of other nations really is a silly argument to make.
Not when the issue is whether the U.S. military is a “joke”. If a $600 billion, 1.37 million-strong force is a “joke”, then there’s no force on the planet that isn’t.
True, that’s a disconnect and no doubt about it. I’d like to see why Frank Merton thinks the Army is a joke. On the other hand, simply pointing out that we spend more than the next 6 (or whatever) countries is pretty meaningless as well.
As would I.
Spending isn’t a perfect proxy for effectiveness, no, but it’s a pretty good one, and in a world where the major powers don’t go to war with one another anymore, it’s about all we have.
Not really. As noted that can’t reasonably be called a “joke” by any rationaldefinition of the term.
sigh Ok, let’s say that country A spends more than the top 6 other nations on health care, say…but that in spending this it doesn’t actually meet the requirement for their citizens. Does spending that much more automatically ensure it’s not a ‘joke’, even though spending more doesn’t meet the requirement? Answer: no, of course not. Just because you spend more doesn’t mean it’s not a ‘joke’, it just means that you spend more.
In the case of the US military, we certainly spend more than the top X nations combined. But, we also have a lot more requirements (thus necessitating a larger budget) than those other 6 nations combined (several of who are able to spend less because they are US allies and thus can leverage our spending to help them while saving the money). Personally, I think we get more bang for our buck than they do, and looking at the top 6 nations is a bit misleading, but just pointing to how much we spend is, IMHO, pretty meaningless wrt what we actually get. YMMV, as does HA, but that’s how I see it. And the meme of ‘we spend more than the top 6 nations’ is pretty disingenuous to me anyway.
And now, back to the regularly scheduled rant about Russia invading the Ukraine and how the west will respond…
Depends how you measure it. It is certainly true that the U.S. Army is vastly more powerful than any other.
The “we are not spending enough / we are spending too little” argument when it comes to military spending is, as appears to be the case with Frank Merton, one that is usually purely ideological (or self-serving if one has a stake in it) and disconnected from any sort of clear military purpose. I rarely meet anyone who advocates a change in military spending - either in the USA or Canada - whose argument is based on an actual idea of what military requirement is needed and that, therefore, X dollars should be spent to get it. XT touches on the truth when he uses the term “bang for our buck.” If you want bang for your buck you need to have some sort of idea what you’re spending the bucks on and why, which means establishing a national doctrine with regards to the country’s expectations of its military capabilities.
The sot of confusion people have about this is especially obvious in this thread. There is no amount of money, none at all, that the United States could reasonably spend on its armed services that would change the situation in Crimea. If the U.S. Army was five times bigger than it is, or five times smaller, this situation would be precisely the same; there is nothing the U.S. can do about it without starting a full scale war and nuclear holocaust. That’s why the (relatively) larger army that existed in 1956 did nothing about Hungary, did nothing about Czechoslovakia in 1968, didn’t do anything direct about Afghanistan in 1980, and would not have done anything about Crimea. The ability to defend Ukraine from a Russian attack is not part of America’s defense doctrine now, never has been, and was not planned to be anytime in the foreseeable future. The idea that the relative size of the U.S. Army could affect this is ludicrous.
That was indeed the intended meaning of my comment.
How about this: We cut the US military budget. Use the money to buy Crimea from Russia (much like we did with Alaska). Then lease it to Ukraine on a renewable basis for a nominal fee and Ukraine can continue to sublet the dock space to the Russian Navy.
True. But, the defence and peace of Europe is in fact a US Army priority and at this time the US Army is not going to be able to defend Europe against a Russian attack with conventional forces in theatre.
And, like it or not, this new Russian assertiveness is not just a transient phase. Its not a return to the armed camp of the Cold War. OTH, its now a real possible contingency that the Russians might be tempted to be more assertive in the Baltics and say over Kalinagrad .
Maybe so, but does Putin really have to worry about the Russian Supreme Court or whatever they call it getting in his way here?
That’s a simplistic statement that does not accurately describe the situation or American doctrine. The U.S. doesn’t have, and never has had, a priority to defend ALL of Europe from any possible threat. Historically America’s priority was the defense of Western Europe, specifically those likely scenarios involving a Soviet invasion. The U.S. has never intended to possess the ability defend Ukraine from a Russian invasion, that being something the U.S. has never had the remotest ability to do and usually never had any reason to even want to do.
It is certainly still the case that Western Europe is quite safe from Russian attack, since they have far less capability to attack Western Europe than they used to.
I agree the Baltic states present a very serious problem for which NATO must start planning right away.
So ends theory. However the expansion of NATO to the borders of Russia means that the US has expanded its defence commitments past W Europe. One of the reasons that many in the US defence establishment opposed such expansions.
I’ll agree wrt to Ukraine, but the point of fact s that Putin is not going to stop there. He will push hard in the Baltics and in Poland and if I was in the DoD right now thats what I would be planning to counteract.
Why did you write this. - ‘You forget what is happening right now in Crimea.’ - if your objection that I want you to forget it?
Your claim that I want you to forget it is as detached from reality as your claim that I forgot it. You are certainly flailing about in search of an argument.
Is that what you intended to write?