Our current military readiness

And what does Haliburton and other companies provide?

Well, primarily contractors. The people that drive the buses, the people that clean the clothes, that cook the food, that fix the vehicles and 10,000 other jobs that have been taken over by the civilian sector.

Trust me, it pisses me off also, because it is "penny wise pound foolish" approach to how we handle our military. The Liberals scream whenever the military says it needs more troops, but the jobs still have to be done, with or without the troops. Hence we now have tens of thousands being paid for what in prior eras were done by the military itself.

Want to see that stop? Then stop fighting whenever the DoD says it wants to increase troop strength. Because somebody has to do things like make roads, wash dishes in the chow hall, and mow the grass. And if it is not somebody in uniform, it is going to be some civilian making 3 times as much. Because the job has to be done either way.

 

And yet, no reduction occurs, nothing but more spemnding and more war ever occurs. Add that. And bipartisan. WE need more war spending and more war like we need more cow bell. But we cannot prop up this economic system without endless war now.

 

All our wars do nothing but benefit the Wall Street/donor/"job creator" civilian class to the detriment of soceity as a whole.

Feel free to peruse the links provided and do more digging on your own.

 

I'm against unnecessary war. Both because of the expense in terms of live and treasure but because it makes it difficult to maintain a strong military over a long period. And in case you didn't notice it the U.S. has a VOLUNTEER military unlike many other nations (including China) meaning our military has to compete against private industry in the largest economy in the world.

 

Yes it does. In real spending terms, adjusted for inflation, U.S. military spending was reduced from between 20-30% during the 1990s. How do you think we ended up with a federal budget surplus for 4 years?

https://www.cfr.org/report/trends-us-military-spending

 

Thus spake Marx, and he was wise.

 

On what basis do you say it would make the U.S. "twice as safe"?[/QUOTE]
Our soldiers would not be dying overseas fighting people that have never attacked us. They will be home defending our shores

 

They have fewer overseas commitments because they are smart. We should do the same

 

Nice graph, wonder where ya got it. So you're saying we spent all that for "hollowed out" results. Gee, well, take more $ out of society off of the unsubstantial people, the aristocracy appreciates your blind support.[/QUOTE]

That is not my graph. I quoted someone else; and the attempt to do so did not do properly.

Please check above, for the actual person behind that graph.

 

I am not quite sure just what our society has to do with the fact that military spending is not broken down, to my knowledge.

Actually, it is possible that someone has done precisely that; but that I am just unaware of that.

 

Actually, that information is hardly a secret. 32% of the budget is for Personnel. Pay, individual training, housing, medical, food, etc.

Next is Operation and Maintenance at 34%. That is basically conducting unit training and repairing equipment and facilities.

Finally, you have 18% for procurement. That is actually buying new equipment.

Smallest is R&D at 12%. That should be pretty obvious.



Personnel costs and operations-maintenance are a whopping 66% of the budget. And it is also one of the segments that took the hardest hit during sequestration. Of all the costs to the DoD, that one is the most fluid since it is not a mandated expenditure (like pay), or contracted (like purchase of weapons or research projects).

Hence, the very reason for this topic.

 

All agreed except I'm not sure of your intent in the last sentence.

Modern weapons are a good reason to have an assortment of aircraft carriers from the Gerald Ford class supercarriers to the America-class carriers. The Navy has already experimented with different air wing configurations based upon the actual mission at hand.

However, a supercarrier to too large and too expensive an asset to stick in a place like the Persian Gulf or Black Sea. A smaller asset is better.

 

Agreed. We could cut some costs if our allies started picking up their share of the load. Britain is getting back into doing their part. They recently commissioned the 65,000 ton aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth and are in the process of building a second one (HMS Prince of Wales). Not an aircraft carrier like the US supercarriers since it will have VSTOL aircraft and helicopters like the America-class assault ship.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Queen_Elizabeth_(R08)

 

Nice spin. Fair-minded people would compare apples to apples by comparing defense spending to GDP. It's common sense that a community with a million people will have to spend more on police than a community with 500 people. To say each much spend the same amount on protection is silly.

Measured by GDP, the Russians are outspending the US, as are other nations. If our allies spent more on their own defense, the US could spend less.


https://www.forbes.com/sites/niallm...percentage-of-gdp-infographic-2/#4aa13c784c47

 

Time to change our mission. And the cut the military spending in half

 

If you want to cut military spending in half can you break down where that 300 billion (give or take) would be spent in terms similar to that of the pie chart in post #211

 

That's easy. Cut every category by 60% except salaries. Actually even personnel costs could be cut dramatically since we would need less personnel. Have more reserves and pay them well.

 

Before we do anything like that, we need to pull the heck out of these pointless countries we are still in. We can't do any budget cutting when soldiers are out fighting.

Cuts happen in peace time.

 

There is never peace time. Pull them out now. We should not hang them out to dry but they should not be there in the first place.

 

Have more reserves and pay them well.

So you're not really interested in reducing military spending or the size of the military the way you claim. You're mainly interested in shifting resources.

 

No I am not. I am interested in closing the vast majority of bases over seas and cutting the navy. That alone will save billions

 

How much do you think it will actually save? Cutting the navy in half won't eliminate the need for new ships and the personnel to man them. Closing bases only means you reassign personnel to other stateside bases. They still receive pay and benefits. '

And you ignore the fact that the modern "reserves" receive training and equipment very close to active troops anyway. The Air National Guard and Air Force Reserves IIRC fly F-16s and B-1Bs for example.
Your idea of "the reserves" seems to be the idea of giving a guy two days at the rifle range twice a year then send him home and tell him to keep his rifle clean.

 

I think the generals in Washington figure the majority of fighting will be done by nukes, thus the need for a lot of planes and war ready brigades is less then what most people think.

 

No it does not. It means you shrink the military thry attritio0n and increase the reserves. The reserves train one weekend a month and two weeks a year Having been in the reserves I know exactly what they do.

 

The America Class is not a carrier. It is an amphibious transport. Hence it's very name and designation, the America Class Amphibious Assault Ship. It's loadout is 1,600 Marines, 12 Ospreys, 4 CH-53 helicopters, 7 AH-1 Sea Cobras, 4 MH-60 Seahawk helicopters, and 6 AV8B or 6 F-35B fighters. It is a Helicopter Carrier. Not even China (Shichang), Soviet Union-Russia (Moskva class), or the UK (RFA Argus) consider these ships to be "Carriers".

These are a descendant of the 3 "short deck" Essex class carriers (USS Boxer, USS Princeton, USS Valley Forge) from WWII that were used to initially test the concept of the "Helicopter Carrier". The USS America is in fact 40 feet shorter than those earlier ship conversions. And the last 3 Essex ships served in that capacity until their replacement ships of the Tarawa class were built.

Now as for the Persian Gulf, we have regularly maintained a carrier in that region since the 1980's. But we have never sailed carriers in the Black Sea, might as well put carriers in the Great Lakes.

As for the last sentence I guess you have never heard of or seen the movie I was referencing.

[video]