Why aren't we even trying to cutback on useless military spending. The cold war is over and we are still spending 20% or 600million of our budget on defense. For what? I make this thread because the uss new york was just commissioned. thats another billion dollars for a ship we didn't need. we already have ten times the navy of any other country. We don't need to keep everything brand new and state of the art. These ships also cost hundreds of millions to run each year. The military spending needs to be cut back AT LEAST 50%

We spend 8 times as much as the next highest nation (china), twice as much as the entire european union (mostly our allies btw) and just shy of the rest of the world COMBINED.

Extreme waste unless you think the entire world will desperately team up and try to invade us six days style in the near future.

11/8/2009 12:31:00 PM

k

11/8/2009 12:32:06 PM

It's the cost of maintaining a worldwide corporate empire

There's not an exploitable part of the world we haven't thrown our military weight

11/8/2009 12:35:00 PM

might makes right

/thread

11/8/2009 12:37:40 PM

^switzerland agrees

#2 quality of life what?

11/8/2009 12:45:25 PM

The empire is going to have to come to an end pretty soon, anyway. It would be nice if we came clean, admitted that we can't afford this shit and shouldn't have bases around the world, and admitted that we shouldn't have had this level of military involvement to begin with. We could safely bring our troops home, while we still have the means to. That's not likely to happen.

I advocate serious cutting/slashing of government programs. That includes military programs. Generally, the GOP is up for cutting everything except our military bases around the world. It's a huge expense, though. We need to cut military just like we need to cut entitlements. We need a massive downsizing of government in order to reflect the fact that we are no longer rich, and that we desperately need to begin saving for the future again.

I think the argument must be that if we leave Iraq and Afghanistan, and we leave our hundreds of other bases, chaos might erupt in those areas. Now, that may or be not true, but it's irrelevant. It wasn't our job to maintain order in those areas in the first place. We had no place establishing a permanent presence anywhere. It isn't in the taxpayer's interest to keep all this going. It's time to end it.

[Edited on November 8, 2009 at 1:02 PM. Reason : ]

11/8/2009 1:01:26 PM

hey that sounds like just the kind of attitude that led us to WW1 and WW2 - good idea!!

11/8/2009 1:05:25 PM

The attitude that we shouldn't have military bases (that require us to go into debt) around the world or get involved (militarily) in foreign affairs got us into WWI and WWII? I'm not sure about that.

[Edited on November 8, 2009 at 1:20 PM. Reason : ]

11/8/2009 1:19:07 PM

I take issue with debt spending in general more than I do with military spending.

11/8/2009 1:27:52 PM

Yep. Our military spending is on the order of something like 3% of our GDP (for reference, our GDP represents 20-something % of the world's GPD, I think).

So, yeah...we spend a shit ton of money on military stuff, but at least that is a legitimate function of our federal government.

As someone who would be part of the "day 1, wave 1" strike in pretty much any scenario, I'm a fan of our philosophy of not just being good enough to win, but being so far ahead of any threat country that we're able to just obliterate any enemy without really sustaining large #s of casualties in the process.

That, and like our space program, there are a lot of spin-off benefits that we get from DoD programs.


I'm not saying that I always agree with our foreign policy--that's somewhat of a seperate issue.


I'm much more concerned about plenty of other federal expenditures (Medicare, Social Security, this upcoming potential healthcare boondoggle, and generally holding states hostage with the power of the purse and the inefficiencies and trampling of liberty that go along with that).

11/8/2009 1:46:03 PM

Quote :

"That, and like our space program, there are a lot of spin-off benefits that we get from DoD programs."

And spin-off harm, such as environmental damage caused by bases such as the one I live a mile and a half from.

11/8/2009 1:55:13 PM

But we need those air strips in the middle of wildlife sanctuaries!!!1
Haha. That was so much fun watching that fail miserably.

11/8/2009 2:00:52 PM

I agree that we spend a shit-ton of money on military things we don't need, but there are a lot of places we don't spend money where we shoud in our military. It took us 30 years of dilapidation at Walter Reed before they decided it might be time to upgrade and expand their hospital facilities. We still have sub-par body armor for our military, yet every police force in the world has quality kevlar equipment at their disposal. We have base housing on some bases that still look like concrete bunkers. New base housing is MUCH nicer, but there's still a lot of room for inprovement. Some of the base utilities (water, sewer, electric, gas) could be more efficiently provided and made more secure for operation if they would go ahead with privatization of these facilities.

I don't want to see this country reduce one penny from the military's budget, but I would like to see them make smarter decisions with that money instead of continuing to dump it into cold war era fighter jets and battleships.

11/8/2009 2:21:31 PM

Quote :

"As someone who would be part of the "day 1, wave 1" strike in pretty much any scenario, I'm a fan of our philosophy of not just being good enough to win, but being so far ahead of any threat country that we're able to just obliterate any enemy without really sustaining large #s of casualties in the process. "

This philosophy works if you’re in a GI Joe cartoon, but it hasn’t benefitted us in any practical way in the wars we’ve been fighting. Just because we can obliterate the enemy doesn’t mean we’re going to win the war.

11/8/2009 2:24:38 PM

lol... i think you're confusing war with conflict. We haven't had a proper war in several decades. You probably weren't even alive the last time we had a war, which might explain (but not excuse) your confusion.

11/8/2009 2:35:56 PM

Quote :

"Our military spending is on the order of something like 3% of our GDP"

But having an enormous economy doesn't justify having an enormous military.

For all practical purposes, we're an island. Or at least an island with two friendly buffer countries, which is even better. Why on earth do we need spend 600 billion give-or-take on defense? You know the saying: "if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail."

Quote :

"there are a lot of spin-off benefits that we get from DoD programs."

According to this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_budget_of_the_United_States

R&D is only 4.1% of the DoD budget. I'd be fine with maintaining that.

Quote :

"As someone who would be part of the "day 1, wave 1" strike in pretty much any scenario"

An added benefit of having a reasonable-sized military would be that politicians wouldn't be so quick to put you in harm's way in order to enact harebrained foreign policy fantasies. So in exchange for possible increases in danger per mission (and let's face it, we'd still kick ass with a smaller budget, right?), you'd have less missions.

Quote :

"hey that sounds like just the kind of attitude that led us to WW1 and WW2 - good idea!!"

Those wars that we won? And FYI, it's the attitude we had from the beginning of the United States. This attitude only changed after WWII.



[Edited on November 8, 2009 at 2:51 PM. Reason : ]

11/8/2009 2:48:18 PM

hmmm... i wonder why our attitude changed? maybe because we learned a hard lesson

11/8/2009 2:58:15 PM

and what hard lesson was that? don't fuck with foreign countries? Oh wait, we are still doing that

11/8/2009 3:09:11 PM

yea that must be it

11/8/2009 3:16:19 PM

well, please, enlighten us

11/8/2009 3:29:00 PM

Quote :

"hmmm... i wonder why our attitude changed?"

Because war became exceptionally profitable to a rather influential group of industrialists.



Call this hippie bullshit? Watch on:

11/8/2009 3:55:32 PM

it changed because of the fear of communism. we were afraid communism would consume the entire world if left unchecked and then the us. The soviet union is gone so we should be back to pre ww2 foreign policy.

11/8/2009 4:02:08 PM

why stop there - why not go back to pre civil war policy or hell, lets go back to pre revolution policy and pledge fidelity to the queen

11/8/2009 4:59:38 PM

what in the holy hell are you talking about, dude?

11/8/2009 5:00:47 PM

Maybe that an isolationist policy of non-intervention is an outdated idea for a world power in a globalized world.

At least thats what I took away from his post.

11/8/2009 5:54:42 PM

its called middle ground. find it.

11/8/2009 6:16:48 PM

it's not isolationist to say "hey, maybe we shouldn't piss in other people's yards." If anything, pissing in people's yards is more likely to isolate you than not.

11/8/2009 6:22:59 PM

it helps to have really big boomstick to keep all the little pissants on the planet from pissing on our yard though.

11/8/2009 6:27:12 PM

much more of our budget is wasted on social security and other entitlement programs.

11/8/2009 7:53:46 PM

The military is one of the only things that a good government is legitimately responsible for maintaining. I have very little problem with most of our military spending, but there are certain aspects that do need to be phased out, like a lot of our foreign bases. Let places like Germany and Japan defend themselves, especially now that we have no real need for a staging ground in the even of a Soviet attack.

11/8/2009 8:01:00 PM

you don't ever give up resources once you have them, even if you don't see yourself using them in the foreseeable future. as soon as you abandon them, you'll find a reason why you need them again. more realistically, it will be that you'll abandon something that you already need.

Giving up Panama was a mistake we don't need to make again.

11/8/2009 8:32:51 PM

Quote :

"Maybe that an isolationist policy of non-intervention is an outdated idea for a world power in a globalized world. At least thats what I took away from his post."

si.

lol @ aaronburro (dumbass)

11/8/2009 9:27:29 PM

Quote :

"you don't ever give up resources once you have them, even if you don't see yourself using them in the foreseeable future. as soon as you abandon them, you'll find a reason why you need them again. more realistically, it will be that you'll abandon something that you already need. Giving up Panama was a mistake we don't need to make again."

Yes, I see your point, but there are certain things that we could certainly do without. Overall though, I'm in favor of continued military spending, again, one of the few legitimate functions of government.

11/8/2009 10:38:44 PM

Quote :

"you don't ever give up resources once you have them, even if you don't see yourself using them in the foreseeable future. as soon as you abandon them, you'll find a reason why you need them again. more realistically, it will be that you'll abandon something that you already need. Giving up Panama was a mistake we don't need to make again"

That'd be fine if these places weren't places other people lived

11/9/2009 7:54:37 AM

Quote :

"you don't ever give up resources once you have them"

1. I'd place many of our bases in the "liability" column.

2. Fair's fair, though. Particularly with Panama, it was the right thing to do.

11/9/2009 7:56:14 AM

Quote :

"hey that sounds like just the kind of attitude that led us to WW1 and WW2 - good idea!!"

umm...what? plz stop posting now, kthx.

Quote :

"I'm much more concerned about plenty of other federal expenditures (Medicare, Social Security, this upcoming potential healthcare boondoggle, and generally holding states hostage with the power of the purse and the inefficiencies and trampling of liberty that go along with that)."

You mean the important issues that would actually benefit the masses? I understand you being in the military and having to be all for military spending and fuck the rest of the population...but seriously?

Not saying Medicare, SS, etc are working or anything of the sort...just saying these are the areas that require more focus and more money than military spending. It's time to pass the World Dictator hat to someone else.

Quote :

"lol... i think you're confusing war with conflict. We haven't had a proper war in several decades. You probably weren't even alive the last time we had a war, which might explain (but not excuse) your confusion."

lol again...what? you are easily becoming either the biggest troll on TWW or the dumbest poster. I'm thinking #2. A war doesn't have to be on the scale of WWII or even Vietnam. Wars in our life time include...Desert Storm, Iraq, Afghanistan...just to name a few. And I know i'm missing a couple. Something like Somalia in the 90's is a conflict.

[Edited on November 9, 2009 at 8:23 AM. Reason : .]

11/9/2009 8:14:16 AM

He's getting into semantics regarding formal declarations of war.

Very relevant to the discussion.

11/9/2009 9:03:56 AM

Quote :

"We haven't had a proper war in several decades."

And we probably never will again. The era of warring nation-states (third generation warfare) is a thing of the past. Today's wars are going to be more of a series of conflicts in the same vein as what we have in Afghanistan and Iraq. Our threats are not other countries, but independent de-centralized militias (or terrorists, as we call them) have replaced national militaries (aka Fourth Generation Warfare).

The problem, is that while we have the coolest, most expensive toys at our disposal, they are all geared towards fighting third generation wars. It's why we failed in Vietnam, and why the Iraq occupation wasn't going well until General Petraeus took over, and completely overhauled our military tactics to be in line with 4GW.

[Edited on November 9, 2009 at 9:17 AM. Reason : a]

11/9/2009 9:16:29 AM

Quote :

"Overall though, I'm in favor of continued military spending, again, one of the few legitimate functions of government."

It may be a legitimate function of government, but that doesn't mean that we should engage in every conceivable military action. The "legitimate function" you're speaking of is to provide for the common defense. In other words, we should be able to fight back and protect ourselves against foreign invaders/aggressors. It doesn't mean that we should go around trying to overthrow regimes, start "democracies," and generally getting involved in things that threaten our safety in no way. Having hundreds of permanent military bases around the world isn't necessary to maintain strong national security.

So, in other words, there's a difference between national security and warmongering.

11/9/2009 10:22:54 AM

military spending is often viewed as wasteful and unnecessary until you need it.

11/9/2009 12:19:41 PM

^^you must expand the empire! this is the American dream.

Clearly you guys didn't play Civilization

[Edited on November 9, 2009 at 12:22 PM. Reason : .]

11/9/2009 12:21:44 PM

If I were in the US's position at 2009 in Civilization, I'd start launching nukes and razing the crap out of Canada and Latin America.

11/9/2009 12:32:00 PM

YOU CANT CUT BACK ON FUNDING!!! YOU WILL REGRET THIS!

11/9/2009 12:46:39 PM

Here's a good article on one aspect of military spending: cost overruns. This was written by Richard Aboulafia of the Teal Group, considered one of the most influential observers and analysts within the aerospace industry.

http://www.richardaboulafia.com/shownote.asp?id=303

Quote :

"Dear Fellow Program Overrun Observers, Scientology. Religion? Cult? Practical joke gone wrong? Whatever you believe, the defense industry can learn a lot from the belief system inspired by L. Ron Hubbard’s pulp novels. There’s a key Scientology character named Lord Xenu who once blew up a few million people using DC-8s as bombers. As defense programs come under heavy pressure and as politicians use the defense industry as a whipping boy, we should pay attention to Lord Xenu. Mounting bombs on DC-8 wings and gouging weapons bays in a pressurized DC-8 hull takes work. He clearly knows a few things about defense program management, and about adapting off-the-shelf (OTS) platforms for new missions. Given the budget situation we need to learn, fast. Most current defense programs are in one form of trouble or another, but the VH-71 presidential helicopter looks particularly bad. Like Xenu’s DC-8s, the VH-71 uses an OTS platform, a theoretically lower cost approach that has produced several recent disasters: the Army’s Advanced Reconnaissance Helicopter and the Army/Navy Aerial Common Sensor. The VH-71 triggered a Nunn-McCurdy breach. That term has lost most of the power it once had, but VH-71 is now a $13.6 billion program to build 28 helicopters, a concept that’s quite powerful by itself. How did the VH-71, with its simple approach of modifying an existing helicopter (AgustaWestland’s EH 101) come to encapsulate all that is wrong with defense procurement? It’s simple. Requirements were padded on, with very little regard for costs. The range requirement almost doubled while the payload grew too, mandating a basically new propulsion system. Increment 2 (23 of the 28 VH-71s) is effectively a completely new aircraft, albeit one that looks externally a lot like the 101. Creating an all new helicopter might have cost less. HASC Chairman John Murtha said the Secret Service was “out of control” with VH-71 requirements, although other agencies drove design changes as well. Then there’s the contractor. Lockheed Martin isn’t in business to say no to customers, even when they demand the impossible. LM also has no incentive to transition from low-margin R&D work to higher margin production work when the production contract covers just twentysomething helicopters. A nice, safe, cost-plus development contract is enticing, particularly for a company with a strong engineering culture. Except for the F-16, LM isn’t known for a cost-sensitive company philosophy. But this is not a case of a contractor creating a $400 million helicopter due to incompetence or greed. Yet you might have gotten the impression that it was. In February, President Obama joined John McCain in criticizing the VH-71, citing it as “an example of the procurement process gone amok.” In March, he criticized an implicitly broad range of programs “designed to make a defense contractor rich.” Defense companies are now on the list of public anger catchers, along with business jet users, AIG bonus recipients and anyone with an intact 401K. There are three reasons why this is bad: First, blaming industry for troubled defense programs is false and self-serving. Decrying “waste, fraud, and abuse” is an easy public rationale for defense cuts, which are inevitable when you’re bailing out every loser industry in the nation. Also, many Democrats conflate “reform” with buying weapons that are only good for “Post-Cold War” needs (Obama recently vowed to “reform our defense budget so that we’re not paying for Cold War era weapons systems we don’t use”). This means cutting anything that costs money, like ships or fighter planes, and instead buying counterinsurgency equipment, which is much cheaper. Therefore, many Democrats offer a strange message: “We think Iraq was a really bad idea. We’re going to transform our military to deal with more Iraqs.” MRAP lawn ornament, anyone? The Second reason is that the problem lies elsewhere. DoD’s weapons acquisition workforce was gutted in the 1990s, but it didn’t grow as procurement spending almost tripled after 2001. DoD simply doesn’t have enough people for program management, a problem DoD officials have repeatedly highlighted (see Aviation Week, March 16, page 29, for a very useful chart). Yet key “reformers,” particularly Republicans, can’t quite part with Reagan’s “downsize government” philosophy and admit that more government workers are needed. Few pro-defense reform politicians are honest enough to say “we need to reform weapons acquisition by hiring lots more government acquisition professionals.” It’s much easier to keep bowing to the god of small government and look for solutions elsewhere. The Third reason is that unless you understand the problem, you can make things worse. No politician actually defines the word “reform.” In his Senate confirmation questionnaire, chief DoD weapons buyer nominee Ashton Carter said he would favor reform by using more fixed-price development contracts, the history of which is unblemished by success. In saner times, the examiners would reach for the giant APPLICANT REJECTED rubber stamp they reserve for special occasions. But today, to paraphrase Ovid, terrible ideas doth not prosper; if they prospered, none would dare call them terrible ideas. Program problems aren’t just the result of requirements people working in a vacuum. The requirements people respond to the broader environment, to the weapons acquisition philosophy created by each administration. In the Clinton era, we had CAIV (Cost As an Independent Variable). After the high science of the Reagan days (Star Wars, etc.), CAIV was a response to limited budgets, establishing price as a key guideline for new systems development. The F-35 was conceived of in the CAIV era, partly as a reaction to the quintessentially pre-CAIV F-22. Yet since 2001 it’s been a very different story. CAIV has been forgotten, replaced by words and phrases like “skipping a generation,” “Transformation,” and “Revolution in Military Affairs.” These terms imply that new programs should focus on technology and push the capabilities envelope. Cost concerns were forgotten, easily done when procurement went from $54 billion (FY01) to $145 billion (FY09). The VH-71 was very much a product of that time. Today, however, the pendulum is swinging back to something cost-driven. Blaming industry won’t make the transition easier. WWXD (What Would Xenu Do) with the VH-71? He’d probably build 20 or so Increment 1 machines for half the cost of the current Increment1/2 program (Murtha has proposed this idea too). But more importantly he’d use this program to make it clear that these are different times and that everyone needs to change the way they develop weapons. He’d turn his attention to NGLRS (if it survives). “Look people,” Lord Xenu might implore, “we’ve selected the DC-8 as the platform for our next generation long-range strike plane. Don’t focus on individual systems and capabilities until we allocate a limited budget. Don’t add additional systems and capabilities until we fully ascertain the true direct and indirect costs associated with them. I don’t want any nuclear-powered onboard fax machines, I don’t want a faster-than-light speed requirement added at the last minute. We’re talking ‘art of the possible' here, okay?” But the travails of VH-71 and myriad other programs show we’re a long way from this sensible kind of approach. Don’t even get Xenu started on the tanker thing. And speaking of that, for March we’ve updated all the Airbus reports including the A400M (we are not forecasting cancellation, but watch this space). A new report covers Alenia’s M-346, and other updates include the Gulfstreams, Hawker’s 400, the Dauphin, Bell 206/407/429, and China’s K-8. Have a great month. Yours, Until Xenu Gets Appointed SecDef, Richard Aboulafia"

11/9/2009 1:13:03 PM

Quote :

"Clearly you guys didn't play Civilization"

I do know from playing Civilization I-III that as the game goes on, the rounds get longer. It becomes increasingly time-consuming (and difficult) to balance revenue with keeping your cities around the world happy. Not only that, but resources become more and more scarce. Eventually, you might completely exhaust a certain resource.

As far as military expeditions go, on the hard modes of the game at least, war can be very costly. In fact, you might win a war and succeed in destroying another empire, but you destroy so much capital in the process that you can't even defend against an entirely separate empire that recognizes your vulnerability. I think, in a lot of ways, the same applies to us. The "national defense" crowd has driven us to launch these aggressive military actions around the world. But, in doing so, we've seen the opposite effect. Our economy is in shambles and our military is in a weakened state, so we're less safe.

[Edited on November 9, 2009 at 1:43 PM. Reason : ]

11/9/2009 1:40:12 PM

Quote :

"As far as military expeditions go, on the hard modes of the game at least, war can be very costly."

That's why you always switch to theocracy before waging a major invasion.

wait...

George Bush, you genius!

11/9/2009 1:43:03 PM

^Hahahahahaha

But look, as with any government expenditure, there's a lot of fat that can be cut from military budgets, but I don't see the need to reduce it at its core.

One thing we could certainly do is scale back production of latest-generation weapons systems like the F-22, which we've already done. It's important that we make a few to work out the kinks and use for training, but there's not really a need to have large fleets of such an advanced system in the current climate.

11/9/2009 3:41:05 PM

Quote :

"it helps to have really big boomstick to keep all the little pissants on the planet from pissing on our yard though."

Yes, it does. But that doesn't mean you also have to go out and piss in other people's yards

11/10/2009 8:32:54 PM

theDuke866 is correct

in the face of a changing world dynamic it will keep us on top, which is good for everyone on this forum

11/10/2009 9:40:32 PM

mambagirl: tell us about how we believe in slavery and made-in-china here in the east again. that was great

11/10/2009 9:45:37 PM