That kind of logic works great if every military job has a civilian military counterpart. Too bad that's not the case.

9/17/2012 3:34:02 PM

Quote :

"Before ww1 we had no military and we ramped up into a beast pretty quickly"

lol goddamn...i mean, seriously? i am 100% positive you don't know why WWI happened

9/17/2012 5:19:45 PM

Historians don't even have a consensus so its debatable. I hope you are being sarcasting and not suggesting that the cause of a global police nation is the cause...

9/17/2012 7:21:59 PM

Quote :

"Iran would not be hostile if cooled off so thats a moot point anyway."

Um, yeah, because clearly the Iranians are totally cool with Arabs and Sunni Muslims.

Quote :

"Someone has to carry out their plans. Who do you think does it?"

The CIA does it on their own plenty of times.

Quote :

"Before ww1 we had no military and we ramped up into a beast pretty quickly"

...and they also weren't flying stealth fighters or shooting artillery that accounts for Coriolis effect or raiding buildings based on various SIGINT and satellite IMINT and stuff. They were standing in lines in trenches and shooting rifles at each other, and statistically, mostly deliberately aiming to miss.

9/17/2012 7:29:35 PM

Quote :

"Before ww1 we had no military and we ramped up into a beast pretty quickly"

They see me rollin'-- they hatin'...

9/17/2012 9:28:47 PM

Quote :

"I want the military to protect our borders (and I mean that literally, not in a Iraq war sort of way), participate in coalition efforts of peacekeeping (participate at an appropriate level, not 99% of the coalition), have the ability to do responsive, quick interventions like air strikes, etc. There is no need for us to invade a country and put 100,000 troops on the ground in the blink of an eye. In the highly unlikely event that we REALLY we need to invade someone, we can ramp up to it just like every other country. How much does our giant military actually, literally keep us safe? By reducing the military budget, we'd have all sorts of opportunities to better use those resources."

So I agree that the forces the United States has in Europe are probably an anachronism. They don't do anything direct, but they are a symbol of America's continued commitment to NATO. We don't need to defend the Fulda Gap anymore, so I think it is something we can reasonably do.

Eastern Asia is a little trickier because you do still have active threats to our existing alliance commitments. The United States has been slowly reducing its presence on the Korean peninsula, but until the North Korean question can be resolved, I don't see us being able to a) completely withdraw or b) reduce force required to fight a North Korean campaign (I believe the current plans call for about 100k soldiers being brought in from the United States and Japan).

The region also faces the issue of a growing arms race in the region accelerating with a US withdrawal. There's the rapid increase in arms acquisition by South Korea and Japan but also the removal of ballistic missile limitations, the nuclear umbrella, etc. Given the active hostilities and territorial disputes, you have a potential for disaster. War in that region between some of the world's largest economies and heavily armed forces, even without US involvement, would be bad business for both us and the rest of the globe. Think 19th century Europe and old school balance of power politics. Until those politics can be resolved, the last thing the region needs is further instability.

I do think there is a lot of room for tightening the budget, but I would caution that to do it prudently, you'd have to ramp down over a four or five year period and not simply cut everything at once; the government has to wind down existing contracts or face paying heavy fees or endless lawsuits with wrongful termination clauses (biggest example was the end of the A-12 program back in 1991; there's STILL a lawsuit bouncing around in the courts on that one worth around $20B).

We also have to be careful WHAT we cut. An example is one of the BIG mistakes in the 1990s was the White House's decision to drastically slash the Pentagon's acquisition force. What happened was a complete wholesale destruction of the experience base for managing programs, evaluating proposals, etc. The Pentagon was unable to properly manage programs afterward, having to rely more upon contractors, and many of the overruns you see today are rooted in problems created from the weak supervision following the massacre.

I would also add that one of the big drivers in defense spending is not the size of the military or the cost of weapon systems but is the rapidly growing cost of military health care and benefits. They face the same dilemma the rest of society is, and those costs are going to create more problems.

Let me give this some more thought on where and how we'd cut.

9/17/2012 9:38:34 PM

Thank you for a reasonable response. For the most part I agree.

You need to pick and choose what to cut definitely, and slowly unwind things down to the levels I'm talking about. I'm not for cutting indescriminately or without thinking about the consequences.
Hell, stage this over 10 or 20 years, as long as we have a plan to reduce the burden on the nation.

9/18/2012 10:37:39 AM

You would need to overhaul the VA system as well and increase the manning drastically. Our present day VA is in no way equipped for all those people getting out.

9/18/2012 11:04:27 AM

I like RedGuard and I think he should post more.

^ That wouldn't be an issue if we hadn't gotten involved in the first place. Although it is a reality we now face.

9/18/2012 11:34:39 AM

Well, clearly it wouldn't have been an issue if we had killed Hitler before WW2..

9/18/2012 11:56:22 AM

Actually, Hitler probably wouldn't have come into power if we had not intervened in WWI, resulting in the Treaty of Versailles.

9/18/2012 11:58:26 AM

WWI would have never happened if Napoleon hadn't invaded the German states and the rest of Europe.

9/18/2012 12:19:35 PM

Quote :

"What an absurd statement. Nothing could be further from the truth."

d357r0y3r

dont be naive.

I am not claiming that we have made perfect military decisions (especially over the last 7-8 years).

What I am claiming is that without the threat of our response, the Russians and the Chinese would be most CERTAINLY expanding their empires. The Iranians would probably ally themselves with the highest bidder and shut down trade in the Gulf. The Indians and Pakistanis would nuke each other and Israel would either preempt the Arab world in conflict or risk invasion on three fronts.

Colonization would happen all over again, because left alone, the Russians and Chinese probably would not be able to help themselves. Likely, they would end up fighting each other causing untold death and destruction...no mention as to what they would do with us.

None of these things promote stability. Therefore, the world is MORE stable with us as a military power.

9/18/2012 3:24:25 PM

yeah, i think there's a balance to strike. What we've been doing particularly for a decade is insane. However, if we go hard isolationist, someone else will step up and fill the void (minus the extent that we could control things with our greatest weapon of all--trade). However much we screw stuff up, I have no faith that Russia or China would be an improvement.

The mono-polar world is fairly unusual, but as far as I can think of, a non-polar world is unprecedented. Someone is gonna run shit.

9/18/2012 5:54:40 PM

^^I don't see how any of that is of any consequence to the average American, to be honest. What you're saying is that we would see state imperialism vs. corporate imperialism. I don't quite understand what difference that makes to Joe taxpayer.

As it is, you can hardly argue that we've seen any trickle down effect from American hegemony and neoliberal economic policy. Our domestic poverty, unemployment, and erosion of civil liberties would certainly suggest that it's actively hurting the average American citizen.

I also don't see how you can see us as a net stablizing force, when the entire Middle East is now in a state of unrest and civil war. How can that possibly be more stable than if we were not involved?

^So while someone will certainly "run shit" (a cold hard reality that I agree with), it doesn't seem to be of much benefit to American citizens.



[Edited on September 18, 2012 at 6:23 PM. Reason : ]

9/18/2012 5:59:07 PM

US lost eight jets in worst air loss in one day since Vietnam war
Get short URL
email story to a friend print version

Published: 17 September, 2012, 20:36



After Taliban gunmen destroyed eight Harrier jets at a US camp in Helmand Province, the US military has suffered its worst air loss in one day since the Vietnam War.

The Taliban attacked Camp Bastion, the main strategic base in southwestern Afghanistan, on Sept. 14, causing $200 million in damage in the single most destructive strike on a Western base during the war, according to military officials.

Two Marines were killed, nine coalition personnel were wounded and six jets costing between $23 million and $30 million were completely destroyed.

The approximately 15 insurgents, dressed in US Army uniforms, had penetrated the base Friday night and instantly began shooting and setting fire to parked Navy-AV-8B Harrier jets when they were inside. Three refueling stations were severely damaged during the attack.

“It was a running gun battle for a while, two and a half hours, nonetheless they were able to get to the aircraft before we could intercept them,” a military official told the New York Times. Using machine guns, rocket propelled grenades and possibly mortars, most of the aircrafts were demolished.

After a drawn-out nighttime battle that made it hard to see the enemy, all but one of the Taliban fighters were killed. The remaining insurgent is now in military custody.

Camp Bastion is one of the largest and best-defended posts in Afghanistan, making it troubling that the attackers were able to inflict so much damage.

“We’re saying it’s a very sophisticated attack,” a military official told the Times. “We’ve lost aircraft in battle, but nothing like this.”

The Taliban made a statement blaming the attack on the anti-Muslim video that sparked outrage in the Arab world. But Wahid Mujda, an Afghan analyst who tracks the Taliban, told the Times that an attack as sophisticated as this one took a lot of planning and training, thereby being unrelated to the release of the video.

“I do not think that the Camp Bastion attack had anything to do with the anti-Prophet movie,” he said. “Given the sophistication of the attack one can say with a lot of confidence that the Taliban had been training, rehearsing and preparing for weeks and even months. Everything was not planned and decided overnight.”

The detrimental attack comes after nearly 10,000 American Marines have left Helmand Province over the past several months, now that the offensive is over. But more coalition service members have died this year in Afghanistan. After Friday’s attack, four more service members were killed on Sunday in Zabul Province, bringing the total number of deaths this year to 51. Last year, 35 were killed as a result of this type of violence.

And as US involvement in Afghanistan trickles down, the Taliban has left its mark on the highest security base with the most destructive attack in the region in 11 years.


http://rt.com/usa/news/us-jets-attack-taliban-343/

9/18/2012 10:30:04 PM

It would effect us because major conflict between large nation-states would almost certainly pull us into conflict ourselves. Many thought we could stay out of the World Wars.

The Middle East is a particularly poor example for you to use. One could successfully argue that the Mid East has been in a near constant state of unrest dating back to before recorded history. They are going to fight there with or without us.

9/18/2012 10:34:39 PM

Nice Bush Doctrine, there.

So it's better to currently be in conflict in the middle east rather than to possibly be dragged into conflict in the middle east?

They're going to fight with or without us.....so we might as well get in the action? What, is the USA the stupid meathead in highschool who just jumped in fights because it was an opportunity to take his shirt off?

And let's be real. A huge majority of all modern-day fighting in the Middle East has to do with Israel, and their perceived legitimacy by their neighbors.

9/18/2012 10:50:08 PM

the iran-iraq war says hello

9/19/2012 12:43:04 AM

ehhh, yeah, there's a WHOLE LOT more to the Middle East than conflicts with Israel. I'd even go so far as to say that's a minority player across the broader region.

9/19/2012 6:26:30 AM

personally, I dont disagree with a more isolationist approach. I think we could and should close a large % of our foreign bases, but I dont think you can gut the size and the capability of the military to project a world-class amount of force, if necessary, without severe long term consequences.

9/19/2012 8:40:25 AM

iraq invaded kuwait because of israel. not because iraq claimed kuwait was part of their territory. or because of oil production disputes. or not because of debts incurred during the iran-iraq war.

nah iraq invaded kuwait as an excuse to launch scuds at israel. yeah. that's the ticket

jesushchrist

[Edited on September 19, 2012 at 9:27 AM. Reason : .]

9/19/2012 9:20:28 AM

I should have added "as it pertains to modern US foreign policy."

I'm not lumping all middle eastern conflicts onto the shoulders of one country.


Anyway, I'd still like to have an answer as to how US taxpayers benefit from our attempt of corporate hegemony in the Middle East.

[Edited on September 19, 2012 at 1:37 PM. Reason : LOL---AUTOCAD CAPS LOCK!!! sorry for yelling ]

9/19/2012 1:33:47 PM

how does the average citizen benefit from having a military that ensures the strait of hormuz, through which 1 out of every 5 barrels of oil passes through, stays open and free for navigation?

same way the average citizen benefits from ensuring the free flow of traffic through the strait of malacca, through which a quarter of the world's commerce travels

iran, china, india, japan, etc - those are the people we have to trust with those straits and the global economy if we decide we're no longer going to provide a global military force

regardless, the amount of actual fighting over israel doesn't really stack up against other conflicts in the region

[Edited on September 19, 2012 at 4:51 PM. Reason : .]

9/19/2012 4:45:06 PM

Does it really take 5 super carrier groups to ensure that the Strait of Hormuz and Strait of Malaca stay open though?

I'm not advocating for dissolving the military, simply shrinking it.

9/20/2012 11:19:01 AM

If they decided to try and close them off it might. Large standing military and huge amounts of ground forces are probably unnecessary, but force projection through navy and air power are definitely necessary.

9/20/2012 11:35:08 AM

you do realize that carriers can't stay at sea forever, right? they have to come back and go through extensive repairs and rebuilds after every deployment. so yes, it does require multiple groups. it is my opinion that we have to be able to have a round-the-clock force projection to preserve these open commerce lanes.

5 carrier groups would allow us to basically be in one place at one time. so say iran and china decide to work together - how are we going to project a military force in both the gulf and south china sea for a prolonged period of time?

[Edited on September 20, 2012 at 11:51 AM. Reason : ,]

9/20/2012 11:43:09 AM

say we go down to 5. china, now the largest military in the world (they currently have 70+ surface combatants and 60+ submarines), decides to launch an attack on the US and manages to sink just one of those 5 carriers with, say, one of their nuclear attack submarines.

now we're engaging in a war with china with 4 good aircraft carriers. all of our resources are tied up there and now iran knows they can do whatever the fuck they want because we can't afford any seapower to keep hormuz open.

even IF we mothballed all the other ships and carriers, getting them out of storage and getting the tens of thousands of reservists activated and ready to go to war doesn't happen overnight.

9/20/2012 12:20:27 PM

Quote :

"same way the average citizen benefits from ensuring the free flow of traffic through the strait of malacca, through which a quarter of the world's commerce travels"

Yeah, not really buying it. Everything you describe in the past couple of posts describe why multi-national corporations, and oil companies benefit from our extensive military presence. From their perspective, yeah, absolutely, what you said makes perfect sense. But that doesn't necessarily translate into increased living standards to the average worker. To the guy working the assembly line or the worker watching his manual labor be outsourced overseas, it's not really helping him any.

I don't think globalization is a net gainer for US citizens. The more we're depended on foreign resources and foreign labor, the larger our military presence has to be. We can't keep expanding. It's not sustainable. We'll implode, eventually. Our adventurism abroad will come home to roost, one way or another.

9/20/2012 12:45:27 PM

you're right. I'm sure if someone decided they wanted to, i dunno, mine the straits of hormuz or malacca, the average consumer wouldn't see any increase in gas or consumer goods prices.

9/20/2012 5:13:01 PM

all that manpower that we waste on military shit would increase the size of our useful economy. we can always build up a military really fast if we really need one like we did in WW2. china aint gonna do shit. the sand niggers could take out a sky scraper a year and still do less damage than under funded health clinics.

9/20/2012 6:01:47 PM

^^cheaper consumer goods doesn't do a country much good if they continue to see rising unemployment. I don't see how this is such a controversial position.

9/20/2012 6:14:48 PM

Wait..so your position is a smaller military will lead to a lower unemployment rate? Just exactly where are you planning on sending the veterans that you're planning on releasing from active duty/reserves?

9/20/2012 6:29:41 PM

yeaaahhh, thaattsss.......not my position....at all.

9/20/2012 6:35:47 PM

but it is funny to see someone totally okay with using tax dollars to pay government workers...so long as they are in the military.

We could totally have 100% employment if we just got all working class citizens to join the military! We won't have to pay them retirement, either, because most of them will die serving the King's army!

9/20/2012 6:42:22 PM

Quote :

"I don't think globalization is a net gainer for US citizens."

That's ok, some people don't believe in evolution and global warming. I guess it brings balance to the intellectual world.

9/20/2012 7:33:09 PM

^^ lol what? I'm quite content at the size of the military right now, it doesn't need to get bigger.

9/20/2012 7:43:55 PM

Quote :

"That's ok, some people don't believe in evolution and global warming. I guess it brings balance to the intellectual world."

Haha. I've got 30 years of data showing record gains in corporate profits, stagnation of middle class incomes, record job losses in spite of a growing GDP, increased rates of poverty, near poverty, and working poor numbers, increased rates of incarceration, exploding numbers of urban and suburban foreclosures, personal bankruptcy numbers, rampant evidence of political cronyism, evidence of increasing surveillance and violations of civil liberties during a decade of endless occupation of multiple foreign countries, and a host of other data to support my argument.

What intellectual data have you got to support yours other than a knee-jerk desire to defend the status quo?

9/20/2012 7:57:20 PM

Jesus H Christ you're a walking Non Sequitur

[Edited on September 20, 2012 at 8:03 PM. Reason : .]

9/20/2012 8:02:52 PM

most of that shit is tangentially related at most to free trade.

9/20/2012 9:41:56 PM

Quote :

"but it is funny to see someone totally okay with using tax dollars to pay government workers...so long as they are in the military."

well, for the most part, they are about the only government employee who is actually held accountable to a standard. so they have that going for them.

9/21/2012 2:03:59 PM

^^fair enough

9/21/2012 2:07:20 PM

Quote :

"say we go down to 5. china, now the largest military in the world (they currently have 70+ surface combatants and 60+ submarines), decides to launch an attack on the US and manages to sink just one of those 5 carriers with, say, one of their nuclear attack submarines. now we're engaging in a war with china with 4 good aircraft carriers. all of our resources are tied up there and now iran knows they can do whatever the fuck they want because we can't afford any seapower to keep hormuz open. even IF we mothballed all the other ships and carriers, getting them out of storage and getting the tens of thousands of reservists activated and ready to go to war doesn't happen overnight. "

Ok, so let's run with your scenario. We're down to 4 carriers (11-6=5 in my plan on saving money, and they sink 1 = 4). We've shrunk our carrier #'s by 36%. How many carriers does China have? 0. So it's 4 to 0 there. They have 70 surface ships? We have 286 ships including 22 cruisers and 61 destroyers.

So what if being ready to go to war doesn't happen overnight? We've had to ramp up to wars in the past and succeeded.

It's just laughable to think we wouldn't be able to handle the situation with far less military spending than we currently have.

9/21/2012 3:19:16 PM

Without googling, how long do you think it takes to build a modern day nuclear powered aircraft carrier.

9/21/2012 3:21:57 PM

At current production, maybe 8 years?

Could probably get it down to 2-3 if we really had to?

Just wild guesses.

Look, I'm no expert on modern warfare, logistics, etc. But I do have enough common sense to know that if you outspend the next 10 largest militaries COMBINED, then you can downsize a bit and still hold your own.

9/21/2012 3:39:39 PM

^^ do you mean the US time or China time to build?

[Edited on September 21, 2012 at 4:03 PM. Reason : .]

9/21/2012 3:45:36 PM

Quote :

"all that manpower that we waste on military shit would increase the size of our useful economy. we can always build up a military really fast if we really need one like we did in WW2. china aint gonna do shit. the sand niggers could take out a sky scraper a year and still do less damage than under funded health clinics."

I have a hard time believing the youth of today, including you, would be receptive to a draft and turning the private sector into military production outfit on the drop of a dime. Not to mention all of those manufacturing jobs which built most of what we needed in the WWs are no longer on U.S. soil...

Also, bring on the ration books!



[Edited on September 21, 2012 at 4:23 PM. Reason : .]

9/21/2012 4:18:23 PM

I don't get why the 'Oh we did it in WWI or WWII we can do it again' is even a rational argument....it's not the same world.

9/21/2012 5:03:22 PM

which is the same argument many people are making concerning the size of our military

9/21/2012 5:06:58 PM

Quote :

" They have 70 surface ships? We have 286 ships including 22 cruisers and 61 destroyers. "

thanks for falling for it. it's so easy to get people to trip themselves up when they don't kn

first of all, I talked about surface combatants. now, if you actually knew anything about the military, you would know that surface combatants are destroyers, frigates, cruisers, and corvettes. the US Navy currently has 22 cruisers, 61 destroyers, and 29 frigates (which are being rapidly decomissioned). you can add in the littoral combat ships, but we have just 2 of them. so generously, we have 114 surface combatants to china's 75 combatants.

oh, by the way, china has nearly as many subs as we do and has a whole hell of a lot more patrol and missile boats.

but lets put ALL of that aside and address the major shortcoming in your logic. you're advocating to get rid of all those carriers. but we're going to keep every other ship we have? we're going to have multiple DESRONS per strike group? multiple SUBRONS? keeping every last amphib? yeah, didn't think that through, did you?

anyway, I'd do a much more thorough takedown of your ignorance and faulty logic, but chicken wings are calling

[Edited on September 21, 2012 at 5:34 PM. Reason : myopic people are funny]

9/21/2012 5:33:55 PM