Slashdot Mirror

Or we make all colleges free and buy a few less unnecessary tanks for the army.

This is on the same order of bullshittery as "we could erase the national debt if we just raised taxes on the top 1%." In 2011, the total amount of money spent on college tuition in the US (note, this does not include books, housing, or food) was about half of the total US miitary budget. Since then, the military budget has declined and college tuition has increased. So no, passing on "a few less unnecessary tanks for the army" would not free up enough money to make all colleges free.

Or we make all colleges free and buy a few less unnecessary tanks for the army.

Yes, I can. The flu epidemic, for one. That was easy. Of course, it's harder to remember Obama's because NONE of them were in the least bit controversial.

I recently reviewed them ALL as declarations of national emergencies have been a subject of the news recently and it WAS covered by the Fake News MSM .

NONE of those national emergencies were used as a means of subverting the will and power of Congress.

Most of them actually simply froze assets of bad actors in countries like Yemen or the Central African Republic.

BTW, why does Trump believe the US is so weak that we need Saudi Arabia's money? How many jobs are our arms sales actually creating?

“It’s $110 billion. I believe it’s the largest order ever made. It’s 450,000 jobs. It’s the best equipment in the world.”

— President Trump, in remarks to reporters, Oct. 13, 2018

“$110 billion in purchasing. It’s 500,000 jobs, American jobs. Everything’s made here.”

— Trump, in an interview with Trish Regan of Fox Business News, Oct. 16

“Who are we hurting? It’s 500,000 jobs. It’ll be ultimately $110 billion. It’s the biggest order in the history of our country from an outside military.”

— Trump, in an interview with Stuart Varney of Fox Business News, Oct. 17

“I would prefer that we don’t use, as retribution, canceling $110 billion worth of work, which means 600,000 jobs."

— Trump, during a defense roundtable at Luke Air Force Base, Oct. 19

“So now if you’re talking about — that was $110 billion — you know, you’re talking about over a million jobs. You know, I’d rather keep the million jobs, and I’d rather find another solution.”

— Trump, in additional remarks to reporters after the roundtable, Oct. 19

The truth is that it's more like thousands of jobs...maybe even more than 10,000. And before you say if we don't sell weapons to them, they'll just buy from Russia, China and maybe even India do you REALLY think they can get parts and service for all their American made aircraft? Do those countries sell THAAD systems? Is the security of our nation really dependent on supporting war crimes in Yemen?

It's absolutely absurd that anyone believes a word that Trump says.

"The reason I do not want military drills with South Korea is to save hundreds of millions of dollars for the U.S. for which we are not reimbursed," - Donald Trump

FACT: It's more like $14 million

I'll try to cite some NON-MSM sources for that:

Canceling Joint Exercise with South Korea Saved $14 Million: DoD
The Pentagon says next month's Freedom Guardian exercise with South Korea would have cost about $14 million, one month after President Trump said canceling the exercise would "save a fortune."
‘War Games’ Trump Said Were Too Expensive Cost Less Than a Fighter Jet
Pentagon estimates U.S.-South Korea military exercises, canceled as too provocative and expensive, would have cost $14 million

I heard the first 100k come with a free AR-15.

He is correct. You are utterly wrong. You're actually putting forward a macro-conspiracy theory, though you're also clearly too ignorant to be aware of it. There are far too many controls in place for that kind of self-dealing to occur in federal procurement. Absolutely everything is reviewed by hundreds of people before it is approved; that's the major reason why the Federal government is so slow and bureaucratic.

The real "corruption" is how major employers garnering Federal contracts have their local Congressman in their pocket. It leads to the Pentagon telling Congress to stop buying it equipment that it doesn't need. But even with this, it's a matter of votes, not money.

It is a mark of how far Slashdot has fallen that ignorance like yours is upvoted to +5, with nary a supporting statement on your side.

Holy shit, you're actually right.
https://www.military.com/daily...

Non sequitur. How many of those boat owners say they keep things "boatshape?" You claim a dinghy isn't a boat. Is a sloop not a sailboat? Most civilians don't follow the navy and call submarines, "boats."

Is a cutter a boat or a ship? Why is a Marine Protector Class Boat not a ship, when it carries a boat? Why do the names of all US Navy Torpedo Boats and submarines start with USS (U.S. Ship)?

Forget about any rule of thumb - with so many exceptions, the fact remains that there is no objective difference between a boat and a ship - it's all based of someone's personal, subjective, experience. Hell, the military can't even be consistent.

No, the US airforce currently has a ~2,000 pilot shortfall, so drones can't be causing a decline in the number of pilots coming out of the airforce, because there aren't enough in it in the first place.

The reason for the shortfall is that many are suffering burnout from years of high operational tempo due to deployments to places like Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria, and because civilian airlines simply pay more.

As such, retention seems to be the biggest problem - being a fighter pilot looked like a sexy job on Top Gun, but when you realise it means 8 hour flights in a cramped cockpit by yourself with only a tube to pee in and only getting to fire one or two missiles a year at best on a training ground, it kind of gets a lot less sexy. With that taken into account, at that point, sitting in the nice relatively spacious cabin of a civilian airliner for 8 hours with one or two co-pilots to keep you company, getting paid way more, and with a proper toilet to use, and warm meals served to you on the job looks a lot more appealing.

https://www.military.com/daily...

https://www.airforcetimes.com/...

Really though, it implies if the airforce is struggling too that there's just not enough pilots in general. I'm not sure if this is a US problem, or a global problem however, it's possible that non-US carriers are simply paying even more again and pulling US pilots overseas.

the last spending bill was $1.3 Trillion, of which nearly $700 billion is military. 700/1300 = 53% (rounding down since 'nearly'). And if you think the next spending bill will be any different you haven't been paying attention to who's running the government.

The U.S. government is, by some measures, the most violent government on earth. United States taxpayers pay for more than 740 U.S. military bases and offices.

The effect of the U.S. government's invasion of Iraq was destroy the Iraq government, so that there could be more war. Now Iraq is no longer a managed country, and is destroyed as a society.

U.S. taxpayers pay "... expenses that could grow to more than $6 trillion over the next four decades counting interest".

Some people want to kill other people. If you are a U.S. citizen, are you comfortable taking money from your bank account to pay for killing other people and destroying their property? Some of the money that is taken from you is taken using inflation.

The founders of Google are Jews. Some Jews like the fact that the U.S. government defends Israel, and those who aren't Jews pay most of the cost. That is a pro-Jewish comment: It helps people understand one of the ways in which the Jewish culture is self-destructive. Maybe that understanding will help people of the Jewish culture stop being self-destructive.

No personal devices, done.

Nice try AC, but many of those fitbits were government issued, in a move to encourage more exercise.

https://www.military.com/daily...

Oh, I see they're up to all of 9 weeks now:
https://www.military.com/join-...

Gosh, that's a huge difference! Completely changes the point! After 9 weeks, well, that's an ASSET not cannon fodder right?

Nitpick elsewhere, shithead. You see the point and you deliberately ignore it over a technicality. Pathetic.

The whole story sounds like complete and utter bollocks quite frankly.

Consider

1) How big is the torpedo. There's a picture of the original Tsar Bomba here

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

It's enormous. Way larger than a torpedo tube.

2) How far away from the launching submarine would 100 Mt warhead need to be? 100 Mt is obviously an enormous amount and explosions under water are more damaging.

3) How is an 'intercontinental torpedo' propelled? It seems the propulsion system would add more weight to an already heavy concept

4) How is it guided? GPS won't work because it's underwater. Submarines use all sorts of subtle techniques like passive sonar to avoid revealing their location and ultra low frequency radio transmissions. A human crew on a sub can do this. It's far from clear a drone submarine is viable

5) Why salt the bomb? That would poison the oceans over a vast area.

It just sounds like the Russians have leaked this in attempt to make the US give up on missile defence. There's no evidence this project got funded. And Russia is so cash strapped it didn't even an SLBM subs patrolling as recently as 2006. Putin has pushed for new SLBMs and new subs to put them with the result the US no longer has nuclear primacy but that process was not exactly embarrassment free - tests failed for a while.

E.g. here in 2013

https://www.military.com/defen...

The idea Russia is going to get what is effectively a drone submarine working anytime soon when it seemed to have significant teething troubles doing what was the Russian equivalent of an Ohio class replacement is absurd. Most likely they're bullshitting in the hope it gives the US left an excuse to say that 'ballistic missile defence can't non ballistic missile threats, therefore it's not worth doing'.

Actually what it reminds me of is the US announcement of 'Star Wars' aka SDI. It wasn't technically practical then but the Russians didn't know that. If you read Gorbachev's autobiography him and Shevardnadze used SDI to make the case that the USSR had lost the Cold War and it was time to surrender. Rumours of this device are presumably intended to cause the same sentiment in the US.

Unless you work in the public sector, in which case you can retire with a lifetime pension in your 40's. You actually get paid longer to not work than you did to work.

I believe you're thinking of the military, which has a retirement system that allows people to retire as early as 37. https://www.military.com/benef...

For the ordinary (non military) civil service, you're not eligible for full retirement until age 62.

Hey, it's you again. Sorry but reality means there are people that that benefit more from our military spending than others. Don't think so? Then why do we spend billions on the Middle east but spend almost nothing on the violence in Africa?

Or how about military spending out of line with what voters want or even what the military wants?
http://time.com/4253842/defens...
http://www.military.com/daily-...

Then you suggest as a counter argument that policing isn't re-distributive to the wealthy. You are correct in some ways and I even realized that prior to hitting submit but didn't change my own text because I wanted to get your response. You're response literally stated that policing funds are sometimes re distributive to the poor thus confirming more core point. Thanks for that.

That you personally are unaware of the bulk of geophysical research over the last two centuries does not mean that we are wandering adrift in a sea of unknown forces. We've known since the 19th Century that many human activities produced large amounts of "carbonic acid", and after Tyndall's experiments in the 1860s we knew the thermal properties of the various atmospheric gases. The CO2-mediated theory of climate change was proposed in 1896. The idea was arguably obvious then, and remains equally obvious: an increase in the amount of a greenhouse gas will, ceteris paribus, raise the equilibrium temperature. If you don't like it, find another way to transfer heat off this rock.

I do not know what your confusion is between hydrocarbon exploration and science generally. One has to assume that you know nothing about how either is done. You will likely be surprised to know that for the last century one of the most important drivers of atmospheric and oceanographic research has been the US military -- which you'll note is the opposite of a left-wing hippie organization, one that has an extremely keen interest in the world and little tolerance for bullshit. Which would be why the Pentagon keeps trying to insist that Republicans take climate change seriously.

Your argument that, "because individuals cannot meaningfully affect the climate, we should not collectively care about the issue," is very amusing, but you're probably going to want another one.

https://www.lifesitenews.com/n...

I don't have an answer but as the military has a major issue with sexual assault of females within their own ranks. I'm not entirely convinced that expecting females to accept penis or be accused of hate crimes is necessarily the best solution. Also http://www.military.com/join-a... is a damn long list, medical conditions are problematic for armies to deal with.

It's a fairly normal result of human biological development,

So are autism and Down syndrome.

It's a medical condition, not a disease

Glad you realize it's a "medical condition". Here is a long list of medical conditions that prevent people from joining the military.

As a medical condition, there's no reason why insurance should not cover that, assuming the provider is willing.

We're not talking about whether it should be covered by your insurance plan, we are talking about whether the US military should hire people with this preexisting medical condition.

And the exact treatment is pretty much none of your business.

No, but it is my business and the business of every American voter who we want to serve in the US military and what treatments we want our public healthcare system to cover. That's why we have elections, like in 2016 for example.

but since you and many others will go out of your way to shit on trans people, it tends to have severe psychological repercussions

You have no idea who I am or what I had to deal with growing up. And I don't care whether you dress up in women's clothes or chop off your willy; it's a free country. Just don't expect others to pay for it through their taxes and don't blame others if you hate your life. Whether you're happy or not is entirely up to you, and your attitude is that of a petulant, immature child.

"I can speak further about this because I was discharged from the Army for having a condition called Congenital Stationary Night Blindness."

Discharged as in released from service. So if you mean the policy is that they would allow trans people to volunteer in the military then discharge them then sure you are correct. However I imagine the shitstorm of discrimination cries would be insane. There is a list of physical conditions that prevent you from serving in the military including scoliosis and . What is the difference here?
Feel free to read up on them. http://www.military.com/join-a...

I'm sure I'm going to get blasted. But anyone who compares this to past military issues like segregation or preventing women from serving isn't being realistic.

The medical costs are an actual issue - The military should NOT pay for gender transition - http://www.military.com/daily-... This is a readiness and leathality issue. Soldiers must be able to fight - it doesn't matter if they are a cook or a band-member. Hormone therapies cause physiological and behavioral changes, surgeries require significant time to heal - this is not conducive to a functioning and coherent squad.

If you have ongoing gender issues/crisis, you should not be entering the military. The military requires stability and focus. Such distractions only detract from readiness and squad relations.

The only way ANY transgender should be allowed is if ze has already completed gender reassignment, is stable, healthy, and requires minimal support (And that means MINIMAL!) People who require regular medical support to be functional are not allowed in the military (diabetics, severe allergies, etc).

However, even if there are transgenders that meet the minimal support requirements, the additional costs of medical testing/vetting transgender recruits are likely also burdensome. I don't think the extra costs are worth catering to what will always be a very small percentage of the overall force.

Another war to feed the American industrial military complex, what did you expect?
Why are you even surprised? America has been at (almost) constant war since the American civil war.

America is building tanks it doesn't need (or want) just so that they can keep the factory running in case they need to ramp up production
http://www.military.com/daily-...

Why would any country do that unless the intention was to go to war in the future.
We have to defend against Russian aggression I can only see American aggression from where I am standing.

A lot of people look at the VHA (which is a single-payer healthcare system in the US) and say, "I don't want that."

Apparently those are people who don't use the VA, people who use it rate it higher than private hospitals (source). Medicare patients are more satisfied than private patients as well (source). People think they "don't want that" because they have been brainwashed into thinking that any government healthcare is bad. They aren't using evidence to make that judgement, it's based solely on political ideology.

Single payer is less expensive, gives higher patient satisfaction and has better patient outcomes but we can't have it because there is big money to be made in healthcare and the politicians immediately shut down any attempt to cut out the middleman. From a businessman's view healthcare is a great business -- customers rarely have any choice on buying it, prices are very murky and complex and the consumer doesn't directly pay - there is a middleman that pays the bill (and that middleman makes a bunch of money too). People who would be better off supporting a single-payer system won't do so because they have been told by their "leaders" (who take their marching orders from business) that it will inevitably lead to a communist state. Even when congress passes something that might be useful, like Medicare part D, they prohibit the government negotiating with the pharma companies because it might cut into the profits of their corporate masters. It's infuriating to me that the handouts to healthcare businesses are so transparent yet most people act like they don't notice. Making massive profits off of people's medical misfortune should be a shameful activity but in the US it is lauded and further enshrined into law.

the % does not matter, only total dollar amount. and frankly, other countries need to step up

Bullshit. Percentage matters a great deal. I'm much more impressed by someone who donates 2% of their income to help those in need than someone who donates 0.19% (the actual number for the US) The US is the one that needs to step up. Buy fewer tanks that the military doesn't want and do something actually helpful with the money. And yes, foreign aid does help the US. It's a form of soft power.

Also, as a courtesy, my sources: military suicides in 2012 and police suicides in 2015 (2012 total is provided within).

Not that we'll eve know, but given a Division of US vs a Division or Russian soldiers on the same field, my bet would be on the Russians.

Generals McMaster and MacGregor have said as much, as well. The US brigades and divisions are too light on artillery IMO. Here's a good briefing on the subject: http://douglasmacgregor.com/RS...
But the Army never fights alone. The US relies very heavily on air power to shape the battlespace, and the argument of Russian air defenses vs USAF SEAD/PGMs is a very complex discussion.

Not sure what you're on about here so you may need to provide some references.European military expenditure is still in the normal range

France, the UK, and Poland are spending 2% GDP. China, Australia, India = 1.9%. The global share of GDP is 2.3%. Most of Europe is closer to 1% (Germany 1.2%, Italy 1.3%, Spain 0.6%). https://www.sipri.org/database... http://books.sipri.org/files/F...
And it's hard to argue that the cost savings is materializing as any sort of persistent military efficiency, given that Europe has prosecuted two air campaigns in the past 10 years where they've had to borrow/buy munitions from the US in short order. http://foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.c... https://www.washingtonpost.com...

International R&D/procurement programs such as the Eurofighter Typhoon and A400M probably do yield cross-national economies of scale, but without a VERY robust commitment to command & control / administration / logistics / training & readiness, you can't run a multi-national combat force with any degree of integration and proficiency. http://www.military.com/daily-...
"The expert group comprising six defense officials, including former NATO chief Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, warned of "chronic underfunding" and "critical deficiencies" of the Alliance's member states, according to the report, as quoted by the Financial Times newspaper. The NATO report revealed that only 10 of 31 German Tiger helicopters and some three quarters of 406 Marder armored infantry vehicles were usable."
https://sputniknews.com/world/...

You'd think so, but apparently Entreprise is to be entirely scrapped, and not even a significant piece of her such as her island will be placed in a museum:

http://www.military.com/daily-news/2012/10/22/enterprise-nimitz-class-carriers-wont-be-museums.html

There are, however, a number of other aircraft that are suitable for close support. If you look at this this table, the venerable B-52 can drop more close support weaponry at lower cost than anything else in the inventory and the F-16 is a close second. Several turboprop planes are also being used.

And of course there are helicopters and perhaps eventually UAVs.

The F35 is really a stupid concept for CAS. Expensive to own and maintain. Not particularly well armored.

The whole premise of 'one plane to rule them all' has shown itself to be poorly thought out and more of a pipe dream than anything else.

Trump has stated that he will not necessarily honor NATO commitments to nations that are inadequate in their own commitments to NATO. This has been discussed amongst the military a bit recently "Military times"

I've voted in Swedish elections several times as a permanent resident.

You also might be interested to know that you do not have to become a US citizen to serve in the US armed forces--permanent residents of the US are also eligible.

I'd suggest you lose your love of circular logic first, though.

The FBI is the ENEMY of the American people...

Why do you think it's limited to just the FBI?

Remember that when someone in power wants to increase your taxes "to solve problems".

Or do you really want to hand over even more power to the government that's brought us the TSA, NSA, and VA "health care" - where the leadership says "No one complains about lines at Disney World"

Soldier's death benefit is only $100k http://www.military.com/benefi...

But that's completely unrelated to this story. Soldier's volunteer...I did without any expectation that should I lose my life, my family would get more than enough to bury me ($20k back in my time).

There's plenty of precedent for paying more than $1M in cases similar this.

Then which military are you recommending the Americans on this American site go join?

Plenty of good options.

US

France

Both accept foreigners.

I must confess to knowing almost nothing about what approaches people doing railgun R&D at higher-than-recreational power levels use to cope with this tradeoff; but it wouldn't entirely surprise me if some sort of lubricant(whether fluid or powder) does figure into the plan. One of the issues with resistive heating at the rail/projectile interface, especially before the projectile has picked up speed, is that it can actually weld the projectile to the rail; which either stops it dead or reduces firing efficiency because some of the energy that should go into accellerating the projectile goes into tearing it loose. One approach is to use a pneumatic or similar 'first-stage' accelerator, so that the projectile is already moving when it hits the rails; but a conductive fluid, graphite powder, or something in that vein might also help.

My impression, based on the videos of the navy's railgun experiments(notably, the dramatic billowing clouds of glowing metal vapor/metal plasma) is that, in practice, the projectile does end up with a fluid layer between it and the rail, whether you want it or not; because resistive heating causes some of the rail and some of the projectile to vaporize or flash into plasma at the point of contact. The currents involved are simply too high to keep all the metal solid. Presumably, a suitably elegant choice of materials might produce a vapor that serves as a fairly good conductive fluid lubricant, while a poor choice might be substantially resistive or dielectric; but we are talking about downright alarming power densities at points of contact between the projectile and the rails. A theoretical 'ideal' railgun(superconductive in all the parts that need to be conductive, frictionless in all the parts that experience abrasion), would just convert electrical energy to kinetic energy, with little drama. A real world railgun( like this navy test model features a dramatic cloud of gas and/or plasma because of just how much material gets vaporized by non-ideal conditions. Especially when the plan is to substantially exceed the energy levels or muzzle velocities of existing gunpowder weapons; the currents involved are truly massive.

talk about the $148 million a piece price tag for the base F-35 model. A-10's start at around $30 million each. You let me know when one F-35 can out compete four A-10's for air to ground combat.

Predator Unit cost: US$16.9 million

It's not the F-35 that ended the A-10's service career... As of 2012, almost one in three USAF aircraft were UAVs.

In Iraq and Afghanistan, UAVs were reportedly more frequent specifically requested by ground units than any other aircraft.

"Whereas a manned fighter will seldom be able to stay on station for longer than an hour or so, a persistent armed UAV (PA-UAV) could potentially stay on station for up to 20 hours"

- http://www.military.com/NewCon...

That's quite a little rant you put together, but it doesn't change the facts.

Fitness standards in both the US Marines (not to mention the US Army and other services) are "gender normed" rather than the same. Example:
Marine Corps Physical Fitness Test Points - Male
Marine Corps Physical Fitness Test Points - Female

Judging women on the mens scale will cause their scores to plummet.

Despite your attempt to misquote me and distort the meaning of what I wrote, the fact remains that the female office you so approve of wrote this:

But there came a point when I could not persuade my body to perform. It wasn’t a matter of will but of pure physical strength. My mind wanted more, but my muscles quivered in failure after multiple attempts. I began to shiver as I got cold. I was told I could not continue

PURE PHYSICAL STRENGTH.

Current and Past SOCOM Commanders Split on Women in Combat

The current SOCOM commander is limited in what he can say as a serving officer. The former commander is not so constrained and seems to have some insights that you lack. Do you plan to write him and insult his penis too?

You should probably read this paper:
New British Ministry of Defence Review Paper Shreds Case for Women in Ground Close Combat

Special ops forces fear standards will be lowered for women

Men in U.S. special operations forces do not believe women can meet the physical and mental standards to join their ranks, and fear the requirements will be lowered to integrate them into the elite units, polling shows.

The surveys, reported by The Associated Press, found widespread concerns in special ops that Pentagon leaders would "capitulate to political pressure, allowing erosion of training standards."

Some women already in the elite forces expressed similar worries, the AP said.

Frankly I'm amused at the silly insults you hurl at me, and find your attempts to denigrate me both pathetic and ineffective. You know nothing about me other than I have a view different than yours, one that is shared by no small number of warriors and people who have looked these matters on a serious basis. For all you know I could have been callsign leader in a Fireforce, or a member of C Squadron, a Seabee, a USAFSOC PJ, a Legionnaire with 2e REP, an FBI HRT sniper, an armored cavalry troop commander in 3rd ACR, or simply someone that bothers to be informed. Whatever I've done in life you'll probably never know what it was since I value my privacy more than I value the approval of Internet "tough guys."

For all your claims as to having "made the grade," or "made the cut," all of which are both vague and unsubstantiated, I don't see you bringing much to this discussion beyond what we could get from a communist dog catcher in some university district in Melbourne. Perhaps you actually were the chief supply clerk, underwear exchange, 1 Commando, or maybe something more interesting. All you seem to be today is just another internet "tough guy" twisting words and hurling abuse to try to compensate for a bad argument derived from strong political beliefs of dubious merit.

Pro tip: "Stand in the door!" does not mean you should queue at a building exit to wait for quitting time and the race to the parking lot.

Regarding the "Damn the torpedoes" quote: According to this military.com article,

The heavily guarded bay entrance was filled with mines, then known as torpedoes. Farragut's cry of "Damn the torpedoes! Full speed ahead!" is now the stuff of legend, but it was also good tactics. All but one of the fleet's 18 ships passed safely through the channel ...

I heard a speech by a military historian, who said that "Damn the torpedoes!" did not mean "to heck with the mines, let's ignore them". The historian said that Farragut was cursing the mines, like he was saying, "Damn those torpedoes". Then he ordered his men to go full speed ahead, to get out of the dangerous minefield ASAP, before a mine blew up a ship.

So Farragut was being prudent, not reckless.

Yet whenever anyone wants to raid a fund to pay for something... its the military budget. Why is that?

Because that is where the money is and we spend ludicrously more on our military than is sensible or necessary. We apparently spend more on our military than the next 7 or so largest military spenders COMBINED. There is no reasonable justification for that. That is just rampant paranoia.

And I should point out that the military is one of the few things the government does that it is supposed to do and it is one of the few things the world... especially our allies need us to be competent in.

Remind me again why we have to be the ones to defend other countries that are perfectly capable of paying to defend themselves? Europe should not need the US to defend them and yet their largest military spender (France) spends literally 1/10th of what the US does.

So why are you raiding the military budget? Do you want the US to pull out of NATO? Maybe sunset its guarantee to protect Japan? We could let Israel get genocided. Maybe let the Russians run wild in Eastern Europe. Possibly allow the North Koreans to invade and enslave the south koreans?

Let's address those:
1) NATO: NATO has 28 members yet the US pays for 3/4 of the budget. The other members can pony up more.
2) Japan: Japan SHOULD be responsible more for its own defense. WWII ended 70 years ago.
3) Israel: Israel is quite capable of defending themselves and have shown that several times. They also are not working productively for peace (nor are the palestinians) so until they get serious they can get help elsewhere.
4) The Russians already are running wild in Easter Europe (see Ukraine) and we are doing nothing about it.
5) North Korean "enslaving" the South? Spare me. That's just ridiculous on the face of it. South Korean can handle their business just fine.

Where would you like to cut the US military budget?

Let's start with the items like hardware the military says it doesn't need but congress still forces them to buy. Then I would move on to cutting programs like the F35 that are wildly over budget and under performing and arguably unnecessary. We probably don't actually need 11 aircraft carriers with their attendant fleets. I'm quite sure we don't need as many nuclear weapons as we currently have. We have numerous military bases that we no longer need and which are only being kept alive because they are congressional pork. We don't need to maintain Guantanamo Bay and the prison it contains. We could get out of the money pit that is the Middle East. I could go on and on.

Seriously, did you even give this a moment's thought?

Fake.

Both the 'Russian' (his name is Kyle Myers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... ) and the quadcopter ( http://www.military.com/video/... ).

Not saying it will never be done (the opposite, in fact), just that it hasn't been done just yet.

Sorry, what debacle with the F-22? Near as anyone can tell, it's the best air superiority fighter ever built and will be for the next 15 - 20+ years. Do they cost a lot? Yes. But don't compare the cost of opposing military aircraft to the cost of the F-22. Compare the cost of opposing military aircraft to the cost of the AIM-120 AMRAAM fitted to the F-22 because the first indication the opposing pilots are going to have that F-22s are in the area is a missile warning.

The Iranians experienced this already when they decided to send up planes to harass some US drone aircraft. The US sent an F-22 up and after the F-22 pilot got bored waiting for the Iranians to notice he was there, he radioed them to get out of his airspace.

"He flew under their aircraft to check out their weapons load without them knowing that he was there, and then pulled up on their left wing and then called them and said ‘you really ought to go home.'" http://www.military.com/daily-...

"I can't see the [expletive deleted] thing," said RAAF Squadron Leader Stephen Chappell, exchange F-15 pilot in the 65th Aggressor Squadron. "It won't let me put a weapons system on it, even when I can see it visually through the canopy. [Flying against the F-22] annoys the hell out of me." http://www.acc.af.mil/news/sto...

Remember the revelation of the name of US military personnel by a self proclaimed Islamic State Hacking Division ?

http://www.military.com/daily-...

Are the Chinese working for Islamic State terror group?

and they go out of their way to hire veterans: http://www.military.com/vetera...

And they doing their best to insure that most of the battery production in the world will be done in the U.S. in the future: http://www.teslamotors.com/gig...

And oh by the way they are the future of the car industry... and perhaps getting the U.S. energy independent in a sustainable way...

But yah, let's bitch about giving them tax breaks... because we need to save those for more worthy industries (sarcasm).

Pat

But we need more tanks dammit and if you don't agree you're not a patriot.

Oop, this: http://www.military.com/video/...

I got the "in pristine condition" from http://www.military.com/daily-..., which is one of the links in the summary. I would think that they should know.

Military.com may not have the latest information. I work for the DoD in the Puget Sound area, and know a number of worker bees at Bremerton, and they have a different opinion.

I'm not disagreeing with you but that's not what Military.com says: http://www.military.com/daily-...

I got the "in pristine condition" from http://www.military.com/daily-..., which is one of the links in the summary. I would think that they should know.

I think for this kind of role you want people who understand technology down to the metal. Transistors up.

Totally unnecessary. The best hackers are usually extreme specialists, not generalists, and often not college educated, so I bet very few of them could explain the difference between PNP and NPN. Intelligence, self-motivation, and reverse engineering are a lot more useful to hacking than electrical engineering.

Raising the standard isn't going to get the Army the best and brightest "cyber warriors" - they are going to have to raise the pay grade...

Otherwise, it's the tech equivalent of hiring Army Rangers who are too fat to do a single pushup.

That also raises the question - where the hell did that "100 push up, 100 sit up, 2 miles in 10 minutes" for Army Rangers quote come from? The minimum scores are about 1/2 that, and the recommended about 3/4 that. Hell, the Ranger recommended score (and the general Army PFT maximum score) is only 2 miles in 13:00 - I could do that easily in my early 20's (and was doing that since Jr High) and I didn't even particularly like running.

The existing regular Army minimums are actually (for men) 35 push ups, 47 sit ups (each in 2 minutes) and 16:36 for a 2 mile run. It *is* seriously pitiful that at least 1/2 of the kids graduating from high school can't achieve those...

http://www.military.com/milita...

How's twenty-nine instead? You know what, let's throw in Leonard Nimoy and round that up to thirty.

On the plus side - when they've got our asses surrounded, we don't need to worry to much about target acquisition! "Target rich environments" do have their benefits!

Things pretty much worked out that way the last time US and Chinese troops fought each other.

Lt. Gen. Lewis Berwell Puller

During the Korean War, the Chinese communists had overrun the Yalu River and the Marines battling them were in a running fight to reach the coast. Ten Chinese divisions surrounded Col. Lewis Berwell Puller's 1st Marines. The indomitable "Chesty" Puller saw the situation with his own brand of logic: "Those poor bastards," he said. "They've got us right where we want them. We can fire in any direction now!"

They send them to AZ, of course.