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Defense Chief Urges Big Cuts In Military Spending
Hugh Pickens writes "The NY Times reports that US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates says the Pentagon is wasting money it will no longer get, and focused on targets as diverse as the large number of generals and admirals, the layers of bureaucracy in the Pentagon, and the cost of military health care. 'The attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, opened a gusher of defense spending that nearly doubled the base budget over the last decade,' Gates says. 'Military spending on things large and small can and should expect closer, harsher scrutiny. The gusher has been turned off, and will stay off for a good period of time.' Gates, a Republican who was carried over as Defense Secretary from the Bush administration, has already canceled or trimmed 30 weapons programs with long-term savings predicted at $330 billion, but is now seeking to convert as much as 3% of spending from 'tail' to 'tooth' — military slang for converting spending from support services to combat forces. While this may not seem like a significant savings in the Pentagon's base budget, cuts of any size are certain to run hard against entrenched constituencies. Gates's critique of top-heavy headquarters overseas was underscored by the location of the speech — the Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library and Museum. President Eisenhower, the supreme allied commander in Europe during World War II, warned the nation of the menacing influence of an emerging 'military-industrial complex' in his farewell address as president in 1960. 'Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals,' said Eisenhower, 'so that security and liberty may prosper together.'"
This will be spun as a Democratic administration not "supporting the troops", despite it being proposed by Gates, a holdover from a Republican administration. Much like how only Nixon could go to China, only a Republican can advocate cutting the defense budget (even if only a mere 2-3%) without being pilloried as near-treason.
Indeed.
If there really is going to be some "tail-to-tooth" transfer of spending, it'll be a very welcome change.
However, I am a bit peeved at the mention of "military healthcare". Given the atrocious cuts in services for veterans who've been injured in combat, I think that is the one area where the government needs to do more.
After all, if we ask people to lose limbs for us, it's only fair if we at least take care of them, when they come back from the battlefield with life-altering disabilities. It doesn't really matter what wars they were fighting. They are OUR soldiers, and it's our duty as a nation to support them, regardless of whether we support the politics that brought them to the battlefield.
Because it didn't turn out to be relevant?
I read the internet for the articles.
"Here's what we can do to change the world, right now, to a better ride. Take all that money that we spend on weapons and defenses each year and instead spend it feeding and clothing and educating the poor of the world, which it would many times over, not one human being excluded, not one, and we could explore space together, both inner and outer, forever, in peace." -Bill Hicks
Living With a Nerd
I remember reading somewhere that Eisenhower was the president to most significantly cut the military budget in the past 60 years.
Anyone else who tried to do it was labeled as "making America weaker" or a giant wuss. But it was much harder to call the man who lead the largest amphibious invasion in history a pussy.
-- Political fascism requires a Fuhrer.
Military spending has been increasing at an unsustainable rate for at least the last 30 years. If it continues to increase at this rate it will surely bankrupt us. Our heavy investment in the military (over other important things such as education) also suggests that our priorities are badly skewed and need to be realigned.
Facts have a liberal bias.
Because it has never come close to happening?
Or are you making the case that any of the previous administrations *cough*George W Bush*cough* could be considered a scientific-technological elite? Hell, President Obama just admitted to not knowing how to use an iPod or iPad. Yes, he has his Crackberry, but still...
Scientists routinely have to beg for funding, and NASA always seems to be on death's door for lack of funding.
Wake me when it is the other way around, and the military budget is round-off error for the scientific research one.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
The man is awesome. He cares for America. Basically, another Eisenhower. Obama has a group working on figuring out how to cut the deficit and balance the budget. That group needs to have EVERY head of each dept. tell them how to cut waste for each. Finally, that group needs to push for a balanced budget amendmendment that will block the running of deficits during good times. Right now, the majority of our unneeded debt is from 1982-1990, and from 2002-2007. That accounts for about 8 trillion dollars of a time when we had a decent economy and had ZERO reason to run a deficit.
Personally, If Robert Gates was to run for president (or even replace Biden) , I would vote for him.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
If you study the events leading up to the collapse of the Soviet Union, the size and rampant spending of their military-industrial complex as it slowly bankrupted them for thirty years comes out on top. Everyone knew it existed, and everyone knew it would suck the nation dry before they could "win" the Cold War against the United States, but it was so entrenched in their economy that the means to measure and control it simply did not exist. It's interesting to see that Eisenhower noticed this disturbing trend fifty years ago. If the Soviet Union was bled dry in thirty years, how much longer can the United States survive the siphoning of hundreds of billions of dollars from their economy? Or is it already too late?
American citizens really must ask themselves what this spending has done for them. Access to foreign oil? Protection from terrorists? For a fraction of the trillions of dollars spent in the past decade on "defense", those issues could have been resolved virtually overnight. Instead, you have made a select group of people very rich and very powerful. Was it worth it?
In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial-congress complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.
We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.
I know it's complex, but if you ignore the political implication aspect you're devaluing the entire notion.
You can't take the sky from me...
Sure, anybody who doesn't know how to use an iPod or an iPad can't possibly make a significant contribution to science or technology.
Um the military only earning power is body bags of the enemy. Gezz man The military is for protecting our country and our way of life,there not a for profit company. I want our men and women to have every tool available to them,no mater the cost too protect our country and way of life.
The military itself may not be "for profit", but MANY of the companies that supply the military with equipment have ties to various politicians and/or political groups. Iraq/Afghanistan weren't wars for oil, they were wars for profit in general...just like every other war in history.
Much of the technology we are currently using (fighter planes, as an example) serve no purpose over in Iraq and Afghanistan. Bombers, sure...but planes designed for air-to-air combat? What, are they fighting the 47th Flying Sandies Brigade? Much of our military spending is still stuck in the Cold War. It needs to be drastically altered.
Living With a Nerd
"t does not even mean the military need become weaker as a result."
So what if it does? The US already has the most powerful military in the world by an order of magnitude. What do we need all of this "power" for, anyway? We haven't had a real threat to the US since WWII.
I don't respond to AC's.
Well, we're doomed then. For the majority of USA "citizens," if it doesn't exist on American Idol, it doesn't exist.
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
Soildiers, sailors and marines, as well as their families, earn everything they get. I would hardly call it an 'entitlement' program to give benefits to people that we ask to give up their youngest, healthiest years and spend them slogging through mud, risking their lives; or for their families to have to sit back and wait, wondering if their spouse/parent will come home in one piece, if not alive. I'm not saying this because of the "rah-rah-rah" stuff, I'm saying it because there is a world of difference between soldiers earning keep for themselves and their families and, say, welfare. "Back in the day" there might have been something to be said for perhaps a tiered system where those "in the rear with the gear", who were at less risk, didn't get as sweet a deal. But, as we're now in wars where there really aren't front lines and safe zones, where anyone is a potential enemy and you're just one grenade away from death, even at the supply depot, there really isn't a whole lot of difference now.
No. Healthcare is considered a right in most of Europe. One of the big pushes has been to provide healthcare for everyone.
The military healthcare system for veterans and their families is an absolute necessity. Soldiers get payed crap, they deal with a job that curtails their constitutional freedoms, a job where they have to deal with the trauma of violence, death, killing and risk being killed/maimed themselves.
You want to cut the military pay roll? Fine. Reduce recruiting, let old soldiers retire. But each and every one of them needs what little help and compensation they do get and deserves more.
Because it really makes sense to have a parallel health care system only for soldiers?
VA hospitals are a pretty good system, but they should really be for everyone, not just ex soldiers. Public health care is good for everyone, not just people who were in wars.
-josh
"I would hardly call it an 'entitlement' program to give benefits to people that we ask to give up their youngest, healthiest years and spend them slogging through mud, risking their lives; or for their families to have to sit back and wait, wondering if their spouse/parent will come home in one piece, if not alive"
It's voluntary. Nobody is asking anybody to do anything. If they don't want to do it, then they shouldn't sign up. Why people sign up with families, I'll never understand. None of the "wars" that we are involved in are defensive, or even necessary. If enlistment drops by 90%, we'll still be able to DEFEND the country just fine.
I don't respond to AC's.
Yeah, he never goofs off like that bastard GW Bush did:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/barackobama/7607947/Barack-Obama-plays-golf-eight-more-times-than-George-W-Bush.html
I put it to you that you are already bankrupt from overspending for the past 30 years. If the USA wasn't a nation that can just keep printing more money when required, or spend itself trillions into the hole, it would have been bankrupt years ago.
The Military/Industrial Complex that Eisenhower was warning against, got into power, and its been reaping massive fortunes for its Corporate Owners for that entire time. Look at Haliburton most recently.
Blackwater - when did the US citizenry decide it was actually okay for the country to hire mercenaries, and in fact let them equip themselves with a private airforce etc? Billions lost there.
Its long since past time for these cuts to be made - and in fact if the system were forced to trim itself down to ensure the "Tooth" part of the equation is still effective it would probably be very effective still - but the US budget is firmly in the grasp of the corporations that are making billions in profits for their owners off of defense spending, and the Military who naturally want all the high-tech tools and manpower they can get so they can be as effective as possible. You are not going to break that grip, ever. The politicians who are in office, BELONG to those companies, and if they want to keep their jobs, must keep supporting them I am afraid.
"The first time I got drunk, I got married. The second time I bought a chimpanzee, after that I stayed sober" Arian Seid
*I* think Social Security and other entitlements are a waste of money, but that's because I'm 27 and not going to see a penny of it.
People have been wringing their hands over the looming demise of Social Security since before you were born.
The only real threat of you not getting your investment back is if the politicians find enough excuses to dip into the kitty for other uses, or if the people who want to transfer the whole kitty into the stock market finally get their way.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
if we don't provide what they want AARP is going to come wielding pitchforks on their golf carts?
Pretty much. Social programs keep human misery below the "bloody uprising" threshold, they are as important to social stability as police and fire services.
You can't take the sky from me...
I'm writing this in Arlington, Virginia, and I believe that most of the U.S. military's overseas missions, such as the war on Iraq, are neither defensive nor necessary.
Space game using normal deck of cards: http://BattleCards.org
Military spending has been increasing at an unsustainable rate for at least the last 30 years.
No, the cost of individual weapons systems has been rising at an unsustainable rate. Military spending is a fraction of what it was during it's peacetime highs, when it dominated federal spending in the 50's and 60's. Bush the Elder made big cuts to the military budget, and Bill Clinton made even bigger cuts. Even at the height of our military force structure during the Reagan years, the military was a fraction of what it was under Ike, Kennedy, and Johnson.
What we're getting isn't more military spending, but less bang for our military buck, by buying fewer weapons. We're spending about the same, GDP-wise. It's just that individual ships, planes, etc, cost more, so we're buying less of them. We bought 800 F-15's. We replaced them with 187 F-22's. Same buck. Less bang, even though the individual weapons are more capable. There's simply no way one F-22 can replace 4 F-15's in the real world, no matter what Lockheed's marketing department says.
By far the largest and most bloated parts of the federal budget are the entitlements... Social Security, Medicare, etc. They'll bankrupt us long before military spending would. And while you can cut military spending, by law, you can't cut SS and Medicare, only their rates of growth.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
In a straight up fight(no nukes) the USA would lose to china definitely
Very doubtful. For starters, in a China-U.S. fight, it would definitely all happen on Chinese territory, simply because China doesn't have any means to project its force as far as U.S. Technologically, U.S. is superior - best Chinese tech is one generation behind. China has an edge in manpower, but that's about it.
and probably Russia(it's close enough to wonder)
As a Russian whose father is a retired Russian (and before that, Soviet) army major, I can tell you - from his words as well as my observations - that Russian army, in today's conditions, would stand a snowball's chance in hell against U.S., even if the latter would invade Russian soil. Russian army is mostly of conscripts, and they are poorly trained and poorly fed. While there are a few nice shiny toys such as Tu-160 and S-400, they are few and far in between, and the bulk of Russian forces is equipped with weapons dating back to 70s or so, and not significantly upgraded since then. What's worse is that equipment has been poorly maintained, and the count of planes, tanks etc on paper simply doesn't represent the real number of operational units.
The other big deal is logistics, and things are even worse there. E.g. fuel supply would be a major headache for Russia for any prolonged warfare - ironically, given its status as an "oil superpower".
Now, if U.S. would try to occupy and hold Russia like they're doing to Iraq, then it would get messy for them real quick due to guerrilla warfare, of which Russia has ample past experience to draw from, and fitting conditions (e.g. huge swathes of forested terrain; low-quality roads further degraded by seasonal weather). But that's a very different story, which doesn't have much to do with army strength as such.
I think there ought to be a law requiring that women be virtuous and put out enough to keep men from being so miserable.
Or just end the prohibition on doing it for money..
The war on sex is one of the major causes, if not THE major cause of most of our psychoses.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Unless your workforce continued to increase, social security was never sustainable anyway. It was only possible over the past 40 years because of the baby boomers. Without another similar increase in workers, and another one every 40 years, it'd be impossible for the taxes collected to keep up with the people retiring, especially as they're also living longer.
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."
This presumes that 1 F35 can perform the work of 2.7 SHs in many areas.
It can in most areas.
With less available aircraft, it will be more difficult to maintain combat readiness for a squadron during operations
This is a concern I also share. Just the same, this aircraft is not forcing retirement SHs. As such, when numbers matter, they are still available. Also keep in mind, one of the reasons why squadrons are sent out is to provide protection and air superiority for their brethren. In the case of planes like the F22 and F35, this requirements for an extra squadron doesn't necessarily exist. This in turn also reduces the number of aircraft which would otherwise be required in theater. And if they are otherwise available, it frees them up to be tasked where numbers might still be required.
The main problem with the F35 is its cost/capability compared to existing aircraft (F22, F15, F16, SH) and how effective it is likely to be against future air threats. It is unlikely that the F35 will be able to safely operate in airspace defended by Russian S300 or S400 SAM
I encourage you to review tactics. Beyond, I doubt such missiles are anywhere near such a potent threat you believe it to be. You need to remember, many aircraft, left than a couple miles away, typically have much difficulty maintaining a radar lock on F35s and especially F22s. Beyond that, these aircraft also have various jamming capabilities should threats require it.
You also need to keep in mind the effective range of such weapon systems is actually much, much smaller verses nimble targets. Against a fighter, I doubt they are effective against targets over half their stated range against fighters. Furthermore, unless system systems are within twenty miles or so, I doubt they'd even have much hope of even identifying an F35, let alone an F22, as a threat, let a lone a target. This combined with the bag of tactics currently employed doesn't, IMOHO, a significant threat.
Once the US has done this and gained air superiority, the F35 becomes an overpriced bomb truck
It doesn't sound like you understand what an F35 is. It is an air superiority fighter. First and foremost. Your argument is that by not allowing it to serve its primary role it has no value. We'll of course that's true. But that doesn't make your assessment accurate. You need to understand all pilots who have flown against the F35 and especially the F22 are scared shitless of them; and with good reason. Even our own F35/F22 pilots, when flying our other conventional aircraft, are lucky to actually see the aircraft before they are "dead." To say such aircraft will never be used as their primary role means the US is without conflict in the world.
Basically the F35s problem is that it's too ineffective against future peer or near-peer level enemies and too expensive to use in permissive air environments and the F35 program needs to be killed for this reason.
Basically, no one else in the world can even afford to create a "near-peer", let alone a "peer". And when such an aircraft is created in fifty years from now, our existing fleet will have served their purpose wonderfully.
You need to keep in mind, most of the world is only able to design, develop, test, and deploy aircraft in the league of the SH. And frankly, the SH doesn't hold a candle to the aircraft we're talking about. Long story short, we're easily decades away before the US need even worry about a real "near-peer" threat from any other power in the world; let alone a "peer" level threat.
I don't think you fully appreciate the technological leap in capabilities the F22 and F35 represent. Just the same, don't get me wrong, I too still have some reservations about actual fielded costs of the F35. If successful, its a win-win. If not, its still arguably a win - albeit just not at the budget we'd all hope for.