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US War Machine Downsizing?
mrspoonsi writes "BBC Reports: 'Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel has unveiled plans to shrink the U.S. Army to its smallest size since before World War Two. Outlining his budget plan, the Pentagon chief proposed trimming the active-duty Army to between 440,000 and 450,000 personnel — from 520,000 currently. The U.S. currently spends more on defense than the combined total of the next 12 countries, as ranked by defense spending.'"
If these changes go through, it will actually reduce spending. We spent $670B on "defense" in 2013. This change would get us down to around $500B for the 2015 budget.
This was already passed as a part of the sequester -- this story is really just discussing how the Pentagon plans to get under the limit set by the law. The budget that got passed in December rolled back a few of the sequester cuts, and I'm sure Republicans will push to roll back more. However, the Democrats will want new taxes on the rich to offset any further increases in military spending, and I doubt the Republicans will budge on that front, so any further changes are likely to be minimal.
It looks like this is actually going to happen, and it's about damn time.
No, he's eliminating the parts of the Regular Army that can be (relatively) easily replaced by National Guard troops in time of trouble. He's keeping in place things like divisional command structures (we already have two divisions that are nothing more than HQ's to be filled out with 3 NG Brigades each in time of trouble) and the rear area parts of the Army which are needed in case we have to suddenly expand the force.
Then again, he's getting rid of the A-10 also. Which is probably a bribe to the Air Force, since they've always hated having to provide close air support to the Army....
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
No, not even close.
Defense spending as a percentage of GDP
Where Does All the Money Go?
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
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Then why is the state buying ammo at an unprecented rate?
http://www.forbes.com/sites/ralphbenko/2013/03/11/1-6-billion-rounds-of-ammo-for-homeland-security-its-time-for-a-national-conversation/
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You mean buying ammunition at a highly precedented and declining rate?
Even Fox News more or less debunked this bit of conspiracy baiting.
Second class citizen of the New Gilded Age
Yes, but that does not include the veterans benefits and health care when you say "defense spending".
Both programs are effective in the kind of engagements that we've found ourselves in during the last couple of decades and both are paid for. It's maintenance only, as opposed to development.
"Maintenance only" when talking about military aircraft is huge, especially with planes that are 60 years old. There's a phrase in the general aviation world for planes that don't fly much and require a lot of maintenance - hangar queens. Both sitting around, and their age, causes maintenance headaches.
Plus the cost of "staffing" is enormous. The U2 is enormously difficult to fly; at altitude, the window between stall (plummet to the ground) and Vmax (lose control surface functionality and/or rip pieces of the plane off) is something like 10mph. Training people in the things places the planes and people at risk; keep up the program and eventually you won't have any U2's left to fly. Then there's the problem of an unpressurized cockpit; pilots need to nitrogen-purge for hours before flight and wear what is almost a space suit. Oh, and it cannot evade modern SAM and AA missiles....and has no steal capabilities....yet has a human inside? The US needs another Gary Powers like a hole in the head.
Then there's the fact that the U2 can only launch from a small number of bases (mostly designed to cover Russia), is slower, doesn't offer as nice real-time capabilities, and in the time it takes for a U2 pilot to plan a mission, suit up, prebreathe, etc - the drone is half-way enroute and they're figuring out the rest of the flightplan as they go. Nevermind that with so many commercial satellite imagery companies, chances are someone's already got the imagery you're looking for.
Please help metamoderate.
A lot of the items labeled as 'social security' are in fact veterans benefits.
The Air Force pilots flying the A-10 love it. Many Air Force pilots flying other aircraft think the A-10 is an incredible and valuable aircraft, a perfect complement to the high performance fighters.
Its really only the Air Force leadership that hates the A-10.
You jest, but programs where drug abusers are allowed to do a free, limited, government funded amount of drugs in a safe environment actually decrease criminality, and costs to society, and generally improve the situation of the users and the environment where they would normally roam:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H...
So, while doing away with Medicare isn't a very good idea, 'free [strictly regulated] meth' is probably a very good one.
At a worst case of about 80,000, the US ARMY is downsizing more people than are employed in the Royal Canadian Army, Navy, and,/i> Air Force put together.
"Consensus" in science is _always_ a political construct.