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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.'"
Of Planet Earth is near completion.
The rest can be sub-contracted.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
As Eisenhower warned in his farewell address, I hope this news means we have finally heeded his warning and are moving towards dismantling the military industrial complex. All of that money could be used to rebuild the crumbling infrastructure we have right here at home.
They are saying that they are downsizing but before it takes affect we get involved in a war. No need to downsize. Problem solved.
Or are they just privatizing more military functions?
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
I worked for an airline. 90%-95% of our pilots and air plant mechanics came from the military. The airline was started by a Marine Aviator and leaded his leadership skills in the Marines. Miniaturization of electronics is the results of war and the MIC. The lowly and common microwave oven is a by-product of war and the MIC. Don't sell the MIC short--the Internet with all its tubes is the invention of, not AlGore, but war and the MIC. The Democrats have benefited from the MIC far more than the Republicans.
Social security and Medicaid will eat the federal budget.
Obamacare? That's just rushing one more big ticket item onto the credit card before it all goes bad.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Ha! I'm going to beat him to it. I just need to steal some super-rare crystals stored at Los Alamos first, to complete my shrink ray. And a white kitten.
Quattuor res in hoc mundo sanctae sunt: libri, liberi, libertas et liberalitas.
Sadly, I think the downsizing of troops is a direct result of un-manned weapons like drones.
I'd me more surprised if it were the marines or the navy seals being downsized. The Army is a lot of bulk manpower that just sits around for the most part and maintains control of areas that have already been seized from the enemy via the attacking efforts of the marines. Advancements of technology means drones and stationary automated turrets can do a lot of that defending work I'd imagine. Just gotta have some protected folks around to maintain control and change the batteries every now and then. Probably way more affordable than actual people. The marines and seals on the other hand can't be so easily replaced by a machine.
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.
He's saying as soon as you appear weak, you are weak.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
Well, judging from TFA, they are cutting spending for FY 2015 to 496 bln, then raising it to 535, 545 and $559 bln in following years. That means if you deduct the wartime finding for Iran and Afghanistan, the baseline spending level will be back to pre-sequester levels, and as much as the next seven countries in defense spending rank put together.
Not that spending is at all a measure of how much defense we get. One of the things the budget does is it retires the A10 Warthog attack plane which costs less than $18K/flight hour to operate and replaces it with the F-35, which is currently *promised* to cost $32K/flight hour, if it ever becomes combat ready.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
We attacked last week over a EULA violation.
At the beginning of the 1st Gulf War, the Marines were just getting the M1 Abrahms tanks the Army was swapping out for newer models (before that the Marines were still on old M60 tanks).
In the late 90's (97-98) the Marines were just starting to get the venerable Singars radios. Up till then they were still using post-Vietnam era AN/PRC-77 radios.
Time and time again the Army goes and asks for more men and money, new gear, etc, because they state they cant accomplish the mission with what they have.
And time and time again the Marine Corps happily takes that "old outdated" equipment with fewer men and exceed... There has long been a rivalry between the branches, but maybe its time for the other branches to take a page out of the Corps manual and learn how to do more with less. You could drop military spending by half at least, if not more, by following the Marines lead.
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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
Southeast Asia.
China just launched its second aircraft carrier. India just launched its first, is building two more, and is buying 120 Rafales. South Korea is buying Apaches and F-15s (or maybe F-35s). Malaysia and Thailand want to buy AH-1Zs. Thailand is also modernizing its current fleet of western fighter planes. Japan just launched its first helicopter attack ship, is buying V-22s, and is no longer keeping up the pretense of only having a defensive force. The Philippines is begging us to come back and reopen a base in their country. The Norks are rattling the sabers as usual. Taiwan has some truly revolutionary anti-ship missiles. Vietnam is in the process of fielding 6 new submarines. Indonesia is in the middle of a large new naval buildup. In 2012, Singapore spent 24% of its national budget on its military.
The entirety of southeast Asia is in the midst of an arms race the likes of which hasn't been seen since the European interwar period. And similar to that same period, we're cutting our military budget and shrinking the forces, even in the face of what's brewing among our allies.
Is doing that right? Wrong? Who knows? I can't see the future. History tells us it's foolish. Maybe this time will be different.
I don't see how that's relevant. We're talking about negotiations here. Increased military spending and decreased social spending are both things Republicans want.
I was pointing out that the Republicans don't have anything they're willing to trade in order to stem the sequester cuts to military spending. The only way they could stave off the cuts would be by accepting increased taxes, and they're not willing to do that.
I get the feeling you took my comment as a slight against Republicans, and posted some knee-jerk response. I'm only pointing out the reality of the negotiations.
You seem to have missed this nugget: "Source: Office of Management and Budget. "
The bad news doesn't change if you pick another truthful source.
Also, from what I see, the "Koch brothers" are very minor donors to Heritage. Besides that, if you use the "Koch brothers" as your universal explanation for things you are engaged in epic fail.
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
USA "defense" budget is 90% welfare and employment program. you would be just as safe if it was put into a welfare&jobs program intended for building bridges and roads
In other words, you're claiming that more of the Army budget needs diverted to USACE.
With the US amounting for 50% of army expenses worldwide, and NATO accounting for 80%, it is not obvious where the enemies are.
As part of your calculations you need to take into account the "cost of materials." The US doesn't have conscription anymore like most of the world has relied upon until quite recently. It pays its soldiers wages and benefits competitive with the civilian work force instead of forcing everyone to serve for two years at $100/month. The US also has an advanced economy. The net effect is that a US corporal is paid about the same as a Chinese general. The US also pays more for its weapons and materials. A lot of the cost is reflected in that, along with the size of the US military which has a substantial navy, air force, and marines. The army is only middling sized compared to other nations.
It is a significant mistake to calculate combat power based only on military budgets. A third world guerilla with an AK that is paid $1/day can kill a US soldier making $1200 / month just as dead as the reverse, and at a significant cost differential. If that third world guerilla is part of a band that is sabotaging the oil pipeline going to Europe to supply heating oil, there might be some people freezing to death in the winter. (Which is something an Iranian general threatened - cutting petroleum supplies to Europe so people freeze.)
The military is expensive, but the current cost is well below the historical average as a percentage of GDP. And bear in mind that the defense of the nation is a constitutional responsibility of the Federal government. And if you think it is expensive now, just try losing a war and see how that is.
"Nothing except a battle lost can be half as melancholy as a battle won." - Duke of Wellington
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
The problem is that the sequester is 50% defense, 50% everything else, but the defense budget is a minority of the Federal budget. That pushes the cuts disproportionately on the defense side.
Totally irrational. The fact that the defense budget is a minority of the overall budget does not mean that it is a minority of the waste. The defense sector is filled with bloat, and is essentially just functioning as a make-work program in the districts of influential representatives. It would be far more efficient to take that same money and spend it on more direct social services.
Fiscal/Small-gov't conservatives want government to fund its Constitutionally mandated functions, like defense.
You are mistaken. Real advocates of small government do not want even defense to be bloated out the ass, like what we have. Anyone who says current military and defense spending is at all appropriate is not a fiscal/small government conservative.
Thank you Dave Raggett
You don't get to blame SS for that though. It had nothing to do with the baby boom or anything else. Through careful planning, SSA had it all covered until Congress busted the piggybank so they could cut taxes for the wealthy and pay for all that bumbling in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Given that, it is perfectly reasonable that any military cuts and new (or reinstated really) taxes for the wealthy should go towards putting the money back where it came from.
The responsible people are Congress for ordering SSA to make the loans. If it makes you feel better, I FULLY support your call for the responsible congressmen to spend some time in jail.
Paying for private healthcare will eat the federal budget. Social Security and Medicaid are much lesser problems.
The US government, RIGHT NOW pays enough per capita to cover healthcare for every man woman and child in the US if our health care system had the same cost per person as Canada's.
All you would have to do to solve entitlements and the long term US budget problems would be install single payer and take the cap off SS wages.
The Air Force brass *never* wanted the A-10, the A-10 was virtually forced upon them. There has never been a moment in time since the A-10 first flew that they were not trying to be rid of it.
My understanding is that A-10s undergo a lot more mechanical stress during training and combat than B-52s and that the A-10 fleet is seeing a lot of micro-fractures in key structural areas. They have been cannibalizing old planes in storage but that source is just about dried up. They are at the point where they will need to manufacture new components, major components like wings. This is letting the brass finally get their way.
These cut are a step in the right direction, But I would love to see them cut the size in half. I'm an American and do not like what we have been doing in the years since 9/11. That being said there are a lot of countries that rely on the U.S. to be their protectors and I am tired of that also. So many countries can afford to be prosperous because they don't need to spend much on military, let them fund their own military and we can spend our money here, where we need it. All our military is really doing is pissing the rest of the world off anyway.
If you could reason with religious people, there would be no religious people
How hath thy 6 digit self forgotten thy history? When we rolled into Iraq and Afghanistan the HMMVs had no armor. Soldiers were dying left and right from harassing fire and IEDs. The problem was so bad in the first couple years that the units themselves would take blown up HMMVs and use them to make armor for the HMMVs that didn't get destroyed. We did finally start getting the current armor sets and turrets that your post refers to, but those were afterthoughts and the vehicles chassis and powertrain had a lot of problems dealing with all of that extra weight. Luckily, as Etherwalk below mentions, we now have several MRAP vehicles that exceed HMMVs, jeeps, and the CUCVs of yore because they were designed to carry that armor, have those turrets, and even built with functioning air conditioning! I guess my point was, if choosing between a jeep or a hummer, there really is no difference. Oh and the A10 is the greatest plane EVAR, period, end of story. It's better than the goddamned Space Shuttle. :)
A lot of the items labeled as 'social security' are in fact veterans benefits.
The US Navy and Marine Corp are "merged" in some ways, command, procurement, etc. Together they represent the Naval Services commanded by the Department of the Navy.
For example look at Marine Corp Aviation. Marine pilots are trained at the same schools along side Navy pilots and the Navy and Marines essentially fly the same aircraft. Marine squadrons are often deployed on aircraft carriers. There is one notable difference with respect to Marine pilots. They must first become infantry officers before starting aviation training.
The Coast Guard also falls under the Department of the Navy when directed to do so by the President. This happened during WW1 and WW2. Normally the Coast Guard is performing missions that the military is prohibited from doing, law enforcement for example.
The U.S. currently spends more on defense than the combined total of the next 12 countries, as ranked by defense spending.
But that isn't really a fair comparison. After all, a lot of that spending is really for aggression, not defense.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
In the last days of the USSR it's what the communists wanted, and did, as well.
I'm pretty sure they would have found another piggy bank to bust if they hadn't had SS to put the bite on. Failing that they would have printed money.
SS really should be paid back through a tax on the wealthy though. Otherwise it amounts to the wealthy literally robbing middle and lower class retirement funds to pay their bills for them (not that there's anything new about that).
The Department of Veterans Affairs is its own separate Department with its own separate budget. It does not fall into Social Security, which too is a separate Agency with a separate budget. Funding for the two do not mix as you're implying.
Canadians, rich or otherwise, generally come to the USA for health care for the same reasons somebody might go to another state for care - excessively specialized treatment, or it's just closer/more convenient than the closest Canadian provider. Canada generally pays for the treatment in those cases.
I don't read AC A human right
In 1790, you could fight and win a war with angry, motivated civilians. Today, not so much.
[FUCK BETA]
If I remember correctly, I think it was called "The Fall of the Roman Empire".
Those can be very useful for quick strikes. As long as you're not actually occupying foreign soil, your point is well mad But wars of occupatio0n take manpower, as demonstrated in Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, and the second Iraq war. And don't be mistaken, the USA didn't "win" any of those. In Iraq and Afghanistan now, the US is "declaring victory" and leaving a mess that is, in some ways, worse than when the wars started. Sadam Hussein, as much of a genocidal dictator as he was, didn't allow the Taliban to operate within Iraq. Now they're an integral part of Iraq politics.
Those are problems that air strikes and drone strikes don't solve, they exacerbate.
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.
Paying for private healthcare will eat the federal budget.
You won't find anyone who was more anti-AFCA than I was. Still I don't think paying for health care has to break the budget.
The way we have implemented it sure will though. As a society we really need to answer some very fundamental questions we mostly refuse to talk about. In fact the AFCA actually makes the problems worse by mostly removing the lifetime cap on benefits.
The AOL fiasco of some weeks ago highlights the issue, regardless of if those two babies had anything to do with AOL really needing to cut the bottom line; the question still exists; what amount of shared resources can we really justify to the care of one individual? Under a purely capitalist system the problem solves itself, you have the resources to take care of yourself/family or they die. Simple, and fair or unfair depending on your definition of fairness (we could have a long philosophical debate on the subject).
How do you equate the value of a life against the standard of living for everyone else? Should I pay 30% taxes, 50%, 90%, 99% to keep someone else's premature baby alive? We cannot as a society say we are just going to commit every available resource to the preservation of every life, we probably really do need "death panels" or we go back to you can pay or you can't. Health care is already 1/6th of the economy. When do we decide some of that money should go back to people's individual pursuit of happiness, or infrastructure, or basic research outside of medical?
There is no answer that is going to be universally satisfying or agreeable. Someone suffers. Its a limited world.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html