Pentagon Budget: poll

[Chmee]

At $400-something billion and climbing, we're spending record amounts ... yet I heard a rumor that the Soviet Union actually no longer exists!

Are we spending too much? What should we be spending, and what should we be spending it on?

Poll Option added-Bean

[phongn]

You may want to add an option for "enough."

The US defense budget is determined by the requirements of the US's military commitments; it is not determined by how much the rest of the world spends. For example, if you want multiple carrier groups and amphibious groups to project power it'll cost a pretty penny.

[Jon]

$400,000,000,000+ ?

Wow.

Too much.

[dragon]

Not really when you consider the goverment is complaing we dont have enough troops and the ones we do are under armed and armored.

[Raptor 597]

At $400-something billion and climbing, we're spending record amounts ... yet I heard a rumor that the Soviet Union actually no longer exists!

Are we spending too much? What should we be spending, and what should we be spending it on?

So what if we are spending record amounts on defense; it pales in comparsion to the bloated corpse of social secruity and health care. I would as a rule not support a larger army and focus on a maritime strategy, but this is a war that obviously requires greater levels of troops and I support that. However, I also support heavier troops creations for the long term in any future wars.

[Jon]

Not really when you consider the goverment is complaing we dont have enough troops and the ones we do are under armed and armored.

That's because they're stretched out all over playing world police man.

[Admiral Valdemar]

The troops aren't getting their basic equipment right and they're in action around the globe, yet, the Pentagon insists on buying an ABM system that doesn't work and fighter jets that will never have an equal anytime soon.

More pertinent matters need to be addressed and priorities changed, not the budget amount. If the US military wasn't so easily fascinated by shiny new toys and science fiction concepts, maybe the military wouldn't be collectively up in arms about a lot of key issues today, starting with Iraq.

[Chmee]

The troops aren't getting their basic equipment right and they're in action around the globe, yet, the Pentagon insists on buying an ABM system that doesn't work and fighter jets that will never have an equal anytime soon.

More pertinent matters need to be addressed and priorities changed, not the budget amount. If the US military wasn't so easily fascinated by shiny new toys and science fiction concepts, maybe the military wouldn't be collectively up in arms about a lot of key issues today, starting with Iraq.

That gets to the some of the basic issues I was interested in people's opinions on.

We spend an enormous amount to be able to project military power to any portion of the planet with aircraft carrier battle groups, heavy airlift, heavy sealift, huge armoured brigades .... essentially, capabilities that no other nation in the world has, and no other taxpayers in the world pay for.

I question whether it's justified in the aftermath of the Cold War. Would you rather spend ten billion on a Nimitz carrier and its hardware, plus whatever the operating costs are (half a billion a year?), or five thousand special ops troops that speak Farsi fluently?

Rich as we are, our resources are not inexhaustible. Choices need to be made, and I'm not sure we're making the right ones or getting very good value for such enormous expenditures.

[Petrosjko]

There's a limited pool for special ops troops. This is a mistake Kerry made in his campaign. You can't just throw more money at that portion of the military budget and just make them magically appear.

We might not need all those carriers, but a substantial carrier force gives us the ability to project power that nobody else in the world can match. And they are multi-use, as was proven when one was used as a supply dump during the early stages of Afghanistan.

[Mr Bean]

We spend an enormous amount to be able to project military power to any portion of the planet with aircraft carrier battle groups, heavy airlift, heavy sealift, huge armoured brigades .... essentially, capabilities that no other nation in the world has, and no other taxpayers in the world pay for.

Because no one else in the world plays "World Police man" no other country has as much industrial capacity and infastructor as the US does, it costs money being the nice guy

I question whether it's justified in the aftermath of the Cold War. Would you rather spend ten billion on a Nimitz carrier and its hardware, plus whatever the operating costs are (half a billion a year?), or five thousand special ops troops that speak Farsi fluently?

See and the thing is, what happens if say, Brazi decids to gets conquest on the mind, for reasons unknow to pretty much everyboby they have consistantly been buying up old, French, British, American and Russia ships for their country, your Commandos are not going to do to good down there

Not to mention your commandos can blow things up good... but pacifing a country? Forgetaboutit

Rich as we are, our resources are not inexhaustible. Choices need to be made, and I'm not sure we're making the right ones or getting very good value for such enormous expenditures.

As much as the peacnicks love to carp and dance about how much we spend on Defense... we HAVE been cutting back, minus a few high budget projects(The 22s, The aborted Steath hydrofoil ships ect) Every day the Air Force, Navy and Coast Guard is looking to cut useless or unessary rates, jobs and missions, we have already been told in X years your going to have half as much, better get ready for it now

As for the Marines they have always been good about staying at the correct number and the Army wants more grunts

[Falkenhayn]

There's a limited pool for special ops troops. This is a mistake Kerry made in his campaign. You can't just throw more money at that portion of the military budget and just make them magically appear.

Agreed. Like those two divisions he was goin to magic out of thin air.

We might not need all those carriers, but a substantial carrier force gives us the ability to project power that nobody else in the world can match. And they are multi-use, as was proven when one was used as a supply dump during the early stages of Afghanistan.

Interesting.

The Pentagon dosen't need more cash. It does need a new list of priorities. We don't need DARPA developing Power Armor if needs in Iraq aren't being met or bread and butter materiel and personnel aren't being supplied.

[Chmee]

There's a limited pool for special ops troops. This is a mistake Kerry made in his campaign. You can't just throw more money at that portion of the military budget and just make them magically appear.

We might not need all those carriers, but a substantial carrier force gives us the ability to project power that nobody else in the world can match. And they are multi-use, as was proven when one was used as a supply dump during the early stages of Afghanistan.

I'm just not sure I see a real return on value with that force-projection ability ... we make it very easy to get ourselves in a lot of trouble in a big hurry, but is it worth the expense? I know it's a political question to determine that 'worth' ... nobody else sends their economy deep into debt to buy these capabilities, I question what we're really getting with them.

[Chmee]

ee and the thing is, what happens if say, Brazi decids to gets conquest on the mind, for reasons unknow to pretty much everyboby they have consistantly been buying up old, French, British, American and Russia ships for their country, your Commandos are not going to do to good down there

I'm sure there are endless hypothetical scenarios to justify hardware, but should you really ask your taxpayers to fund the ability to deal with farfetched possibilities that don't even directly threaten your citizens' lives?

Don't get me wrong, I do believe in a strong defense ... but I really mean defense, not the ability to poke your nose into anybody's business anywhere on the planet, which is a very expensive capability that every other industrial democracy in the world seems to do fine without.

[Petrosjko]

I'll readily agree that the Puzzle Palace needs to reprioritize in a big way. You're right, there is no more Cold War, and while we do need conventional military forces for such situations as Korea, our typical military problem is best handled by fast-moving, well-supported forces.

And for that, the carriers are ideal. We can put troops ashore and have them supported anywhere in the world in a great hurry.

If you want to pick something that's an unneeded money soak, I'd point at the B-2 bomber. Even when the Cold War was on its role had been superseded by ICBMs.

[Howedar]

Because WE do it. Do you need that spelled out for you?

As for the budget, it's about right. The money is not always directed properly, but the overall level is about right.

[Uraniun235]

It should be noted that while the dollar amount is the highest ever, the percentage of GDP or of the Federal government's discretionary spending is most certainly not.

Relative Size of US Military Spending, 1940-2003

[Chmee]

It should be noted that while the dollar amount is the highest ever, the percentage of GDP or of the Federal government's discretionary spending is most certainly not.

Relative Size of US Military Spending, 1940-2003

Entirely true.

[Chris OFarrell]

The US could cut back a little. But what they REALLY need to do is haev someone run through the Pentaon with an Axe and cut everything to bits. Get an elite team of private sector people together.

First, FIRE RUMSFELD.

Second.
Tell the Pentagon everything is on hold for two weeks. Start with the premise that every program will be shut down. Then go through them. THe good ones...keep them. And tie them to VERY specific budget and timetable requirements. With punishments such as firings, Bad Conduct Discharges and so on directly linked to performance targets. Make examples of some people who are absurdly unperforming on this front. From now on, evoloution is the keyword. The weak will perish. The strong will survive.

Some crap is too far along to easily be canned. Like the bloody ABM system. But so help me, if it fails to meet budget and objective timelines (given that they are already DEPLOYING THE DAMN THING) its GONE. The ABL gets one last chance. If it doesn't work, its also gone. Stupid stuff like the Litoral Combat Ship, gone. Strikers production, cut way back. F-22 production will be held at above 200-300 levels. Stupid stuff like power armour research is canned. As are stupid weapons that are just money sinks.

Hopefuly then you will have saved MORE then enough cash to cover the basics. Get the troops all the equipment they need. Get the vehicles up to spec. Get the faults ironed out in the weapons. Get the interceptor body armour issued to ALL the units, including the national guard units in Iraq.

THEN after you have that done. THEN you can start to look at very carefuly spending money on some of the more 'out there' R&D programs. But at nothing like the cost. Effeciency is the keyword. Other nations can do far more with far less, the US should be able to get an order of magnitude more out of what they spend on the military.

Oh and the Government is HANDS OFF during this. NO f*#(ING senator whining that their state isn't getting pork programs or something. Tell them to piss off.

[The Yosemite Bear]

dammit it needs to be an ammount represented by an scientific notaton.....

yes we must spend 3*10^38 dollars!!!!

[Chmee]

Oh and the Government is HANDS OFF during this. NO f*#(ING senator whining that their state isn't getting pork programs or something. Tell them to piss off.

Man ain't that the truth. My radical liberal anti-defense mom, when I brought up that Boeing tanker deal, was still 'Oh it's good jobs for the state, I'm for that.' Christ's sake, it was a crappy deal for the U.S. taxpayer! I'm glad McCain helped scrap it. Not that we don't need tankers, but to avoid the budget hit that Congress wouldn't go for, they came up with some bull-crap leasing deal that was going to cost the taxpayer even MORE but looked better on the books.

Screw that. Best systems for best price, only for the missions we need, I don't care if the factory is in the Armed Service Committee Chairman's district.

[Mr Bean]

*snip

Effeciency is the keyword, Effeciency is always the keyboard

However I must argue with you on three points
1. B-2s are dandy, don't insult the things we love the heck out of them, with them it means we can bomb 90% of the world without risk to personnel or equipment, which always makes the voters happy
2. ABL is flawed to begin with, only in ABL do they base the damn thing off a 100% Accurasy.... 100 @#$@ percent accurasy... Your not going to get that, if you can make a system with 40% accurasy for 50 million or 100% for 500 billion of course we are going with the 40% one
3. Body armo is nice except its a SCOUT car and we should not be using the damn things as patrol vechicals to begin with! Uparmored goes down just as easily because the Insurgants simply use half agian to three times as much in exposivies to insure a kill


To look at that issue another way I'll quote a Civvy I worked with, "The whole uparmor thing, What there doing... Its like the old Soviet method of mine clearing, Take a bunch of Prisoners, give them eight foot long sticks and march them through the minefield poking ahead of them. We spend all the money on uparmor guess what, The Prisoners got a TWELVE foot long stick now, Woopty frekeady doo, We SHOULD be contrating on creating more devices to find and disarm the damn things!"

[Chmee]

if you can make a system with 40% accurasy for 50 million or 100% for 500 billion of course we are going with the 40% one

Why do I hear Buck Turgeson saying "Mr. President I'm not saying we wouldn't get our hair mussed! But I do say no more than ten to twenty million killed, tops! Errr, depending on the breaks."

[phongn]

Why do I hear Buck Turgeson saying "Mr. President I'm not saying we wouldn't get our hair mussed! But I do say no more than ten to twenty million killed, tops! Errr, depending on the breaks."

That reminds me of an interesting read -- Herman Kahn's On Thermonuclear War. One topic he considers in the book is how many casualties are acceptable casualties in the context of nuclear war.

[Chmee]

Why do I hear Buck Turgeson saying "Mr. President I'm not saying we wouldn't get our hair mussed! But I do say no more than ten to twenty million killed, tops! Errr, depending on the breaks."

That reminds me of an interesting read -- Herman Kahn's On Thermonuclear War. One topic he considers in the book is how many casualties are acceptable casualties in the context of nuclear war.

Pretty sure I read it in college.

[Knife]

I'll echo some comments; in that the budget is roughly right. It's focus that is needed and a lack of fingers in the pie.

Force Projection is a must for America to stay on top of the heap, in that, a hellashish Navy based on CBG's must be maintained as well as a healthy sealift capacity and Pre Positioned Ship's with ready to go gear and supplies.

These things are not cheap.

Balance these with forward bases. Here I think we can trim some fat. We need forward bases for 'Force Projection' but we need them in particular places. I agree, the threat of Soviet forces overrunning Europe is small, at this point. A majority of our forward bases should be shifted and the personel reassigned. Same with Japan and really at this point, Korea.

We should still retain assests in those places, just not to the degree that we have infrastructure and personel there. A shift to active Naval assets and a centralization of the forward bases would, I think, save some $.

When dealing with weapons programs and airframes and shit, the recent smash of Iraq serves the point that it really is good to be light years ahead of an enemy. A small, tech savy force will decimate a large, heavy manpower, low trained army.

With this in mind, I think we should have our 300 F 22's and a hand full of B 2's for particular missions. Really, with the B 2's, your looking at the air craft version of SPEC OPS. Small units that become force multipliers, or in the case of the stealth's, force reducers, in that the amount of support craft from interceptors and escort are no longer needed.

The fact that in all this, the grunt gear gets the back burner is really not a new issue. But as a former grunt, I'm all for a modernization of their kit, including the vests.

But the up armor of the HMMWV's is a bad thing, IMO. The Hummer is a scout/utility vehicle. If want an armored car, design one. Slapping more armor on a utility vehicle and calling it an armored car will lead to problems.