F-22A in a spot of bother (major report)

[Akkleptos]

The point of the war games is that it takes at least a dozen F-15 aircraft just to cover enough sky to actually gain a kill position on a single attacking F-22. Otherwise the F-22 is effective enough to score its kills and supercruise away. That ability to disengage at will, as well as initiate combat first reliability due to stealth should allow a an F-22 unit to simply make a series of hit and run attacks to which the enemy just has no response.

Which results in ICBM attacks. When that game goes up, nobody wins.


Also, because it only takes a tugboat with a dirty bomb near Manhattan, that no one would be able to stop (as some senator -I think- was saying on C-Span just the night before 9-11 -did anyone else watch that?) or a handful derranged Muslims on a few airliners.

What good is the heralded, all-mighty F22 going to do then?

Is this how they sucker the money out of American taxpayers? With the promise of an air superiority nobody will care about in the face of terrorist attacks that can hit your neighbourhood before any or the superfighters can even be scrambled anywhere near there?

Is the US military proud of this? When $361,000,000 are spent for just one single fucking aircraft? In a country that has these results in the OECD tests of education? Don't they have bigger fish to fry?

An evaluation of the 2003 results showed that the countries which spent more on education did not necessarily do better than those which spent less. Australia, Belgium, Canada, the Czech Republic, Finland, Japan, Korea and the Netherlands spent less but did relatively well, whereas the United States spent much more but was below the OECD average. The Czech Republic, in the top ten, spent only one third as much per student as the United States did, for example, but the USA came 24th out of 29 countries compared.

[Nephtys]

Which results in ICBM attacks. When that game goes up, nobody wins.

Also, because it only takes a tugboat with a dirty bomb near Manhattan, that no one would be able to stop (as some senator -I think- was saying on C-Span just the night before 9-11 -did anyone else watch that?) or a handful derranged Muslims on a few airliners.

What good is the heralded, all-mighty F22 going to do then?

Is this how they sucker the money out of American taxpayers? With the promise of an air superiority nobody will care about in the face of terrorist attacks that can hit your neighbourhood before any or the superfighters can even be scrambled anywhere near there?

That's the dumbest argument I've ever heard. Why buy new trucks for a fire department? They won't be able to put out fires caused by terrorist nukes. A jet fighter is for a completely different task than any sort of anti-terrorist equipment. It's not like this is the ONLY defense project in the country or anything. And you're being even dumber on the 'results in ICBM attacks' line. Really, a Jet fighter is a completely non-strategic weapon, and has nothing to do with nukes any more than buying a new tank does. Your line of reasoning makes no damned sense at all. Also, do you even know what a dirty bomb is? Or how insanely stupid they are in actual practice? Especially in your scenario? Here's a hint. A tugboat with some explosives and radioactive material on it is way less deadly than a guy with a single stick of dynamite on the street.

Equipment like an advanced fighter continues the US's 'stick' end of it's foreign policy, allowing it great influence over so-called rogue states. They can posture all they want, but every one of those nations knows that if they actually start a real war, they're going to be crushed in a conventional conflict because of such equipment and resources. The reasoning of IF the US should practice it's level of power projection is reserved for another topic, because that is quite a complex and substantial topic of it's own.

Is the US military proud of this? When $361,000,000 are spent for just one single fucking aircraft? In a country that has these results in the OECD tests of education? Don't they have bigger fish to fry?

An evaluation of the 2003 results showed that the countries which spent more on education did not necessarily do better than those which spent less. Australia, Belgium, Canada, the Czech Republic, Finland, Japan, Korea and the Netherlands spent less but did relatively well, whereas the United States spent much more but was below the OECD average. The Czech Republic, in the top ten, spent only one third as much per student as the United States did, for example, but the USA came 24th out of 29 countries compared.

Again, that's not a good argument. By your reasoning, absolute cost is the only factor, because it could be spent in other civil projects that of course, would benefit from more funding. Why, a F-22 only costs 360 million compared to a B2 costing a whopping 2 Billion! What savings!

The educational system has many faults, of which funding probably is one. However, it is not the only factor, and throwing a list of standings doesn't even vaguely take into account differences in population, population densities, economic conditions, etc.

[K. A. Pital]

Again, that's not a good argument.

Nephtys, why is that not a good argument? Akkleptos correctly pointed out that if something can be achieved for a lower cost, it's probably worth a try. The logic here is flawless. Saying that it cannot apply to defence is not working either, because there are examples when superior or equal solutions were produced by other nations' militaries at a bare fraction of the cost in another nation.

[Dark Hellion]

But countries can do that trade because there is the big stick of the U.S. navy to fall back on if someone gets uppity and starts trouble. You seem to be suggesting that the American military is unnecessarily expensive but then putting the onus on other to prove that its not by rephrasing the question to "why does America need such a huge military?" But I don't really see you fulfilling the threshold of actually explaining how the U.S. military is failing to fulfill its mandate (whatever that is being a debate in and of itself) or why a country that controls over 1/8th of the economic power of the world cannot decide how it want to spend it by itself, especially when the expense is historically lower than the spending of numerous countries in the past and the fact that like it or not the world gave America position as hegemon in the early 90's with many of the responsibilities to global trade and geopolitical relations that that requires. Had Europe wanted greater equality, they would have had to build the navies and sea lift that the U.S. provided for free, greatly increasing their defense spending. Sea lanes don't defend themselves, and without a strong military presence piracy is always a threat, as is historically evident.

You seem to be viewing military as a home security system, but this is a terrible analogy. If you don't have a good home security system someone might steal you TV. If you don't have a good military people steal your home and kill your family (citizens). As long as power blocs with differing political philosophies exist, there is always going to be a forward march of military might, with the costs associated. The efficiencies can be related to matters of politics, which as I understand have driven up the costs of even simple programs in the U.S. dramatically. But this is not a military or philosophical problem but one of political wrangling and venial greed. If you want to decry the costs you must either suggest how some of the gaps that would be created would be filled economically by other countries or decry the political processes that drive these costs to the insane levels.

And despite railing on American Exceptionalism, in this case America is quite exception. The military force the U.S. has does possess exceptional powers to project power or defend foreign assets compared to any civilization in history. America has military capabilities that are unmatchable and to the citizens of the U.S. this gives us a bargaining tool in furthering our national interests that no country can match. And frankly, since we are still in the age of nationalism, and look to be for at least the next century, this is one of the mandates of national government, which the U.S. is fulfilling in a spectacular if inefficient degree.

You can dislike it, but for the foreseeable future military expenditure is an unavoidable consequence of geopolitical decisions made by the U.S., Russia, China and Europe. Had Europe made stronger bids towards multi-polarity following the collapse of the Soviet Union, instead of choosing to rely on the Carrier strength and sealift capability that the U.S. built (for this purpose) than you would have an argument for this level of spending. But basically the world decided to let the U.S. become the hulking juggernaut, and then has the audacity to complain that the U.S. got comfortable in this position and decided it wanted to stay that way. It is not like the U.S. will suffer insolvency for it predilection for military spending any time soon, where as numerous European countries have leveraged themselves much further but have gained nothing of the ability to project its national interests that the U.S. has.

You can't simply quote the fact that the U.S. spends more than the rest of the world combined as if it is some great rebuttal because when you contextualize the amount of services the U.S. military performs around the world it makes perfect sense. You need to prove that the many functions both military and humanitarian that the U.S. performs would be fulfilled or made unnecessary by other countries at a lesser cost. You don't simply quote a service as being too expensive, you need to provide what a fair cost is and how you would get that.

[K. A. Pital]

But countries can do that trade because there is the big stick of the U.S. navy to fall back on if someone gets uppity and starts trouble.

I doubt the US Navy will be sticking up for say, some Asian nation like China if it's vessels get assaulted by pirates or a hostile state. China is a major international trade partner. So is India. Both nations operate Navies far smaller than the US. The US would not be "sticking up" for them, and in fact has not for the last xxx years.

But I don't really see you fulfilling the threshold of actually explaining how the U.S. military is failing to fulfill its mandate (whatever that is being a debate in and of itself)

There is no international mandate for the US military to be so large. Also, the mandate is actually the question, because it's the justification of US military size in your view.

If you don't have a good military people steal your home and kill your family (citizens).

That is true for continental powers surrounded by other major powers. That is completely not true for nations such as Australia and the United States to name a few.

And despite railing on American Exceptionalism, in this case America is quite exception.

America is never the exception to anything. It's just a nation which happened to be powerful. That's it. It's exceptional in the level of protection it's island position offers it, kinda like Australia, but not anything more than that.

But basically the world decided to let the U.S. become the hulking juggernaut

By "the world" you mean the "First World" of course, because no one ever asked how does the Third and Second world feel about the US or it's military power.

You can't simply quote the fact that the U.S. spends more than the rest of the world combined as if it is some great rebuttal because when you contextualize the amount of services the U.S. military performs around the world it makes perfect sense.

What sort of "great services" does the US military perform around the world? So far I see it performing well, a task that could be defined as "sowing unrest in the Middle East" with the Iraq war, which actually deprived many nations of their assets like Iraqi debt, and caused religious jihad in the Middle East to flourish with a newfound case against the "Great Satan" in Iraq.

That is by far the largest "service" operation in teh world the US military does, and it's also rather questionable that this "service" was even necessary.

I asked Stuart and many other proponents of US military hegemony to show a detailed list of service the US military provides - they listed things like oceanography etc. I then asked promptly how large a fraction these undoubtedly useful things constitute in the overall budget of the US military, but to no avail.

The question is not whether the US military does something useful; the question is if it requires the level of spending that it has now to do it.

[Akkleptos]

You can't simply quote the fact that the U.S. spends more than the rest of the world combined as if it is some great rebuttal because when you contextualize the amount of services the U.S. military performs around the world it makes perfect sense

Yes, I can. The US spends way too much, and sends the bill to Johnny American. How about the US didn't meddle in other countries affairs other than via diplomatic relations, like any other self-respecting Western democracy?

Oooh... too novel a concept?

Oh, but everybody else is too afraid of the North Korean nukes...!!!

Bring in the F22s!!!!

[Terralthra]

I think my favorite part of Akkleptos's attempted red herring is that the very study he quotes shows that money isn't the problem with the US educational system. Since the study points out that the USA spends more on education per capita relative to other countries that do better, what exactly is this supposed to prove?

[K. A. Pital]

Since the study points out that the USA spends more on education per capita relative to other countries that do better, what exactly is this supposed to prove?

That you could spend less on the military and achieve a better or similar result? That's pretty evident.

[Terralthra]

Since the study points out that the USA spends more on education per capita relative to other countries that do better, what exactly is this supposed to prove?

That you could spend less on the military and achieve a better or similar result? That's pretty evident.

His implication seems to me to be that the US should be spending more of its money on the educational system, which doesn't follow. Nor does it necessarily follow that the military and educational infrastructure have a similar disjoint between finance and quality. In order to show that would require showing that sort of disconnect in the military infrastructure, making the education point, once again, a massive red herring.

[Akkleptos]

the USA spends more on education per capita relative to other countries that do better, what exactly is this supposed to prove?

That the US is doing something very... VERY wrong, and that the money they've been spending on super-duper airfighters would have been better spent elsewhere... like on... ---oh, the BLASPHEMY!!!!---... EDUCATION... (which, by all accounts, they're not doing right as it is)?????

His implication seems to me to be that the US should be spending more of its money on the educational system, which doesn't follow

The fact that it "doesn't follow", in your view, is saddening enough, and deserves no further explanation.

[Terralthra]

the USA spends more on education per capita relative to other countries that do better, what exactly is this supposed to prove?

That the US is doing something very... VERY wrong, and that the money they've been spending on super-duper airfighters would have been better spent elsewhere... like on... ---oh, the BLASPHEMY!!!!---... EDUCATION... (which, by all accounts, they're not doing right as it is)?????

His implication seems to me to be that the US should be spending more of its money on the educational system, which doesn't follow

The fact that it "doesn't follow", in your view, is saddening enough, and deserves no further explanation.

An evaluation of the 2003 results showed that the countries which spent more on education did not necessarily do better than those which spent less. Australia, Belgium, Canada, the Czech Republic, Finland, Japan, Korea and the Netherlands spent less but did relatively well, whereas the United States spent much more but was below the OECD average. The Czech Republic, in the top ten, spent only one third as much per student as the United States did, for example, but the USA came 24th out of 29 countries compared.

And Akkleptos's solution is...spend more money on it! Brilliant.

[K. A. Pital]

Spending more money on education makes no sense indeed. I thought his point was that the US can do better with spending less, not that the US can throw more money on education.

He must've confused something.

[Kamakazie Sith]

That the US is doing something very... VERY wrong, and that the money they've been spending on super-duper airfighters would have been better spent elsewhere... like on... ---oh, the BLASPHEMY!!!!---... EDUCATION... (which, by all accounts, they're not doing right as it is)?????

Indeed. The education system is doing something very very wrong. However, the point being made is that throwing more money at it won't fix it. You need to actually fix the education system.

The fact that it "doesn't follow", in your view, is saddening enough, and deserves no further explanation.

Who gives a shit what you think it deserves? Man up and defend your position. You say that the US should throw more money at education because our education system sucks yet your sources show that the US already does that. Thus, even an idiot could conclude that it isn't the amount of money being spent it is how the education system is designed.

[Dark Hellion]

Despite all the obfuscations being thrown out it is the classical prisoners dilemma. You are country X. You don't plan on going to war, so you don't really need a military. But Country Y over across the river has this big military with fancy toys and they might attack you, so you need a military capable of fending them off. And the best way to do this is with better tech/next generation equipment. So now you have this nice defense force that can easily fend off their attack; but wait, this defense force is good enough that you could use it to invade country Y. So now country Y, seeing this, has to build up his forces and around and around it goes. And neither side can stop because the risk of losing is too big.

Now, there are ways out of this, but the only ways are for the people with the weaker position to lose (the strong position has more to lose so it is never in his interest to), proving to the stronger position that they don't need to grow more. But you need to do so in a controlled environment where you don't lose much. But no country is going to intentionally lose because their citizens would eat the government alive. So the chain is always endless. Welcome to human nature. It has been going on since the first man picked up a rock and realized he could use it to steal his neighbors food. We have much bigger, smarter rocks now, but unless you can solve one of the fundamental problems that has shaped human civilization you aren't going to remove the logical drive of nations to build large, powerful militaries.

If you want to argue about costs, then argue about the political processes involved, because you aren't going to change the underlying philosophical groundwork. Any country wishing to maintain its viability as a world player is going to continue massive investment in improving its military might.

Now the U.S. probably spends too much on its military. I don't think this is a hard concession to make. But the point of attack is about economics and why such investment is necessary to fulfill its goals or the specifics of fulfilling said goals, because trying to argue against the goals themselves is trying to argue against the last 6000 years of historical precedent and as such is going to take much more powerful evidence than one liners and scare quotable phrases.

[K. A. Pital]

So the chain is always endless.

Fall and demilitarization of the British, French and other colonial empires... fall and demilitarization of the USSR and the Warsaw Pact... et cetera.

Sometimes the chain ends, for better or worse.

[Dark Hellion]

And would you say that those forces lost a lot of power during said processes? Of course they did. Which is exactly what I stated. The chain goes until someone is willing to lose/does lose. The colonial empires were willing to lose that power because trying to hold it would make them end up worse. Same with the USSR. The difference is unless the U.S. economy is secretly in much worse shape than what I know of U.S. military expenditure is no threat to its future prospects. The certainty of wasteful military spending is better than the uncertainty of an economically unnecessary demobilization.

We are on the cusp of a paradigmatic shift in the way international relations work. Under such a new model U.S. military philosophy will probably be able to become more conservative in what it regards as necessary. However, we are still at the end of the Superpowers view of the world, with the U.S. being a hyperpower and only growing or fallen superpowers being able to oppose it. There in an onus on these superpowers to open dialogue with the U.S. to placate the "necessity" for next gen weaponry, with an equal or greater onus on the U.S. to be willing to listen and respond in kind. How long this process is going to take is anyones guess, if it takes place at all.

[Nephtys]

Again, that's not a good argument.

Nephtys, why is that not a good argument? Akkleptos correctly pointed out that if something can be achieved for a lower cost, it's probably worth a try. The logic here is flawless. Saying that it cannot apply to defence is not working either, because there are examples when superior or equal solutions were produced by other nations' militaries at a bare fraction of the cost in another nation.

Did you read his argument? He just said 360 million is a lot, without presenting other arguments. Just an absolute number. Was there an alternate plane he suggested the US purchase? Did he suggest the US stop making fighter aircraft? There was no actual ARGUMENT, except 'OMG, 360 million is a lot of money that could be used for education'.

[Vympel]

I'm still plugging the F-15 Stealth Eagle, over here.

In these tough times, can you afford not to buy it?

[Darth Wong]

Despite all the obfuscations being thrown out it is the classical prisoners dilemma. You are country X. You don't plan on going to war, so you don't really need a military. But Country Y over across the river has this big military with fancy toys and they might attack you, so you need a military capable of fending them off. And the best way to do this is with better tech/next generation equipment. So now you have this nice defense force that can easily fend off their attack; but wait, this defense force is good enough that you could use it to invade country Y. So now country Y, seeing this, has to build up his forces and around and around it goes. And neither side can stop because the risk of losing is too big.

What a load of bullshit. The point repeatedly made here is that the US is not just trying to keep up with everyone else, but that they are absurdly far ahead of everyone else in military spending. It is absolutely incredible that you could accuse others of "obfuscation" while promoting the most ridiculously inaccurate possible analogy for the situation.

Now the U.S. probably spends too much on its military. I don't think this is a hard concession to make. But the point of attack is about economics and why such investment is necessary to fulfill its goals or the specifics of fulfilling said goals, because trying to argue against the goals themselves is trying to argue against the last 6000 years of historical precedent and as such is going to take much more powerful evidence than one liners and scare quotable phrases.

Another steaming pile. The last 6000 years of historical precedent has shown that when a nation has a military vastly more powerful than its neighbours, it is not doing so to protect itself: it is doing so to threaten others. And in fact, that is precisely what America is doing: it sets itself a goal of being able to invade territory anywhere in the world on short notice: how can anyone in his right mind try to portray this as a defense imperative?

[starfury]

I'm still plugging the F-15 Stealth Eagle, over here.


In these tough times, can you afford not to buy it?

"New F-15 Silent Eagle Is Cheap Stealth Plane for Recession-minded Warmongers", I like this slogan on Gizmdo for the F-15 Silent eagle

[Ma Deuce]

I still don't understand why they can't just lift the F-22 export ban already? AFAIK Japan still very much wants to buy 40 or so aircraft (even going as far as offering to foot the entire cost of developing an export model), which alone should be enough to keep the production line running for another 2 years, bring in a nice wad of export cash, and bring down costs for any further units the USAF might buy. And for the record, the F-22 doesn't cost $360 million to build anyway; little more than a third of that in fact. Sure, you can't ignore R&D costs (which is where the $360m figure comes from), and we can debate whether they should have been spent in the first place, but as of now but they are already spent and gone, so if the USAF really does need new aircraft to replace some of the older F-15C airframes, I don't see how a spending a given amount on brand new F-15SEs or whatever is a better buy than the same money's worth of F-22s.

[Pelranius]

I'm still plugging the F-15 Stealth Eagle, over here.

In these tough times, can you afford not to buy it?

Since the Stealth Eagle apparently has to have its stealth 'downgraded' to different levels for different export customers, that sounds like it has its good points.

My concern about terminating the F-22A is that would it be more expensive to restart production later? I believe that is a valid worry, since various DoD officials, congress people and the think tank crowd will inevitably demand the resumption/increase of F-22A production when the PAK-FA and JXX start flying, regardless of whether those Chinese and Russian fifth generation fighters actually pose a challenge to the F-22A. And that crowd of 'concerned citizens' have a fairly good chance of succeeding.

[Darth Wong]

Frankly, they should terminate the F-22 and prosecute the officials involved in the fraud just to send a message. It's no secret that the military-industrial complex thinks of the government as nothing more than big stupid purse that they can happily defraud and overbill to their heart's content with no real repercussions. And oh noes! the F-35 won't be quite as fucking cool as the F-22, I guess the world will come to an end now that Globocop is just devastatingly powerful and not uber-devastatingly powerful.

[Dark Hellion]

What a load of bullshit. The point repeatedly made here is that the US is not just trying to keep up with everyone else, but that they are absurdly far ahead of everyone else in military spending. It is absolutely incredible that you could accuse others of "obfuscation" while promoting the most ridiculously inaccurate possible analogy for the situation.

The number is a matter of economics though, not military philosophy, which is the point I am trying to make. America spends a lot but is only a bit ahead of the rest of the world. The Leopard II is comparable to the Abrams, the Russians will come out with comperable planes to the F-22 and F-35 in the next decade, and China is trying to build comparable forces as well. The only true area of total U.S. dominance is Naval, and that is because of very clever moves during the cold war and the fact that the great powers decided they didn't need a navy if the U.S. had one.

And you haven't answered the question still. Why is it bullshit for the hegemon to have the biggest and best military. This is not a unique situation in history, Alexander's empire, Rome, the Persians, the British Empire all had massive and technologically advanced militaries. They were actually more aggressive too, even though they had less signifigant militaries than the U.S. which says something about U.S. restraint or at least the U.S. willingness to follow world political culture despite the massive conventional power wielded.

You still seem incapable of seperating what is quite literally the U.S. wanting to remain on the winning curve of the oldest example of the prisoners dilemma from the economics of doing so. If you want to argue waste you need to show where there is waste. It shouldn't be difficult to find from what you are saying, but the onus is on you to prove that we are spending too much. I could tell you you are spending too much on server costs, but if I can't give you a lower price I am just blowing smoke. You are doing the same thing. You have failed to provide any reason why the U.S. shouldn't continue its military philosophy nor provided a way to accomplish some of the tasks the U.S. military accomplishes for cheaper.

[quote ="Darth Wong"]
Another steaming pile. The last 6000 years of historical precedent has shown that when a nation has a military vastly more powerful than its neighbours, it is not doing so to protect itself: it is doing so to threaten others. And in fact, that is precisely what America is doing: it sets itself a goal of being able to invade territory anywhere in the world on short notice: how can anyone in his right mind try to portray this as a defense imperative?[/quote]

So Rome and Britain were always attacking their neighbors now? You realize that in the past 6000 years having strong militaries wasn't the only thing that made you attack right? There were over 30 major conflicts among Eupropean powers during the 1800s, and they weren't all Britain attacking its neighbor. The history of the world has actually shown that wars increase when there is a general equality amongst the worlds militaries. When one or two forces have absolute dominance there are long eras of peace. This is why the Great Powers era led to 50 or so conflicts in 300 years and then two world wars. No one picks a fight with a super/hyperpower and superpowers don't directly because it pisses the other guy off, and hyperpowers generally don't fight because its a waste of their time.

Probably one of the biggest crocks of shit spread by small countries is this big countries with big militaries are aggressive. Big countries with big militaries don't have to be aggressive, they have the leverage to be laid back. Small countries and dying states are aggressive. Small countries want to expand and dying states want to capture former glory. One of the major schools of thought says that fear is what motivates countries to war. Large states with massive militaries generally aren't afraid. Look at the massive amounts of fearmongering used to make the U.S. got to war in Iraq. It wasn't jingoism being used, but fear. Two world wars damn near bled out the idea of simple jingoism being the only thing to start a war.

If you want to argue against the economics of U.S. military spending, show how the U.S. can do what it wants to do militarily for cheaper. If you want to argue against these wants do so. Stop equivocating the two, and stop just throwing out "the U.S. spends more than the world combined". The U.S. government makes more money that most continents do per year. It is well within its budget to do so. We have spent as much or more for over 60 years now and are still in better financial shape the European countries like Iceland, Ireland etc. This discussion has moved well beyond one liners and scare quotable phrases, so show evidence that the build-up is unnecessary, that the tasks the U.S. military performs would be fulfilled by other sources more economically, and that in the absence of U.S. military spending that countries opposing U.S. interests would have actual incentive to not do the same damn thing we do.

[Darth Wong]

The number is a matter of economics though, not military philosophy, which is the point I am trying to make. America spends a lot but is only a bit ahead of the rest of the world. The Leopard II is comparable to the Abrams, the Russians will come out with comperable planes to the F-22 and F-35 in the next decade, and China is trying to build comparable forces as well. The only true area of total U.S. dominance is Naval, and that is because of very clever moves during the cold war and the fact that the great powers decided they didn't need a navy if the U.S. had one.

America spends a lot because it insists on being ahead, and not being at parity. That is why your analogy is horseshit. The idea that it's still a valid analogy because they are not far enough ahead for your tastes is just subjective nonsense.

You still seem incapable of seperating what is quite literally the U.S. wanting to remain on the winning curve of the oldest example of the prisoners dilemma from the economics of doing so.

You still seem incapable of recognizing that when someone challenges the validity of the analogy, you're supposed to explain why it's valid, not simply repeat it.

If you want to argue waste you need to show where there is waste. It shouldn't be difficult to find from what you are saying, but the onus is on you to prove that we are spending too much. I could tell you you are spending too much on server costs, but if I can't give you a lower price I am just blowing smoke. You are doing the same thing. You have failed to provide any reason why the U.S. shouldn't continue its military philosophy nor provided a way to accomplish some of the tasks the U.S. military accomplishes for cheaper.

Bullshit. I am pointing that this is not a need, and dishonest fuckers like you should stop acting as if it is.

So Rome and Britain were always attacking their neighbors now?

You're full of shit. When Rome had a clearly superior military, they did routinely attack other nations. When Britain had a world-dominating military, they did the same thing, and built a huge empire by doing so.

There were over 30 major conflicts among Eupropean powers during the 1800s, and they weren't all Britain attacking its neighbor.

The fact that other things also cause wars does not change the fact that when a nation has a dominant military, it tends to use it.

The history of the world has actually shown that wars increase when there is a general equality amongst the worlds militaries. When one or two forces have absolute dominance there are long eras of peace.

Since when? The Persians were militaristic and aggressive when they had a dominant military. Alexander's dominant military coincided with his incredibly aggressive campaigns. Rome's dominant military coincided with the growth of their empire, also through conquest. Please give examples of long periods of peace which coincided with an overwhelmingly powerful military.

Probably one of the biggest crocks of shit spread by small countries is this big countries with big militaries are aggressive. Big countries with big militaries don't have to be aggressive, they have the leverage to be laid back.

Nice theory. How many smaller countries has the laid-back US bombed or invaded or "intervened in" over the past half century?

If you want to argue against the economics of U.S. military spending, show how the U.S. can do what it wants to do militarily for cheaper.

Why? Why can't I point out that the US does not need to satisfy its wants?