Good Morning, Mr. Secretary

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2003-04-19 10:46pm

Bill Clinton has just been taken office and you are SecDefense. You are charged with drawing down the US military with the end of the Cold War without castrating it like what happened historically. Keeping it at Reagan/Bush levels is not an option: Clinton will sack you. OTOH he will listen to a reasonable proposal.

You have no knowledge of what will happen historically, so no yelling at him to kill Bin Laden while there's still time.

Post by **Vympel** » 2003-04-19 10:51pm

Can we have the real world procedure of the 'castration' (where can we find this data) so we can compare?

Throughout the Clinton years America was still far and away super powerful militarily.

Post by **Sea Skimmer** » 2003-04-19 10:57pm

Persevering the carrier airgroups would be my biggest priority, keeping the A-6's and twelve or thirteen groups for twelve carriers is a must. I'd probably cut back the SSN more so then historical and probably knock back the USAF somewhat more to help pay for it. For the Army I'd bring all US heavy forces home, that should help prevent a division from being stuck in Bosnia for a decade. It will also save money, and win some political points, a divisional sized base brings a lot of money to a state and that should get a senator and some representatives in favor of a larger military budget.

Stormbringer · Post by **Stormbringer** » 2003-04-19 11:12pm

Bring home as much of our troops as practical. Bases make good pork frankly and that'll help ease pressure in Congress.

Other than that don't scrap proven systems (A-6, F-14, etc...) for unproven or ineffective replacements. And as much as possible put in storage rather than scrapping. Things like the Osprey and F-22 had better be ready and in production before we start scrapping anything. This goes especially for the air craft of all services as they seem especially fond of ridiculously overbudget "super"-planes that don't live up to expectation.

Cut back the submarines in favor of carriers and other surface ships. In times of peace subs, especially boomers, are less effective than surface ships. They don't establish a presence like a surface ships does and are limited to attacking whereas surface ship can do so much more. Carriers would be a priority as they are the top means of power projection we have.

Avoid peacekeeping missions! They really are pointless, most turn into us babysitting with little progress towards actually fixing the situation. They suck up time, troops and money for open ended deployments. They're also a major moral killer.

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2003-04-19 11:21pm

Vympel wrote:Can we have the real world procedure of the 'castration' (where can we find this data) so we can compare?

Throughout the Clinton years America was still far and away super powerful militarily.

I meant the general demoralization of the military, the increase in operational tempo while reducing funds, getting rid of various highly useful ships and aircraft rather than mothballing them, etc.

I am still quite aware that the US Military remained the strongest during the 1990s.

irishmick79 · Post by **irishmick79** » 2003-04-19 11:59pm

Continue to implement upgrades in training procedures, and continue to send observers abroad to keep track of developments in military hardware. Find useless programs like the SR-71 to axe, and find ways to reform the military and make it more professional. The US Armed forces in the nineties benefited tremendously from all of the reforms during the eighties, and continuing to adapt to the current military strategies and tactics would be essential.

Post by **Sea Skimmer** » 2003-04-20 12:13am

The SR-71 reactivation under Clinton was a NASA program IIRC, and involved only three aircraft for a short period.

Glocksman · Post by **Glocksman** » 2003-04-20 12:25am

Find useless programs like the SR-71 to axe, and find ways to reform the military and make it more professional

Why is the SR-71 useless?

irishmick79 · Post by **irishmick79** » 2003-04-20 12:32am

Because it was designed as a recon plane, and was being designed to do the job the spy satellites were already doing. It wasn't stealthy enough to be a bomber, so the military decided to terminate the project.

Post by **Sea Skimmer** » 2003-04-20 12:39am

irishmick79 wrote:Because it was designed as a recon plane, and was being designed to do the job the spy satellites were already doing. It wasn't stealthy enough to be a bomber, so the military decided to terminate the project.

About half the production run also crashed.

Aircraft recon is better then satellites, but the USAF wouldn't risk the plane over the Soviet Union or anywhere else well defended by SAM's. That made it pointless, since it was doing jobs a U-2 could do just as well. Though as it turned out, the Soviet Union never built a SAM that could have caught it

jegs2 · Post by **jegs2** » 2003-04-20 01:06am

phongn wrote:Bill Clinton has just been taken office and you are SecDefense. You are charged with drawing down the US military with the end of the Cold War without castrating it like what happened historically. Keeping it at Reagan/Bush levels is not an option: Clinton will sack you. OTOH he will listen to a reasonable proposal.

You have no knowledge of what will happen historically, so no yelling at him to kill Bin Laden while there's still time.

I resign.

Post by **AdmiralKanos** » 2003-04-20 01:10am

[MANJI]Scrap everything and put all the money toward mile-long battleships and behemoth tanks with 16" gun turrets[/MANJI]

Joe · Post by **Joe** » 2003-04-20 01:13am

Take the boys off of their needlepoint and sensitivity training and build a fucking army.

Post by **Sea Skimmer** » 2003-04-20 01:44am

AdmiralKanos wrote:[MANJI]Scrap everything and put all the money toward mile-long battleships and behemoth tanks with 16" gun turrets[/MANJI]

*Send fleet of TM-1E38 Death Star repulser tanks after the offending mecha*

Patrick Degan · Post by **Patrick Degan** » 2003-04-20 01:46am

The tables presented here:

http://www.cbo.gov/showdoc.cfm?index=2399&sequence=0

indicate the years in which the deepest cuts occurred through the period between 1989 and 2000. The figures do not quite support the "Clinton gutted the military" myth.

Post by **Sea Skimmer** » 2003-04-20 02:00am

Patrick Degan wrote:The tables presented here:

http://www.cbo.gov/showdoc.cfm?index=2399&sequence=0

indicate the years in which the deepest cuts occurred through the period between 1989 and 2000. The figures do not quite support the "Clinton gutted the military" myth.

Your ignoring the distruction of equipment, and increased op tempo, expendature of muntisions without replacement and many other things that wore down the military.

It could live with the reduced funding to a point, but not with what Clinton did with it operational. Hell, he had a twelve carrier fleet conducting deployments months in excess of what was normal, while they had the maintinance budget for just eight.

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2003-04-20 02:04am

That table, for example, is not showing the depletion of munitions stockpiles that happened historically, nor does it show the lack of spare parts. While it shows that the number of carrier air wings decreased, it did not show that individual squadrons had fewer aircraft and the wings themselves were generally less capable with the retirement of the A-6 and KA-6. (Ditto for the USAF TFWs).

Oddly, it shows Kennedy as a reserve carrier - AFAIK, it was actually used, more or less, in active service (it may have been a budgetary trick, though).

If you're trying to say that many of the drawdowns did not occur under Clinton, I'm not about to dispute that. Much of it began under GHWB- his administration did some dumb things like shutting down the F-14D line - but it was continued during Clinton.

Post by **Sea Skimmer** » 2003-04-20 02:15am

IIRC, Kennedy wasn't part of Clintons plans but congress decided to keep her active.

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