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Originally Posted by Skybird
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Originally Posted by Schroeder
Have you had a look at the financial situation of the US recently? Where do you take the money from to increase the size of the military?
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My words. Even the current level of military spending is only possible by foreign money going into the US. Just image the Chinese would stop cpntinuing to buy (nowadays relatively worthless) treasury bonds! As some critic pointedly remarked - ironically it is the chinese (who opposed the Iraq war) that are financing the war. I think a shift in force compisition would be eneded, to get a higher manpower, away from cost-intensive hightech and electrinics and platforms, towards more basic infantry. But tell that the industrial-military complex - they will run amok. |
Since we have sold our manufacturing base willingly
However, in COIN operations, aren't alot of what creates a successful campaign a lot of the low-tech, highly-intellectual, actions which do not require the high ticket items whcih the military-industrial complex request the army to purchase.
Not that we haven't already passed the most recent aquisition cycle leaving the majority of the force with equipment that is at least half a generation older then what is currently available.
I think a possible problem is that recent visions of the future force envision the entire force to be the 'tip of the spear' without considering that a lot of the force of said spear is the mass behind it.
As for funding of our military, if we spent our GDP more prudently, I am sure as a nation we could finance a larger land-based military without straining the economy.