Big cuts coming to US military

[Platapus]

So now that there will be cuts, we will see how these "smaller government" members of congress will fight this.

Smaller government spending is not so good when it is in your state.

The MIC is a hungry mistress.

[Platapus]

Originally Posted by Cybermat47

Why spend money on a military that has no war to fight?

I am sure we can come up with something. There will be some "emergency" that will "force" the United States to up the funding for the military... for national security, you understand.

[Cybermat47]

Hmm... it loos like the US Army has been selling their services to the civilian population of America under the name 'Life Alert':

Absolutely disgusting. Civilians shouldn't have to pay their military, that's the government's job.

[Herr-Berbunch]

Close bases, cut jobs, then what do the people do? Return to local manufacturing?

I agree with cutting waste, and as previously mentioned by Ducimus a good place to start is some great white technological elephant, and not personnel.

[Skybird]

Having less grunts to pay monthly fees, means not so much, financially.

The real cost saver would be to reduce the influence of the defence industry on the policy makers.

The quality of competitors' defence quality, namely China, becomes better ands better,m the Americna lead is shrinking both in quantity and quality, and due to the technology race the ability to compensate numerical inferiority by technical superiority is declining: the higher the level is already is, the smaller the improvments that can be gained by the higher investements for them needed. Oh dear, can one say it that way or did I just mess up the language?

Needless to say, the more specialised and higher in quality one's own forces are, the more precious they become and the more costly and potentially war-decisive even small losses become, because for the same money you then can maintain only smaller forces: loosing for example one destroyer when you have two hundred, is one thing. Loosing one destroyer when you only have ten, is something very different.

What I disagree with is to phase out the A-10s. Not because of sentimental reasons, but because of what these planes can do - and the F35 cannot. For many CAS type of missions, I think the A10 is the - sometimes much - better aircraft, still. And last time I read about it, many ground commanders agreed with that assessment.

[Aktungbby]

[Stealhead]

Actually cutting down the man power does save a lot of money.Remember in the US each troop gets food and housing paid for.if they are married they get base housing which is again free of charge.

A single junior enlisted gets everything food,clothing,housing(and experiences there of) all covered.Then you have BAS (basic allowance for substance) and BAQ( basic allowance for quarters). Everyone who lives off base gets these to a very large extent and it goes up to match the cost of living in the particular region the troop and family (if he has one lives Japan is the best because the cost of living is very high there)

The savings by trimming out say 25,000 from the entire military would actually be substantial.

There are actually ways for each branch to deal with MIC crap that is not needed.Trust me I was personally involved in insuring certain new un-needed crap getting forced upon us failed.

That is only part of it when ever they cut troops a portion of what ever they where supporting also goes away which saves money.

The MIC is a problem and an expense but so is to a very large extent the cost of feeding housing medicating a troop and his family.Consider how much it costs for one typical American in one year to pay rent pay water pay electric to eat so on. Now imagine having to pay 100% or a sizable portion of that cost for over 1 million people.Pretty expensive.Oh and you also have to pay roughly 1 million people a salary every two weeks.

[Oberon]

It's not entirely surprising, and it's going to hurt, trust us, we've been there...but I doubt it'll be as deep as some, so there's that to be grateful for.

Here's an interesting fact that might not be known. When British forces conclude their service in Afghanistan and return home, it will be the first time the British military forces have not been in conflict in over a century.
http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2...ry-warfare-end

[Stealhead]

Defense is good but only what you need at a given time.An unnecessarily large military force is very costly.So it makes perfect sense.

@Oberon Northern Ireland kept the UK busy for some come to think of it.

[Oberon]

Originally Posted by Stealhead

@Oberon Northern Ireland kept the UK busy for some come to think of it.

Yup, still seems rather strange how rapidly it all ended, then again 9/11 rather jaded the American and global view on 'freedom fighters', and it gave a carte blanche for heavier offensive action on 'terrorists' so I guess Sinn Fein could see which way the wind was blowing and decided to get out while the going was good...it's a shame Tribesman has been brigged as he would probably be able to correct me in what I've just theorised as he knows a lot more on the ins and outs of Irish politics than I could hope to.
Still, there'll always be tension there, there's talk of a 'New IRA' forming up, but thank God (both Catholic and Protestant) that it has generally died down now. Those were dark times for both sides, and honestly, I think that todays children in England at least, wouldn't believe (or likely even know) that once upon a time, a street in Ireland could look like this:



A fairly good film, made for TV, about one of the most infamous incidents in the Troubles, Bloody Sunday:

[Jimbuna]

If the cuts are inevitable and do happen, hopefully they will be hand in hand with the realisation that one needs to be more choosy in what conflicts abroad one can justifiably commit to with a genuine hope of achieving a successfull outcome.

After the UK pulls out of Afghanistan I hope the British government will come to such a realisation.

Try to keep a submarine base open with sufficient space for us to park our nukes....we could be looking for such a haven next year

[Ducimus]

Originally Posted by Skybird

Needless to say, the more specialised and higher in quality one's own forces are, the more precious they become and the more costly and potentially war-decisive even small losses become, because for the same money you then can maintain only smaller forces: loosing for example one destroyer when you have two hundred, is one thing. Loosing one destroyer when you only have ten, is something very different.

This is more or less why i'm not a big fan of some of the really high dollar projects like the F-35. Things like that become so expensive, so valuable, that you dare not use it, and if you lose one, your going to feel it in many ways.

What I disagree with is to phase out the A-10s. Not because of sentimental reasons, but because of what these planes can do - and the F35 cannot. For many CAS type of missions, I think the A10 is the - sometimes much - better aircraft, still. And last time I read about it, many ground commanders agreed with that assessment.

That's probably the USAF's fighter mafia talking. Practicality be damned, if it doesn't break the sound barrier, and isn't an air superiority role, they don't want it.

Originally Posted by Stealhead

Actually cutting down the man power does save a lot of money.Remember in the US each troop gets food and housing paid for.if they are married they get base housing which is again free of charge.

A single junior enlisted gets everything food,clothing,housing(and experiences there of) all covered.Then you have BAS (basic allowance for substance) and BAQ( basic allowance for quarters). Everyone who lives off base gets these to a very large extent and it goes up to match the cost of living in the particular region the troop and family (if he has one lives Japan is the best because the cost of living is very high there)

The savings by trimming out say 25,000 from the entire military would actually be substantial.

Very true. I know some personnel cuts are unavoidable, but I strongly think they should be very focused and as limited as possible. The reason is, experience and flexibility. Experience is a valuable commodity, and you want to keep as much of as possible within the military. Loss of experience can conceivably cost lives later on in the form of mistakes that are being learned all over again. Flexibility, because you need enough troops where the "Operation tempo" isn't overwhelming. In my day, (Clinton era), we had massive draw downs, and no decrease in operation tempo.

In my career field it was not uncommon to be deployed 200 days out of the year, and we didn't have "Air expeditionary forces" at the time. They started that up right as I was leaving active. I'm out because I got caught in the draw down. I didn't want out, but my career field was "over manned" (and yet the work load just kept getting harder, go figure. ) Others got out, because being deployed 200 plus days out of the year does wonders for retention.


As an aside, as much as the services struggle with Fraud, Waste, and Abuse, a crapton of it is systemic. End of fiscal year spending anyone?

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Ducimus

This is more or less why i'm not a big fan of some of the really high dollar projects like the F-35. Things like that become so expensive, so valuable, that you dare not use it, and if you lose one, your going to feel it in many ways.

Its like adjusting a slider, with "maximum number of cheap units" at the one and of the scale, and "maximum quality, expensive units " at the other. Already Rumsfeld pushed that slider utmost towards the latter, so he claimed. And I think that is a mistake. There is a lesson to be learned form the Russian war against the Germans.

The trick is to push the slider towards the latter, but not to the maximum of it, but to find a good balance between numbers and quality, where as the chance of enemy technology damaging you or enemy number superiority overwhelming you are kept at the possible minimum.

The cuts in the American defences are okay if they indeed should serve mainly for defending the American homeland. The growing isolationism of the US speaks for this also. But for an America that may redefine its role as a globally engaged actor, it overstretches the defence resources. You cannot quickly rebuild quality forces in case you need them, if for years you have not maintained such reserves for this case _ you need years of preparation, the more years the better quality you want, because quality not only means industrial capacity and technological skill, but also experience. If you cannot maintain such reserves because you cannot afford it anymore, your global claims have to be limited. And I think that is what is happening, which is noted in Europe and the ME with growing discomfort and nervousness.

It's an empire reversing expansion to contraction. History knows no example of contracting empires so far that nevertheless survived. Where an empire reached the point where it did not expand anymore, it started to stagnate and fade.

China btw. has just sold a record share of its US bonds in December, witch the Chinese also buying the global gold market empty. Their defence budgets (and that of their neighbours and those in the ME) are growing, in some countries almost explode. All that are more signs that the US empire is in contraction.

[Dan D]

The US is a maritime nation like its mother UK.
The US accounts for close to half of all the world's military expenditure.
Compared to that the US Army is not that big, ca. 500.000 soldiers, China has 2.000.000, North Korea 1.000.000, Russia 400.000.

So where does all the money go?
The US has by far the largest Navy in the world. The sea is the first line of defence, keep the enemy of your shores.

But why not fight them at their shores and inland with the Navy?

The US has twice as much aircraft carriers as all other nations together. A Carriers does not come alone but as a carrier strike group supported by other ships. Furthermore the US Navy has amphibious assault ships who function as bridgeheads to fight inland.

So if the US reduces its Army from rougly 500.000 „to 440,000 to 450,000 troops, according to the Times. Army troop levels already were supposed to go down to 490,000, from their height of 570,000 after the 9/11 attacks“ (link given at the start of the thread), this is no drama. This is very likely owed to a change of tactics towards more operational maneuvers from the Sea in future.

Btw, did you know that there are more than „1 million injured veterans from the fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan“? That is grim.
http://www.ibtimes.com/va-stops-rele...lusive-1449584

[Oberon]

I heard that the A-10 is going to be one of the first to go, now that does suck, especially since it's going in favour of the Golden Bird (F35). But, I guess although it costs over $9x10*99999 it is more up to date, and technology has to march on.
Still, I presume the A-10s will be mothballed rather than cut up, so at least they can be dusted off if needed again.