An article over at the Army Times details some of what may be coming down as government, looking for places to cut, eyes the military:
…Speaking to reporters in Washington, Cartwright said the Defense Department’s internal planners are bracing for budget cuts far deeper than those announced by President Obama in April. Obama proposed carving $400 billion from the defense budget plan over the next 12 years, a cut of about 7 percent.
“The reality is, what you are most worried about a deeper cut? Is there another $400 billion behind the first $400 billion?” Cartwright said. “Now you start to look at things like, ‘Do I want to hollow out the force? Do I want to start to reduce the force size?’ ”…
There is no way around the fact that cuts are going to be made to Defense. Part of this is the fact that we have a liberal, Democrat President and as they are always short-sighted, they see the defense budget as a bucket of money they can better use paying off cronies and special interests. The other part of it, though, is the fact that we’re plain and simple broke – we don’t have enough money to keep spending on any department of government as much as we have been. The problem is not in the fact of cuts, but how the cuts are to be made.
First and foremost, we must ensure that we maintain a military which is not just more powerful than any likely adversary, but so overwhelmingly powerful that any one who decides to fight us has just signed their own death warrant. There can be no cuts which would reduce the level of training and readiness of the armed forces. All members of the armed forces must be completely ready to go – down to the last detail – at a moments notice. There can also be no cuts to the research and development needed to ensure our forces have the technological edge – though there can be a delay in deploying the new weapons; both in making the initial purchase and in fully equipping the entire armed forces with the new technology.
While there really can’t be cuts to pay and benefits, there can be a concerted effort to lower personnel costs. We can, for instance, refuse to recruit people who are married and/or who have dependent children at the time of enlistment. We can offer encouragement to longer enlistments, thus keeping both a highly professional force as well as lowering the very high cost of turning civilians in to soldiers (a longer term force need fewer recruits on an annual basis). We can set up citizens militia units to take over continental defense in order to leave the regular military free to deploy – and thus we might be able to get away with a smaller overall military force (this is a revival of the old volunteer, part time military force which made up the bulk of our immediate reserve until the early 20th century when its functions were taken over by the National Guard…which has now become the ready-reserve for the active duty forces, and thus isn’t actually available for home defense – and the citizens militia could be activated for full time military service in a “world war” sort of emergency”). We can also concentrate resources in those technologies which multiply the firepower of each individual service member – if our troops deploy, per man, 10 times the fire power of the enemy, then 1 of ours becomes worth 10 of theirs…and thus smaller expeditionary forces can be used.
The biggest caution I can relate is to remember what happened between the World Wars, especially during the Great Depression. While spending bags of money, the government continually shrank the defense budget. By the time we went to war in 1941, our soldiers on the front line were ill trained, forced to use obsolete weapons and were heavily outnumbered by the enemy – and we suffered crushing defeats because of it. These defeats had to be paid for in rivers of blood later. Defense must do its part to help repair the horrible state of our finances, but it is criminal folly to use Defense as a mere pot of money – the job Defense does it the primary and most important task of government and it must be able to do its job all the time and everywhere.
Blogs For Victory 
“The biggest caution I can relate is to remember what happened between the World Wars, especially during the Great Depression.” -Mark
Mark, the USA has these things called hydrogen bombs nowadays. No more rivers of blood for wars in Europe. Hey, Europe is a united entity as well, the Germans have one of the leading economies in the world. Japan too. China isn’t going to attack its main customer. NO country wants to fight us.
The US military has been turned into world cop and nation builder. That’s what is costing $$$. The biggest attack on US soil since Pearl Harbor wouldn’t have been prevented if the military was 10 times its size.
To answer Mr. Cartwright’s question about ‘hollowing out’ a military which is the largest in the world by far. Yes, yes, yes, yes, ideally we would like to considerably reduce troop size BECAUSE the young men and women in the US military are an extremely valuable national resource which is being squandered on ungrateful peoples all over the world. They should be building things, exploring ideas, having fun, trying to solve the problems in their own neighborhoods, hell maybe the US might even go back to space in their lifetime.
But hydrogen bombs are not very eco friendly. Do we have to buy carbon credits every time we blow something up with one? What would the cost be to say detonate one 50 megaton nuclear weapon in warzistan. Bardolf did you think about that? No I did not think so. :0
GMB
On the contrary. Hydrogen bombs and the sun work on the same principle -fusing friendly hydrogen particles together. What could be greener than solar energy? 🙂
Id gladly pay for one in mecca and Tehran
What about clean up? Would the United States be responsible for any cleaning up? Granted most places that are worthy of 50 megaton nukes are already filthy as larry flints head, I just want all the bases covered. I don’t want to be taxed so warzistan can be made reliveble.
GMB
What clean up? I heard solar energy pays for itself after just a few years.
Bardolf; Point taken:) Now the next question would be are we immune to any kind of epa regulations? Nukes do leave behind some rather nasty radialogical effects. Hate to have the epa declare warzistan a superfund site.
GMB
Don’t know if you’re old enough to know about the scary pseudo-science of nuclear winter. But if it were true then a big bomb would achieve two green goals indirectly. First it would throw up enough dust to reverse some of the climate change and it would give the Malthusian nut jobs a less populated world which could heal itself.
Not worried about the social effects here Bardolf. I’m just making sure taxpayer dollars are not going to be wasted. Nuke away my friend, do you need a target list?
Hubby is retired from the Army and has been working as a civilian contractor for the last 4 years. The renewal contracts coming down now are asking for pay cuts, no benefits, and small businesses that need a foot in the door get first chance at the contracts. The draw down is going to cause a lot of contracts to go away, as the green suiters will be back to take up the slots now filled by the civilians.
But this is every demorat presidents dream – gut the military. Clinton did it. And you see how ready we were on 9/11 ?
He already cut the F 22 and missile defense systems
and has us in a third war cut SS and military benefits.
all while going on 2 bn$$$$ vacations with the Mooch and his posse.
Jolene
Precisely how did cuts in the budget under Clinton have anything to do with a group of terrorists using box cutters on domestic airlines?
Monica Lewinsky had more to do with the terrorists using box cutters than the budget cuts did.
Laura Ingraham Airs Scary ‘Obama Remix’ of Jimmy Carter‘s ’Malaise’ Speech
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/laura-ingraham-airs-scary-obama-remix-of-jimmy-carters-malaise-speech/
Jolene, you have to understand that Dolf The Clueless thinks it quite pweshuss to nitpick what thinking people say, perhaps believing that quibbling is the same thing as discussing.
The rest of us understood what you meant, and you are right.
Also remember that when the Loony Left is faced with the Clinton gutting of the military, they fall back on an old Rumsfeld talk about reshaping the military, have a smaller and more efficient military, etc. The bleat “Well, this is what Rumsfeld wanted to do anyway!”
What they refuse to admit is that reshaping the military cannot, or at least should not, be done in such a stupid way that it leaves a huge vacuum during the interim between the old and the new. This is what happened when Clinton got a shot at the military he hated so much.
Done properly, under intelligent administration, the military could gradually have been moved in the direction we had to abruptly shove it. Yes, we needed to move to a model more ready to deal with terrorism than the old-style national armies which wanted conquest instead of destruction. We just didn’t need to be so totally unprepared, so understaffed and underequipped.
That was a Clinton legacy.
Amazona
I am not nitpicking an obvious lie. You are the queen of morons if you think military cuts had anything to do with 9/11.
And the military gutting BS you vomited has already been disproven over at factcheck. You’re in a long line of liars
Giuliani falsely blamed President Clinton for cuts in the military that happened mostly under a Republican administration:
Giuliani: Bill Clinton cut the military drastically. It’s called the peace dividend, one of those nice-sounding phrases, very devastating. It was a 25, 30 percent cut in the military. President Bush has never made up for that. We – our Army had been at 725,000; it’s down to 500,000.
Actually, most of the cutting to which Giuliani refers occurred during the administration of George H.W. Bush. At the end of fiscal year 1993 (which was Bush’s last one in office), the Army had 572,423 active-duty soldiers – a far cry from 725,000. In fact, to get to that number, one has to go back to 1990, during the first gulf war. Moreover, Clinton’s cuts in the military, while large, were nowhere close to 25 percent to 30 percent. Between 1993 and 2001, the Army went from 572,423 to 480,801, which is a decline of 16 percent. The entire military went from 1,705,103 to 1,385,116, a decrease of 18.8 percent.
Compare that with the far larger cuts made during the first Bush administration: In 1989, the military stood at 2,130,229 and the Army had 769,741 soldiers. By 1993, those numbers had declined by 19.9 percent and 25.6 percent, respectively.
And you, dolf, are the queen of morons if you think Jolene’s post said that military cuts had anything to do with the fact that we were attacked on 9/11.
A sneak attack is sneaky. If you are “ready” for such an attack, it does not necessarily mean you are ready to repel it, what with the sneakiness and all. But it does mean to be ready to act once it happens, and we were not.
If I am “ready” for a big electrical storm it does not mean I can keep it from happening. It means I have candles, food, a generator to keep the well pumping. When I travel in the winter, I am “ready” for emergencies. I might not be able to avoid a problem, but I am “ready” to deal with it, with blankets and water and food and a charged cell phone.
Yes, you are quibbling. But in a very queenly way.
I am no defender of clinton. I am no admirer of clinton. In fact I was RIFed out of the U.S. Army under clinton. You can blame clinton for not getting obl when he was offered by Sudan? but no one in thier wildest dreams ever dreamed that the muzzies would hijack jets and fly them into skyscrapers. That is a collective fault.
Agreed. I don’t think anyone saw 9/11 coming. We were all asleep at the switch on that one.
Clinton cut “boots on the ground intelligence” in favor of satellite recon. This was known late in his presidency.
Amy
Jolene’s statement is pretty evident to all non-morons. 1. Clinton cut the military AND 2 see how ready we were on 9/11.
By the way Amy, how much of my money are military contractors ENTITLED to?
bardolf,
First off, it is just about an existential certainty that China will attack us – it is what they are building their military for and it is what their military plans day in and day out. As soon as the war party gets in to the saddle in Beijing, they will attack. Don’t think economic interdependence reduces the risk of war – there were hardly two other nations more interdependent than Germany and Britain in 1914.
Outside of that, it must be kept in mind that it was sheer impertinence on the part of the Germans and the Japanese to start World War Two. The ultimate balance of forces was so greatly against them that it was national suicide to attack. It is said that Churchill had his first sound night’s sleep of the war on December 7th, 1941 – because he knew with the US in, there was absolutely no chance of the war being lost. If this is a true story, it was correct…but it was also true that Germany couldn’t even conquer, in the trial of a thousand years, Great Britain, alone. The conquest of France in 1940 was a fluke – a military freak which Germany could not repeat just a year later in Russia (mostly what did France in wasn’t poor material – they actually in some respects had better material than the Germans – nor was it numbers – the Anglo-French armies were actually larger than the German; what did them in was not having their army in the right place and then having the rare, raw luck of a couple German commanders who knew precisely what to do when the enemy isn’t where he needs to be…if it hadn’t been for that, the Germans would have wound up with another stalemate in France). Given enough time, Britain could have single-handed beaten Nazi Germany (one must remember that Britain directly controlled one fourth of the world’s land area as well as one fourth of the human population of the world). Japan was even worse off than Germany – having to import nearly 100% of what they needed for war across thousands of miles of ocean to be swiftly infested by American submarines. So, why did they attack? Because they look at what we had and figured they could beat us so badly early on that we’d sue for peace before our superior resources could be brought to bear.
That is why the United States military must remain overwhelmingly powerful – because weakness invites attack. It doesn’t matter if the attack is stupid. It doesn’t matter if the attack is suicidal. It doesn’t matter that victory will eventually be ours – it will still result in an attack and a long, costly war to set right what should never have gone wrong to begin with. Maintaining military supremacy is far less expensive than winning a war – better for all around, including the enemy, if he knows that attacking us is suicidal.
Now, you say, who would attack us directly? How about a nuclear-armed Iran? They might get frisky thinking we can’t hit them with our nukes and if they see our military drawn down, maybe they’ll invade the Gulf States on their way to Saudi Arabia and Israel? Maybe Chavez’ Venezuela will attack Columbia because they figure we can’t stop them? On and on and on – wars will come surging ahead the minute the world thinks we can’t stop them.
Mark
China has never attacked the US and gains nothing economically from doing so. It is a certainty that they won’t attack us when they own our debt. Economic interdependence does reduce the chance of war. The chance of a man being killed at the hands of another man is at its lowest in history partly because of the dependence. There are 3 million Chinese in the US which is fairly important. Again with the H bomb all the history of big wars between large countries has been made irrelevant. It’s like the trig tables in the back of old math books. Completely useless with the availability of a calculator on your cell phone. That’s a GOOD thing.
This weakness invites attack argument is, well, weak. Canada is weak so why don’t we attack them? Oh yeah, because we would just inherit their problems. After the complete failure with the Iraqi WMD boogeyman one would think you had learned. NOPE Iran knows 100% that the US would level the country in retaliation for 1 bomb. The real people who should fear a nuclear Iran are the Saudi Arabians.
Your what-ifs have no plausibility. Reagan won the cold war, the US is the winner, hooray! Now we start letting the western world do its own police work and we stop nation building. We make, mine, etc. and put the young men and women to work building a future instead of getting sucked into a perpetual war mentality.
It’s a STUPID plan to bankrupt yourself and destroy your society in the name of shadow security. This is the same stupid mentality as saving the planet by putting millions of people out of work via carbon credits which could lead to lots of real conflicts and real people dying.
IF you want to argue that the military is needed to support our manufacturing base do so. That’s an honest need, but it could be filled via an enhanced space exploration plan as well.
Bardolf,
You are ignoring the lessons of history – if we weaken, evil people will attack. This isn’t a guess, this isn’t a supposition, this is just a fact. Human nature does not change – not ever.
As for China – what do they care about their own people in the United States? And what do they care about debt we owe them when mastery of the Asia/Pacific region beckons?
You really need to wake up from the siren songs of liberal world views…back in 1911 writer after writer and expert after expert “proved” that a major war was no longer possible…
Mark
Evil people have motives. They don’t just attack for no reason. The bomb makes all your history lessons irrelevant. I don’t need to know anything about history to know the US need not get involved in a massive ground war against a foreign country.
If you are talking about eeevil individuals that is a completely different problem. Again a military 10 times as large wouldn’t have prevented 9/11.
The world really is FUNDAMENTALLY different than in 1911. The world could literally feed and clothe everyone without difficulty. The industrialized world has essentially given up on reproducing.
bardolf,
So your answer is that we’d just nuke whomever attacked? Suppose we don’t? Suppose we actually are humane and don’t feel like massacring millions because their leaders are evil? Suppose further that these leaders know this and realize that as long as they don’t attack the United States directly, they can get away with bloody murder?
The world hasn’t changed – technology has changed, but not the world…and not people; we are still the same sons of Adam as always.
Mark
Either China attacks us for some unknown reason in which case MAD rules apply like the USSR or a much lower threat occurs.
Next level might be Iran with a bomb, they aren’t bringing it by airplane to the US or ICBM so maybe they would go after Israel. No, Israel is so small that a nuke would need to be repaid via a destruction of Iran.
So where are we at threat wise? Below aircraft carriers and 800 bases for sure. The thread is about budget cuts after all. Maybe a Chavez shooting rockets at his neighbors. Okay, conventional bombs end that problem. We’ve got lots of conventional bombs and Dresden didn’t look any better than Hiroshima.
Now you got the terrorist level. At some level not a dang thing you can do. Crazy guy with a gun wants to go to shopping mall in city X is a police job. So you are looking at needing to protect groups of people larger than 15 and smaller than 1000 in the US. The DHS gets 48 billion to do that.
Our military is needed mainly to kick Iraq out of Kuwait, bomb the Taliban etc. That should cost less than a weapons race with USSR.
I just think the $ and lives would be better spent elsewhere or given back to the taxpayers.
Mark, unfortunatly you are assuming that there are leaders in the west that are not spritual children of chamberlin and daldier.
GMB,
Obama isn’t a Chamberlain, he’s worse. But if we build and maintain an overwhelming military force, then even a Chamberlain can’t too badly screw it up…unless we go and re-elect him.
baldork
China has never attacked the US and gains nothing economically from doing so.
There are a lot of DEAD Americans in Korea that will prove your words wrong and expose you for the flaming dummy you are.
Just being mister negative here but it is hard to build a overwhelming military force when we have someone worse than chamberlin and daladier sitting in the oval office.
As far as this…”unless we go and re-elect him.” That is pretty much up to us. Lets revisit this after we know who the repub nominee is.
Neoconehead
Korea isn’t the US. Korea is in Asia and the US is in North America. How dumb are you?
Bardolf, you do not count the Korean police action as china attacking us? Because it happened in Korea? Wow. I better retink that invitation. You tell me how close American troops were to totaly defeating the norks when the chicoms crossed the border?
Yes, yes. I know it was a useless nations operation but then as now if there is any real fighting to be done the vast majority of the troops will be american.
I generally respect your opinions and observations but I think you are totally wrong on this one.
GMB
My reading of the Korean war might be different from yours. First all the Koreans I know (lots of them in grad school in math) blame it primarily on the carving into 2 countries from 1 natural country. The majority of people in both countries want a unified Korea just like a unified Germany.
The North Koreans invaded in 1950, the UN (US) got involved and pushed back, beyond the 38th parallel at which point the Chinese got involved. An armistice was signed and of course today everyone can see the complete failure of true communism. The Chinese have income disparity even worse than the US so thinking they are redistributionalists is wrong. In summary, no the Chinese didn’t attack the US, they came in as part of a pact with NK. Of course they shouldn’t have been partners to that, but we aren’t getting lots out of agreements with the mujahideen these days either.
Don’t get me wrong. The government in China is a tyranny and suppresses its people. Actually, it’s somewhat amusing to watch them squirm whenever North Korean leaders go crazy and China sees its profits going down the drain.
I also am pretty skeptical of the domino theory and think the world is fundamentally changed since the end of the cold war. The US won the big Cold War.
Of course, what is left is lots of local goons and thugs and if the world wants the US military to be the police officer they can pay for it.
Bardolf, you really dropped the ball there. You got some serious splainin to do lucy. If you do show up at my party is no alchohol until you do. 🙂
GMB
Tell me when you would put US troops in harms way that is different from me and I’ll explain. Tell me which weapons systems you think are needed different from me and I’ll explain.
But, if I need to convince you of the overall uselessness of our campaigns in Afghanistan (after the defeat of the Taliban) , Libya and Iraq (after the defeat of their army) then you need the beer more than me. Putting me into a peacenik position would be wrong. I come from a military family and a large number of the students in my class and members of my church are active military. Nothing gets me hotter under the collar than speaking with non Americans who don’t understand the toll 9/11 and the wars have taken on the US psyche.
I’m also optimistic the US will bounce back as soon as the resource hemorrhaging stops. I think the huge spending on the wars and military bases in Western Europe have been a drain on the US economically and from a human resource POV and should end. I’m in education but when I see wasteful programs like NCLB or head start or grants to figure out how to teach X which magically require minimal effort from the learners I say stop the flow of money. My colleagues in education find this view remarkable. I expect the same mentality occurs in the military with regard to military spending.
Generally I agree with you. Most of what you say is right. Who was the main opposition the chicoms faced. Americans thats who. Did they attack because the norks were losing or because they didn’t want to face the prospect of a united “Free” Korea. You decide.
Like Neo said, there are a lot of dead american soldiers who would disagree, and rightly so, with you. On this one you are imho, still wrong.
That is the only point I am arguing with you about. Wheather or not the “Chicons ever attacked us”
GMB
The United States strongly supported the Kuomintang forces (KMT). The losing side in the Chinese civil war. The North Koreans supported the Communists, the winning side in the civil war.
Over 50,000 Marines were sent to guard strategic sites during the war and 100,000 US troops were sent to Shantung. The US equipped and trained over 500,000 KMT troops, and transported KMT forces to occupy newly liberated zones, as well as to contain Communist controlled areas. American aid included substantial amounts of both new and surplus military supplies; Within less than 2 years after the Sino-Japanese War, the KMT had received 4.43 billion dollars from the US – most of which was military aid.
Are you surprised the Chinese communists supported the North Koreans once US forces pushed past the 38th parallel? A Chinese communist would say the US was responsible for hundreds of thousands of dead Chinese because of their interference in the affairs of another country.
Finally, why would the Chinese want to ‘face’ an aggressive ‘free Korea’ less than a decade after the Japanese butchered 25,000,000 twenty five million Chinese?
I said a united “Free” Korea” Not an aggressive one. Put yourself in Mao’s position. It’s not all that long after you have forced the KMT off the mainland. The KMT’s only real support came from the U.S. The U.S. is now close to your border. Again able to influence events inside the mainland.
The chicoms would have crossed the border regardless of what the norks wanted.
They did not attack out of any motivation other than to keep the U.S. as far from thier border as possible.
Face it this was an agressive action by the chicoms against the United States. So still maintaing that the chicoms have never attacked the U.S. is a false premise.
As far as Japan goes, the whole of the Korean pennisula had been under Japanes occupation/administration for a lot longer than the sino-japanese war. You don’t need to tell the Koreans about how “brutal” the japanese were.
Did you read the part about 100,000 US troops in China taking sides in a civil war and say to yourself, hey that was an aggressive action on the part of the US or golly gee we were just being nice guys?
Put yourself into Mao’s position. Your country has been brutalized 2 years before, did I mention 25 million Chinese killed by the Japanese? It seems prudent to assume a united Korea will be aggressive. You know the US has helped your enemy, leading to the death of hundreds of thousands of more Chinese communists. You know your ally North Korea has been your sole supporter and they may be completely eliminated if the US military gets its way.
You send ground troops and in the end 400,000 Chinese died in the Korean war. Of course there were plans to drop nuclear bombs on Manchuria and Shantung if any air strikes arose from them so there was never an option of air support. Yeah, the US was the only country with nuclear weapons at the time. Later we won the cold war.
In any case my point is not to rehash the Korean war. I’ll even say I was wrong and that the Chinese were sneaky weasels and attacked US troops in North Korea if you like. In the end I just wanted to express the opinion that there are rational reasons for Chinese policy and attacking the US in 2012 isn’t rational.
FINALLY, in 1951 a brilliant general MacArthur got out his crystal ball and predicted the fall of Europe if the communists were not removed from Asia. I would say that prediction was WRONG and that military men who are great on the battlefield aren’t any better at predicting the future of a particular country than you or I. You have just as good an idea about what Afghanistan will be like in 2 years as anyone else and you know it won’t be a place worth US soldiers staying and possibly dying for.
Did I explain myself enough for a beer?
The only issue on the table was, Did the chicoms attack the United States? It was Neo’s and my contention that they did. I do believe I presented valid reasons for this contention.
“In any case my point is not to rehash the Korean war. I’ll even say I was wrong and that the Chinese were sneaky weasels and attacked US troops in North Korea if you like. In the end I just wanted to express the opinion that there are rational reasons for Chinese policy and attacking the US in 2012 isn’t rational.”
Then thats what you should have said.
At least a six pack 🙂
Pete’s Wicked Ale for me. Neo drinks Mich Ultra I believe.
You will either have to come to Peoria or I’ll mail them to you. Sometimes I still have a longing for a cold beer but diabetes and alchohol don’t mix. Killians Irish Red, you just can’t stop at one.
GMB
If it is type II diabetes there is a GOP economist/scientist (but I don’t hold that against him) named Art De Vany who has a lot of good work on the relation between diabetes control and diet. Diabetes runs in the family when we drink a bit much so I keep up on information and drink in moderation.
http://www.arthurdevany.com/
I used to live in Champaign and still remember the drive home Bloomington, Peoria, Galesburg, Davenport, Iowa City, Des Moines to Omaha. Still have real good friends just outside Decatur.
With me its diet and excersise. Yes it is type two but i can go hyper or hypo at the blink of an eye. Dont want to chance it. I have way too many children and more on the way. Want to be around for them.
GMB
I think De Vany’s idea is that we eat too many sugars in the form of breads, grains and of course non complex sugars like fructose, sucrose etc. Of course alcohol is also on the no no list.
I like meat and salad, but the severe reduction of pasta and bread makes his diet hard to follow.