The Military We Need

One of the largest chunks—if not the single largest—of these additional defense costs is devoted to paying the salaries and benefits of Army National Guard personnel and reservists called to active duty... The most likely explanation is narrowly political: under government budget rules, supplemental appropriations do not count when calculating the federal deficit.

With annual deficits at about $500 billion, the cry for governmental fiscal discipline has returned and with it an expectation that the Pentagon should contribute its “fair share” to cost-cutting efforts. Thus, the administration plans to cap baseline defense budgets at slightly more than $400 billion and hope that supplemental spending can relieve some of the pain.... total spending is less than 5 percent of gross domestic product, well below the Cold War average of 6 to 7 percent and far less than in peak Cold War years during the Vietnam or Korea conflicts...

Over time, the final reckoning of defense budgets has been: how much is enough? Current levels of military spending are clearly not enough.

We worry about spending more money...

...for the sake of national defense via the expansion of freedom in the Middle East. It is that basic 'penny-wise, pound foolish' approach to defense spending that I feel must go away.

This seems a pitiable complaint. This is an excerpt from a book online, free for download at the hyperlink above. A good but academic read on what we need to do via our military considering our aspirations to preserve freedom at home by its expansion abroad to areas it has not been seen before!

I sense a need to be informed in a more comprehensive manner on my part and generally amongst those debating publicly or amongst friends on these matters, as we move forward in deciding on what "transformation of the military" means.

The debate has been too narrow thus far, confined to the halls of the Pentagon, and often a rubber stamp attitude by the American people. But we must get informed on the issue!

We must be informed citizens on this vital issue. "Transformation" must be gotten out of the glib cliché realm and into a concrete concept we understand. That will make us safer, and increase chances that a critical error will be avoided on how to do it.

I just finished reading "Generation Kill" because I had a friend in the battalion discussed in the book.

One of the constant themes of the book is that the equipment our Marines (that's the only group talked about in the book) use is often broken or ineffective.

It made me a bit ill when I read that there were lots of friendly fire accidents due to radios being down.

The Dems don't want to spend the money on our military defense and this is the kind of stuff that happens.

The Marines have been notorious for "doing more with less". That said, many senior officers in the Marines think that working with a very limited budget is a reflection of how effective they are. Cutting corners or pinching pennies is not effective in winning wars. If their equipment is ineffective, blame those folks that are limiting spending only to put a feather in their cap.

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