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You haven’t got a clue. One very important reason our military budget is so high, is that we don’t have a draft, and we actually pay our troops comparable wages, mostly, to the civilian world. Plus our troops put in a lot more training, which burns more fuel and uses up ammunition of all sorts. That’s why they are better than those of other nations.

There are caps on the number of troops we can have. Those caps are totally inadequate to fight a prolonged war. Thus we’ve been using contractors to do things most countries use draftees for. Again, higher expenses. Of course there have been at least 2 cuts of 10% of the number of contractors performing such functions in the last couple of years. Also reservists. The reserve force is intended, and can only be sustained, as a strategic reserve. It cannot be used to provide troops that you only have to pay for when they are deployed or working up for deployment. The whole force, reserve and active, is volunteer and they can vote with their feet. The fact that the reserves and those contractors were needed to fight a couple of piss ant little wars, should be more than enough indication that the force is undersized.

Whole programs have been cancelled, or very nearly so. The Army’s Future Combat System for example. Even lower level stuff, such as training systems and testing instrumentation have been subject to the axe.

The F-22 has been capped at totally unrealistic numbers. As was the B-2 before it. Most of the B-1 fleet is not flying to save operations and maintenance funds.

Other programs have been cut back in both the R&D phase and the production phase, both of which drive up per unit costs.

All to feed the entitlement monster.

As far as having better stuff, yes we do, and wars are not only won that way, they are prevented as well. But we’ve been using that stuff a lot, and not repairing/refurbishing it as fast as we are wearing it out.

The politicians have been playing numbers games, underfunding the wars, forcing use of regular O&M funds, especially for maintenance. Then they have allowed transfer of funds from R&D and production accounts to make up the difference.

Soldier pay is not that heavy, only 154.2 Billion in the overall budget of 685.1 Billion.

Our military budget breaks down as follows (in billions):

Operations and Maintenance: 283.3
Military Personnel: 154.2
Procurement: 140.1
R&D: 79.1
Construction: 23.9
Housing: 3.1

As for our wars, the problem is that we are not fighting this enemy appropriately. We are fighting our enemy conventionally and using anti-insurgency strategies. Since we have no intention of permanently occupying Afghanistan or any other country, unless you’re Lindsey Graham, we should be fighting this enemy the way we fought the pirate threat: Raids. There are multiple terrorists camps around the globe. What we need to do is identify them and send in a strike force (varying by target, obviously) to break them up. Along with mostly withdrawing from European countries, who are big boys who can defend themselves from an increasingly hapless and isolated Russian Federation, this can relieve the stress on our soldiers.

The United States Military needs to have a clearly defined global mission. It really hasn’t had one since the Cold War. It’s been involved in a myriad of minor conflicts, many of them having absolutely nothing at all to do with U.S. security. There really is no mission, and that is obviously going to stress our soldiers. We need to come up with a new foreign policy doctrine in light of new domestic and global circumstances, and from there we can determine the size and strength of our military in the coming age. As I alluded to, I think the new doctrine should be one of an America First policy designed to defeat the barbarian camps (AKA Islamic Terrorists) that threaten us. That requires a small, but effective, fighting force with a select number of small bases from whence to strike an enemy.

You are right. Recovering Paulista knows nothing about both Iranian and Red Chinese naval military theory, not to mention strategic missile strategies and tactics. Both are taking “swarming” strategy to new highs and new production levels, far beyond anything the U.S. Navy can handle successfully to survive. And the No. Koreans aren’t sitting there twitterling their thumbs. Ask the So. Koreans.

The Red Chinese Air Force is growing in both size and quality while ours shrinks to pre-Iraq or earlier levels. The same for our Navy. Reagan once had a 600 ship Navy. What do we have today, 200+? Not enough to take on the Red Chinese, the Iranians, and possibly the Russians if they join in the “shark feeding frenzy”, not to mention the North Koreans and even Venezuela’s growing Navy and Air Force (Cuba still has some sting too).

Recovering had better get some more therapy before he comments again or else someone will throw a straitjacket around him and tote him off to John Hinckleyville.