[RecoveringPaulisto]

We spend half the world’s defense budget. We do not need to spend that much. A whole portion of our defense budget goes into overpriced gadgets anyway. There are a ton of things we can cut without sacrificing defense in the slightest. For instance, we have all but one of the world’s supercarriers (the French Charles de Gaulle being the other). We have 11 supercarriers, and we are planning on replacing them. Do we really need to? Not really. It’s just the philosophy of the DoD, which is another government department, to be a 100 years ahead of everyone else, and have 10x their garbage, and then they pay extra to government contractors for it. We are not fighting the Cold War anymore, and we can’t afford to pretend to.

[itsahoot]

You sir are a long way from recovering :)

The cold war is about to get very hot, not hard since it never really cooled, just hid away.

[Clairity]

“RecoveringPaulisto” — You are not “recovered enough”.

If we really had everything we needed we would have really WON the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Not to mention that China and Russia are still arming themselves and weapons are proliferating to terrorist countries. The world is a more dangerous place than it was during the cold war.

[tanknetter]

For instance, we have all but one of the world’s supercarriers (the French Charles de Gaulle being the other). We have 11 supercarriers, and we are planning on replacing them. Do we really need to?

While Charles de Gaulle is nuclear-powered, at ~40,000 tons displacement she's hardly a "super carrier (for reference, at the end of their careers the modernized WWII US Essex Class CVAs and CVSs were above 40,000 tons), and the significant weaknesses inherent in her design and operational capabilities have been readily apparent throughout her use in the Libya war.

The US doesn't maintain 11 carriers (in reality the number is only 10 because one is always in multi-year layup being refueled and overhauled) because it's some number a Pentagon bean counter came up with on a whim over Dos Equis and Coronas some evening at the local Chevy's.

The number comes from the simple mathematical equation that it takes three carriers to keep one deployed. You have the deployed deck, then a second deck that is in mid-level overhaul (NOT the one deck that's going to be in the multiyear RCOH) and then a third deck that is either working up for deployment, transiting to/from deployment or going through post-deployment activities (which culminate in one of the several varieties of mid-level overhaul, but also include getting new pilots carrier qualified, being ready for surge operations, etc).

So the first question is, where do we need to have a carrier always on station? The two biggies are the Western Pacific (to counter the ChiComs) and the Indian Ocean/Arabian Gulf (obvious reasons). So that requires six carriers (not counting the one that's sitting with its sides cut open for RCOH at Newport News). Then throw in that we really should have one operating in the Atlantic/Mediterranean. So that's three deployment locations, for a total of 9 carriers (plus 1 in RCOH)

That's not counting surge ops, when we'd want to essentially triple or even quadruple the number of carriers we have in a location. Our carriers may be nuclear powered, but they still have a hell of a lot of consumables that they burn through, specifically jet fuel and weapons - AND crew endurance. IIRC a US carrier can maintain 3-4 days of continuous combat operations before it needs to be pulled off the line to replenish stores and rest the crews. These are called "surge ops", and the US needs to be able to surge 4-5 carriers into certain locations (look at Desert Storm, Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom) if needed.

A 10th carrier (with +1 RCOH) is needed for gap operations (so those weird times in the deployment/overhaul schedules when we'll be short a deck in the 3 for 1 ratio), plus surge operations, plus unanticipated situations (like the Tsunami and Japan Earthquake operations) that arise. And even with 10 decks there are STILL gaps. Like the one in Libya where the US could only deploy one of our amphibious assault ships with Harriers instead of a big-deck.

For reference, there are a number of sites you can visit by googling "where are the carriers" that will show you where our carriers are and are doing at any given time. For additional reference, here are the carriers currently in the US fleet:

USS Enterprise (just finished what is supposed to be her final deployment)
USS Nimitz
USS Eisenhower
USS Vinson
USS Roosevelt (currently RCOH at Newport News)
USS Lincoln
USS Washington (forward deployed to Japan, which provides relief to the deployment schedule)
USS Stennis
USS Truman
USS Reagan
USS Bush

Note that the Enterprise is being decommissioned "early" - before her replacement (USS Ford) is in service. This will drop the US carrier fleet from 10+1 to 9+1, and while the Navy is going to reap significant cost savings from taking Enterprise (a one-off ship commissioned in 1961 that was designed as a technology demonstrator with a 25 year service life) out of service, they are anticipating gaps in deployment coverage as a result.

[El Gato]

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.

[JudgemAll]

I am always amazed at the so called patriots who feel it ok to squeeze soldiers and the equipment (”gadgets”) that protects them.

Granted there is a lot of waste, idiot bureaucrates, way too many officers doing nothing but on a garden party during deployments, payments to gays and minority protection in the military (illegitimate race and creed listings), mismanaged wars and overpaid civilian contractors out there.