1. The reason casualties are fewer in the recent wars has been the smaller enemy forces as compared to WW II, Korea and Vietnam and the much less aggressive tactics because of the worries about political fallout.
2. The compensation packages are barely sufficient to support the volunteer manning requirements, which more often than not include families, even for first-term enlistees.
Research, Testing, Development, and Engineering (RTD&E) is important, even vital but funding in those areas is squandered on dead ends, pet projects, GOBIs (General Officer Bright Ideas), and vendor "bright shiny objects". It doesn't help that the majority of the Pentagon leadership are no-military-experience civilian appointees and general officers without any technical education. Reforming RTD&E would vastly improve our future and save money - but it isn't very likely.
The primary weapon in our nation's inventory is its people and we if can't afford them, we won't exist very long as a nation.
Pay up, or learn Mandarin.
Point 1)
Wrong, I am talking about the rate not the absolute number of casualties. If you want to discuss the problem intelligently then we will do so but first compare the Thunder Runs into Baghdad April 2003 to the debacle in the hedgerows of Normandy. In the 2003 case almost invulnerable armor while in 1944 completely vulnerable armor with a gun that could not penetrate. The WWII generation learned the hard way not to let the technology fail.
I can go on and on about this but I also lived it in the Carter Years, which is why I left and since then have done my best to warn against technological surprise.
Point 2)
The Army is probably going to RIF another 70,000, the Navy layup 3 AGC and the Air Force will illegally go out of the non-tactical airlift mission. This is not conjecture this is like it or not a decision that is being made within the next few weeks. R&T and procurement will see a decline of $141B to 2018 until the OCO is reabsorbed.
Don’t tell me about technological dead ends, I lecture on the subject and get paid to advise governments on this subject. I have seen more waste that you can possibly imagine.
As far as China goes, I am on the rooftop screaming about this one because I know the nominal Chinese Government, (either the Princelings or Old Guard) are not completely in charge. There are large elements of the PLA/(N)/(AF) that are not in control of the nominal Chinese Government, but junior officers acting rather local “Warlords”. These actions cannot be properly examined using the filter of US experience and concept of Civil control of the Military. The situation in China is now much closer to the historical period of Japan in the 1920’s and we know how that worked out.
BTW the Chinese Defense Budget, if there really is such a thing does, not have personnel costs per se in it because the PLA kind of sort of works for “free” so what you see is almost all procurement and R&T spending.
The point that I am trying to make is our duty as the older generation to assure that the next time we fight we will not be woefully unprepared as we were upon our entry in to WWII where whole divisions and Naval units were sacrificed to hold the line.
Hard choices have to be made; so what is it benefits today or blood tomorrow?