Posted on 02/24/2014 5:11:07 AM PST by RetiredArmy
Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel will reportedly propose a Pentagon budget that will shrink the U.S. Army to its smallest number since 1940 and eliminate an entire class of Air Force attack jets.
The New York Times reported late Sunday that Hagel's proposal, which will be released to lawmakers and the public on Monday, will call for a reduction in size of the military that will leave it capable of waging war, but unable to carry out protracted occupations of foreign territory, as in Afghanistan and Iraq.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Don’t you know China will invade Australia if America’s military isn’t more than the rest of the world combined?
Then I guess Australia should get their act together and build an Army to stop them. Why is it our business to do it if they don’t? That and the Aussies have nukes, so I ain’t worried.
“The US is not supposed to have a large peacetime standing army. I don’t want a huge standing army here at home waiting fot the order to enforce martial law. Thanks anyway.”
My thoughts as well. People for a large military fail to realize that military may not stay in the hands of someone not willing to use it against We the People.
“Once again, another self proclaiming patriot that can’t wait until all future wars are fought on our soil.”Your comments about that are a non sequitur. Reducing our military to that needed to protect our country does not mean that any war must be fought on our soil. Where did you get that from? What is the converse, that we have our military all over the world? That we have global dominance and bully every other nation to allow in our military?
If you are that paranoid about an attack from an army you cannot name then you should just go live in a cave and hide.
You made the stupid comment, insinuating Americans use our strength to bully the rest of the world.
Why not?
Honestly, they are expensive, had a lot of bad press recently, and are known targets.
The first two trump it.
I repeat, look up “weakening” in the dictionary. If you must invent your own definitions for words, please do not waste FReepers’ time with your inane arguments. Please adhere to the actual definition of the words being used.
Get ready to pay a lot more for your boomerangs and kangaroo steaks if that happens!!!!
If I were china I would invade california Using container ships and the special ports I have on the west coast in la san fran & Portland. Two to three million troops mostly for garrison duty. Better equipped armoured brigages to hold the pssdes thru the rockies. Next I’d get Jerry Browne to declare Cali independence from the us. The forthright plan to defend the the brave cali freedom fighters. Meanwhile we target the remaining us flattops with our attack subs close Panama Canal. Remember china has a 20 year operating leases at the canal. Think what the prc could do with that advantage.
It is a truism of planning that you never cut your resources first, although one sees this in staffing all the time in industry and now we see it here. A military sized to pre-WWII status should have pre-WWII commitments FIRST.
That turns out to be strategically difficult (huge discussion number one), but more to the point it is politically difficult, and so what happens in practice is that the pressure is off the politicians who are paid to take the heat and on the troopers who are not, who are faced with impossible expectations. It's a cheat.
This is horrible and also typical of the military hating Obama and his admin.
Or, more likely, they know that the military isn't really on board to go full socialist.
I hope all those who raged against Mitt Romney are happy. /sarcasm>
Yeah, I know what you're really asking. Is this McNamara all over again? I'd love to know.
I can’t stand Hagel, but I don’t really have a problem with reducing the size of the military in the abstract. We don’t need a $700+ billion/year military establishment to protect us from the threats we face globally. We only need that level of spending if we plan to continue pretending that we’re “Team America: World Police” going forward. We can’t reduce “defense” spending and expect to do the whole simultaneous middle eastern occupation thing again.
So what was your opinion of the Balkan “peacekeeping” operations?
If the person proposing these cuts was anyone else, I’d probably see some logic in it. But since its dear leader... you can count me out.
We don't have the capability anymore. . .with reduced acquisitions our productions lines are closing.
“Infrastructure,” a vastly important aspect of the US arms business. At $543 billion, the defense budget falls short by nearly $31 billion in requested military expenditure.
This 9% budget shortfall is significant. Most budget expenditures are for maintenance, modifications, upgrades and personnel. . .not production, especially production of new platforms. Consequently, new product manufacturing and research and development are limited in scope.
This threatens the defense industrial manufacturing base.
A closed complex manufacturing facility such as the Boeing C-17 facility in Long Beach, for example, can’t easily be re-opened and produce kit quickly enough to arm/equip a nation under siege or engaged in a major conflict. Same with other aircraft, tanks, ships, etc. And, by the way, you can't take a washing machine manufacturing factory and re-tool to build a tank or airplane. Well, you can but it would take years and years and cost so much that it would be cheaper to build a new factory than re-tool.
Basically, a defense manufacturing facility simply can’t easily resume production within months, and may possibly takes years to become viable. That is physically, technically and fiscally impossible.
Research and Development (R&D) ensures the US possesses a qualitative edge in technology—and this edge is financed in part, a significant part, through foreign military sales.
FMS ensures R&D continues and the defense industry continues to produce modern, reliable and technologically relevant products. . .but not in any large number and is producing ‘test platforms,” not fully vetted combat-capable warfighting platforms.
So, cuts today have no relevance to pre-WWII manufacturing capability and the nature of the military today does not allow for shut-down/turn-on, re-tooling of a facility.
No argument but let’s make those cuts across the board and at the same level.
Spot on, no way they could build a warship in one month like they did in WW2 or an aircraft in a week or whatever it was.
The way everything is getting networked the training for new soldiers alone would be months and months.
“We don’t have the capability anymore. . .with reduced acquisitions our productions lines are closing.”
So? They weren’t open then, either. We had to create them.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.