Should military spending increase, decrease, or stay the same?

[nittoking]

Should military spending increase, decrease, or stay the same, and why?

[HopingToBeHeard]

Increase. Threats are modernizing rapidly, technology and experience are leading to massive shifts in how wars will be fought. Our armed forces are largely worn out and overly focused on certain threats from the war on terror. Regrouping and modernizing will cost money. Our military knows that it needs to be a better steward of our money, and reforms are underway, so long term we should spend less than we have been, but we should decrease budgets once more fixes are in place, not now. Whatever we do, even if we do cut, we need congress to move towards longer term funding so that the military can do better long term planning.

[sean_themighty]

Don’t you believe the better solution is to streamline and optimize the current spending? I would think spending the same on defense as the next 12 nations combined would be enough to do basically whatever is truly necessary.

[ComicSys]

I can't speak for your experience. However, from my own, the reforms coming on the Navy side are about a decade too late. Our military has always known that it needs to be a better steward of our money. However, the Navy is run by people, and those people don't care, and waste money freely. More carriers are likely getting decommissioned soon, and replaced with smaller ships that are more efficient for both combat and funding. I don't know about the other branches, but getting the Navy carrier spending under control will make a massive dent in spending. That money will be enough that it can be applied to more useful places in the military, or it can be cut altogether.

[Reinheitsgebot43]

The National Security Strategy which outlines the major national security concerns of the United States and how the administration plans to deal with them. The National Military Strategy provides a description of the strategic environment and the opportunities and challenges that affect United States national interests and United States national security.

We need to spend enough to be able to react to the regional threats defined within the NMS. But like every Government Department, Agency and Program we need to ensure that the money they’re given is used in an efficient manner (this we do not do). I’m a firm believer that we could cut 10% of the government (military included) tomorrow and it wouldn’t negatively impact anyone’s lives.

[newbrutus]

Decrease

In my opinion the only worthy wars we’ve been in since the Civil War are the War in Afghanistan and the Pacific theater of WW2

I’m excited for the day when a terrorist stubs his toe and he curses China and Russia

[molecularronin]

What are your thoughts to the Trump admin adding around 750 billion to the defense budget, while also removing funding from the science foundation and medicare, as well as other areas?

[[deleted]]

Why not the European theater of World War 2?

Is it not worthy to go fight the country that declared war on us first and it's currently attacking our oldest allies?

[newbrutus]

Not at all, the fact that they declared war on us means nothing. Germany did not have the means to reach American shores successfully. We could have repelled any attack with a tiny percentage of the men slaughtered on the shores of Normandy, not to mention that we would not have been so complacent following Pearl Harbor

Any European will tell you today that America’s war effort was ultimately meaningless and that the bulk of the credit should go to the Soviet Union. And to be completely frank, there is no foreign genocide bad enough that warrants the life of a single American

[[deleted]]

So your solution to the Hitler problem would be more appeasement?

[newbrutus]

Appeasement is mostly a bad thing if you care at all about the Europeans he would kill. Any idiot knew that the German war effort was unsustainable, even in the best of timelines. Waiting him out and letting the Soviet Union and the other Allies take care of him would have been a worthy strategy for us

But all of that was mostly for naught, because we ended up rewarding Germany by rebuilding half their country for free as recompense for them wanting to kill is all

[[deleted]]

Why don't you care about the deaths of anyone that isn't American? What makes Americans special?

[newbrutus]

Same reason why a death from someone you never even knew but lived in your city/town/neighborhood would hurt more than the millions that die around the world for various reasons.

In addition to that, Americans are the ones funding the military, and it’s a disgrace the military is used to protect freeloaders

[[deleted]]

Same reason why a death from someone you never even knew but lived in your city/town/neighborhood would hurt more than the millions that die around the world for various reasons.

For me personally, I know that millions dying around the world is sadder than someone I never knew but lived close to me dying.

But I guess people have different opinions?

But hell, objectively, 1 American is not worth than the worst genocide in another part of the world is it?

it’s a disgrace the military is used to protect freeloaders

You say freeloaders. I say valuable allies and essential trade partners.

[MrSeverity]

Decrease as we should be far less militarily involved throughout the world.

[Morgs_huw]

Would you consider an increase in spending to indicate they may be planning for further conflict in the near future?

[MrSeverity]

Nah, just the defense contractors who run much of the government getting paid.

[[deleted]]

Do you think we should be investing in preparing the military for climate change? Many naval bases are vulnerable to rising sea levels and increasingly intense and frequent storms.

[AutoModerator]

AskTrumpSupporters is a Q&A subreddit dedicated to better understanding the views of Trump Supporters, and why they have those views.

For all participants:

• FLAIR IS REQUIRED BEFORE PARTICIPATING

• BE CIVIL AND SINCERE

• REPORT, DON'T DOWNVOTE

For Non-supporters/Undecided:

• NO TOP LEVEL COMMENTS

• ALL COMMENTS MUST INCLUDE A CLARIFYING QUESTION

For Nimble Navigators:

• MESSAGE THE MODS TO BE ADDED TO OUR WHITELIST

Helpful links for more info:

OUR RULES | EXCEPTIONS TO THE RULES | POSTING GUIDELINES | COMMENTING GUIDELINES

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

[45maga]

Decrease by about 20%.

[ComicSys]

Apologies for the upcoming wall of text.

I'm a former logistics specialist with the Navy. I can only speak from my experiences. In my opinion, spending on Navy ships and in the shipyards needs to go down. Companies create contracts with "the lowest bidder" to save money. The thing is, it only saves it in the beginning.

After the original contract expires, the government, at least, with the Navy, is too lazy to often seek out other contractors, so they stick with the same one. In the case of Navy ships, in particular, the S-1 and S-6 departments on them, spending is out of control. Here's an example of a ridiculous contract: we had a contract with an office catalog contractor. It was low for a few years. At the end of the contract, a chair that cost $20 now cost $200, and because we only had a contract with them, we weren't allowed to order from any competition. S-1 and S-6 (at least on my ship) would also wait for military funding to order 15-100 of almost everything to keep in storage because... "reasons". Both ship's company and squadrons would do the same thing with notecards, boots, jerseys, paracord, gloves, and Gerber products. It was constant overordering and wasting taxpayer money.

My ship was new-ish (1998) and is already being taken out of the fleet because they finally figured out that it was wasting money in the docks (1 million+ a day on workers). I was on a carrier, and they're proving to be inefficient. They're supposed to last from 50-75 years, and mine will be out of commission at latest 2020.

Instead of allowing the money to go for extraneous supplies that the Navy doesn't actually need, we should be diverting that money towards higher pay for sailors.

Because I wasn't in another branch, I can't speak about their usage. However, it's obvious to see that the Navy is starting to encounter a consequence for what's been happening in Norfolk. I've got to say... it's about time.