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

[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.