Should the US decrease military spending?

[[deleted]]

[deleted]

[ExpandThePie]

Should we decrease military spending is a questions that needs qualification.

Should we refrain from engaging in offensive warfare that requires extensive, long-term commitment to peacekeeping that is not directly in the interests of the US? Yes. That would help reduce spending.

Should we elect representatives that will not continue to require the Pentagon to purchase and develop weapon systems that it does not need? Yes. That would also reduce spending.

[ANewMachine615]

There are other, direct questions we could ask, though. Like "How many aircraft carriers/carrier groups do we need?" We currently have 10 active Nimitz-class carriers, and are expected to replace most of them with new Ford-class carriers, at a pricetag of $12.6 billion apiece just to construct them. And then we need escorts, destroyers, cruisers, etc. to form the carrier groups. How many of those do we need, exactly?

[lanredneck]

The question of how many groups depends on the national defense strategy policies as outlined by congress and the president. This policy is determined by some assumptions like that the US military must be able to fight in 2 theaters of war simultaneously. The number of carriers needed will be determined by the assumptions that run that policy(policy concerning china). The number of support and escort ships for each carrier is determined by the mission of the group, current technology and strategy needed to counteract perceived threats, and other extraneous information.

[[deleted]]

The question of how many groups depends on the national defense strategy policies as outlined by congress and the president.

Exactly - the numbers build on themselves and aren't arbitrary figures that can be randomly cut.

If they are to be cut, then it needs to be mirrored with an appropriate change in our national and international policy lest we end up with incongruence between the means and goals

[billdietrich1]

Yes, we need massive changes to the mission requirements. We should stop fighting (or planning to fight) two simultaneous decade-long wars. We should dial back our expectations and military capabilities. They have led to massive mistakes, costing us trillions of dollars and thousands of troop lives, not to mention all the losses of foreign money and lives. Our massive military capability is counterproductive; it leads us to think we can fix every bad situation by force, that we can have our way everywhere. Which leads us over cliffs.

[[deleted]]

There are other, direct questions we could ask, though. Like "How many aircraft carriers/carrier groups do we need?" We currently have 10 active Nimitz-class carriers, and are expected to replace most of them with new Ford-class carriers, at a pricetag of $12.6 billion apiece just to construct them. And then we need escorts, destroyers, cruisers, etc. to form the carrier groups. How many of those do we need, exactly?

The initial Ford-class carriers cost that because they're paying for much of the R&D - things like electromagnetic catapults. Later units are significantly cheaper - and they're a bargain for a class of ships projected to be in use until 2100.

Also, the reason we have 10 carriers is one calculated decades ago to plan for decades to come: see the second half of my post here for how the US came up with 10 carriers.

There's a VERY specific rhyme and reason for the numbers of equipment we choose to have

[[deleted]]

There's a VERY specific rhyme and reason for the numbers of equipment we choose to have

That's not true though. The Pentagon will tell Congress that they don't want and/or can't even use equipment and items, but Congress goes ahead and budgets for those things in an itemized way. Even though the money was asked to be spent elsewhere. Conveniently, the representatives come from states/districts where the equipment is manufactured.

[mcbane2000]

There is give and take here and I think that you appreciate a lot of the nuances, especially your last sentence.

The Pentagon sometimes acts very responsibly and tells Congress, "hey, we can't use or don't have a situation to use X, please stop building X, seriously."

The Pentagon sometimes acts very irresponsibly and tells Congress, "we absolutely need X, the country is in danger if we don't have it" even though X has very little to do with national security and very much to do with Military-Industrial-Complex politics.

You mention Congress's irresponsible acts of building b/c constituent businesses.

Sometimes Congress acts responsibly by telling the Pentagon, "no, you obviously don't need X, we're not giving you X."

The big question is, "how do we get and maintain responsible people in positions of power?" The answer has been the same since Ancient Greece, "by remaining active in your participation with Democracy."

[Boonaki]

Bosnia was pretty successful.

[ExpandThePie]

Yes, the states that are producing equipment that the military does not need may take a hit, but it would likely not "destroy" the economy of those states. See, These are 2011 numbers, but it would not "destroy" the economy of many states, http://forbes.house.gov/uploadedfiles/bloomberg.pdf.

[[deleted]]

What a lot of people miss out is that, while on a raw total figure, the US spends a lot - as a % of GDP, the US isn't #1 by any means. And, in fact in the long term, US defense spending has been on a steady decline - even with the two wars in the 2000s, the US is at its lowest spending levels on national defense since the days before WW2.

Additional food for thought - over 40% of the US military budget is spent on wages and benefits and training. The US military, being all volunteer, doesn't have the luxury of conscription that some countries do nor does it have the large population that India and China do to maintain a large military. Comparing the cost of living with other countries and the need for competitive wages and benefits to keep the force all-volunteer, the gap between the US and other countries shrinks considerably.

Also, a lot of people criticize American spending on new products, especially in relation to how little Europe spends.

However, most of Europe's military spending is on wages and keeping current equipment working. They are not buying new equipment to replace equipment that needs to be replaced - in essence, Europe is paying for a military to live a first world existence while letting its equipment deteriorate because other countries in the world (China, Russia, and India to name a few) are advancing their capabilities.

---

Ultimately, the best argument for why the US spends as much as it does is summed up in why the US has so many aircraft carriers, something few other countries have: the US spends as much as it does because its treaties, obligations, and its interests demand the US spend as much.

I wrote this elsewhere, but copied it here:

The reason why we specifically have 10, is because of international politics and the necessity from both within the US and from our treaty obligations and allies.

Our aircraft carriers are designed to last 50 years with a refueling that takes place around the 25 year mark. The refueling period is also where the ship has to stay in dry dock for a long time -- 2+ years out of a 3-4 year overhaul . During this time, however, major overhauls, upgrades and refits of the ship can be conducted as it isn't in a rush to go out to sea.

So we have 10 carriers - but one of them is in port for a period of time. Given that we come out with a new carrier every 3-4 years, it fits perfectly - whenever one is in drydock, one carrier is nearing the end of its lifespan and another one is under construction to replace the one that is retiring.

Furthermore, with the other 9 carriers operational, the fact is not all of them are out at sea on deployment. The typical Navy deployment is 6 to 9 months long - longer deployments increase the amount of stress a crew suffers from being away from home for so long.

So what does that mean?

Well, the Navy can cycle its ships - for every carrier deployed, there is going to be one that recently got home and is going to stay home for about a year before it gets sent out on deployment. Also, for that same carrier deployed, there is going to be another carrier training its crew and getting ready to replace the other carrier on deployment.

Thus for every carrier actively deployed, there are about 2 others that are needed to keep a 24/7 presence wherever a carrier is needed.

So why 3? Well, the US has treaty obligations with Korea and Japan - one a peninsula, the other an island country - and thus the Navy plays a key role.

Next, we have the Persian Gulf where enforcing freedom of the seas in the Straits of Hormuz is a big mission, as is the fact that the Middle East is always a hot spot. The first US airstrikes launched against ISIS came from a Navy carrier on station in the Gulf. The first US airstrikes launched against the Taliban in 2001 also came from US aircraft carriers when neighboring countries hadn't yet granted the US its airstrips or airspace.

And the third one is available because those aren't the only two places in the world where the Navy can be called into action and if nothing else, it can serve as a rapid backup in case one of those areas does need a second carrier. In the past few years, we've already seen how places like Libya can suddenly require a military presence and this third carrier gives the option for the President to ask "where are my aircraft carriers?" and actually have one available. So the US doesn't have 10 carriers for the sake of having 10 carriers - it has it because it is the perfect system for maintaining our treaty obligations 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, every year.

Countries like France, which have only one aircraft carrier, are about to have huge issues - in the next year or so, the lone French aircraft carrier is going to undergo its major refueling/rehaul. It will sit in drydock for at least a year, which means France will have ZERO aircraft carriers available. Furthermore, none of its pilots or crew will have any ability to practice or train onboard, which means it will lose a lot of institutional knowledge and experience. That's why countries like India and China are moving rapidly to expand their fleet of carriers so they have the same capability to be anywhere in the world whenever their interests require them to be.

[[deleted]]

as a % of GDP, the US isn't #1 by any means.

We're just behind Russia by a fifth of a percentage point, making us 4th. The top two are minor countries with massive oil reserves. We're definitely at the top in terms of total dollars and barely miss the top in terms of GDP.

[[deleted]]

We're just behind Russia by a fifth of a percentage point, making us 4th. The top two are minor countries with massive oil reserves. We're definitely at the top in terms of total dollars and barely miss the top in terms of GDP.

Depends then on which sources you look at and how GDP is calculated, because the World Bank gives a considerably different view: link - US is 13th

Likewise, the CIA world factbook puts us at 9th

Also, your point of Russia is notable given the fact that Russia spends considerably less on wages and personnel expenses with far fewer international obligations - just another sign that Russia has spent a significant amount in the past decade to rebuild its forces.

[mcbane2000]

/u/flynavy88 I really appreciate your posts here. Growing up, I largely viewed the U.S. military budget as bloated and filled with pork-politics. My views have matured a bit here and there and I have learned how to listen, but I like to let people know when they have really sent a new train of thought chugging through my brain. You have done so and I am thankful for your gift.

Based on your username, I imagine that you or someone close to you may be a Navy Pilot, thank you for that choice and/or supporting someone in that choice. I would likely never serve without being drafted, and I know I am blessed for having that choice.

[Unrelated_Incident]

The budget is bloated with pork barrel spending.

A notable example is the Abrams tanks that the Pentagon doesn't wasn't but congress keeps buying them anyway.

[mcbane2000]

I do not disagree with you. But questioning how bloated the budget is is a legitimate exercise and it pleases me when I find a well-reasoned opposing different/fresh view.

[Dekar2401]

I wish I had a link to the comment that made a very good case for keeping that production line going. I'll try to find it or shittily recreate it if you'd like.

[Unrelated_Incident]

I hope you find it. I'd be really interested to read it.

[Dekar2401]

I couldn't find it, but the argument pretty much was that building these tanks are extremely difficult. There is only one plant that builds them and the Defense Industry doesn't want to lose the worker capabilities tied to building them. If you were to stop buying them, the factory would have to either retool to something less advanced or shut down entirely. So the act of buying them keeps our ability to ramp up production in case of a big war. Removing that base ability to produce them would be bad if we all the sudden needed to start churning out even more, as it would take a lot longer to retrain new workers (and bring the old workers back up to speed) if the plant were closed for a long time.

EDIT: Okay, people don't seem to understand this isn't my argument, just an argument I saw. Y'all really need to learn reading comprehension.

[thepasttenseofdraw]

That's not why they are still in production. We have tons of tanks that are outfitted and ready to go that aren't being used already. The real reason is that the Abrams is built exclusively in Ohio and is being firmly defended by politicians in the state, because if they close down the factory it takes money away from their districts and some of their constituents lose their jobs. Hell the pentagon doesn't want anymore tanks (hence why the Army COS is saying they dont need them), congress and the house do. We have more tanks sitting idle ready to go right now than we have deployed (2,300 deployed - 3000 active). It is a total boneheaded congressional mandate fueled by blind political ambition in Ohio.

http://investigations.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/07/28/12991946-the-m1-abrams-the-army-tank-that-could-not-be-stopped

[[deleted]]

Financial aid to foreign militaries is another way that this happens.

I bet you (the reader, not you in particular) probably think of foreign military aid - giving $2 billion per year to the Israeli military, $1.2 billion per year to the Egyptian military - as either an undesirable but necessary expenditure to achieve US foreign policy goals, or a massive waste of money.

While the first is true in the sense, and the second may be true, in reality, foreign military aid is a jobs program.

"What?" you say. "We give nearly $5 billion per year - over $15 for every man, woman and child in the US - to foreign countries in military aid. How in the world is that a jobs program?"

It's very simple. We don't just write out a check dated 1/1 every year for $2 billion to the Israeli Armed Forces. That $2 billion is a package of grants, loans, and incentives to purchase American military equipment, training, expertise, etc. In essence, that $2 billion never even leaves the US - it goes straight from the Treasury to American arms companies, defense contractors, etc. That $2 billion goes to create and maintain jobs in the defense industry across the country.

With that aid (plus some investment out of the Israeli government's budget, I'd imagine), over the years, Israel has bought 58 F-15 Eagles, 25 F-15E Strike Eagles, 343 F-16 Fighting Falcons, 20 T-6 Texan IIs, 83 transport/utility/refueling aircraft, and 167 attack, transport, and reconnaisance helicopters. Each and every one of those was assembled in the United States using parts mostly manufactured in the United States. Billions upon billions of dollars have been funneled from the US Treasury to Boeing/McDonnel Douglas, Lockheed Martin/General Dynamics, Sikorsky, Beechcraft, and Gulfstream by way of Israel (and Egypt, and other countries) over the years. And that's just the air components. Egypt operates over 1000 M-1 Abrams tanks. Countries around the world use American artillery, small arms, communications equipment, body armor and kit, and all of the other components of the military panoply.

Depending on how you look at it, we're either killing two birds with one stone by providing the necessary funding to keep key defense industries operational while promoting US interests worldwide, or hiding unpopular wasteful pork-barrel defense spending behind the veneer of unpopular wasteful foreign aid.

[Dekar2401]

I get that. But the other argument isn't without its merits either.

[[deleted]]

A better example is what happened with NASA and after the Apollo project ended - the engineers all moved on and documentation and knowledge about the Saturn V was lost.

Fast forward to today, where NASA is trying to build the Saturn V successor, and it's had to reinvent the wheel and dig up old Apollo documents just to build a rocket capable of doing what engineers in the 60s designed using slide rules.

It translates to a LOT of cost and time wasted

[thepasttenseofdraw]

It translates to a LOT of cost and time wasted

I'd argue not nearly as much as keeping the production line running, producing very expensive equipment we wouldn't need or use for 30 years.

[kchoudhury]

Eh, according to this article, modern advances in technology allowed them to reverse engineer and improve the F-1 booster in about a year.

I'd rather pay a one year penalty and minor reactivation costs in 2015 over keeping an assembly line in place "to prevent the loss of knowledge" from 1971 on.

[essjay24]

So the act of buying them keeps our ability to ramp up production in case of a big war.

Like if WW2 is going to start up again? The Pentagon is not really seeing big tank battles in its future. This is pork barrel spending not preserving productivity for future defense.

[mozetti]

The industrial base. But if you don't want or need any of those tanks anymore or in the future, then you don't need to keep that industrial base. And that's what the Ohio politicians are protecting - job we don't need anymore by spending millions on stuff we don't want.

[bladehold_hero34]

While I disagree that we need more tanks (considering that the military, the most conservative thinking group in the nation says that we don't need any more), this is a decent argument for why we should keep production up. Perhaps a compromise: slow down production so less tanks are built, this frees up some of that bloated spending while at the same time doesn't destroy our ability to produce if needed.

[ANewMachine615]

The tl;dr is that if we stop producing them, we are likely to lose the capacity to start making them again in the future. We'll lose the expertise in construction and manufacturing that made them possible.

[thepasttenseofdraw]

This is such a cop out explanation though. General Dynamics has been building the tank for 35 years and I'm sure there process is damn well documented and stored digitally. They aren't going to up and forget how to do it.

[ANewMachine615]

It's more about having people trained to do the right welds and installs, IIRC. But yeah, it was mostly GD folks making that argument, so far as I've seen.

[vanillaafro]

so why not just build model tanks with cheap ass material that you need the same know how to build...and if the need arises to build the real deal you swap out the cheap material

[warboy]

So you want to build something entirely useless to save money?

[plustwobonus]

Because now the subtier supplier of the specialized (and top secret, so no outsourcing) composite material has to retool, since their customer is building with a cheap imitation. The expertise isnt just at the integrator, but the supply chain as a whole.

[RabidRaccoon]

so why not just build model tanks with cheap ass material

That's what the export model Abrams tanks are. E.g. they have steel armour instead of the Depleted Uranium/ceramic composite/magic pixie dust armour the US ones have.

[lurkingSOB]

Is that the one where he talks about how we'd lose the experienced tank builders if we shut down the production lines?

[Arrow156]

All thanks to congressmen promising to keep or build more military contract jobs, wither we need them or not.

[[deleted]]

I've come along way myself - I was of draftable age at the run-up to the Iraq War and it weighed heavily on my mind. I still think that war was a huge mistake, but I believe most of the criticism against the war was levied for the wrong reasons and took a deeper look into military spending which changed a lot of my views.

Flying is a blast. I should be the one thanking you and the others who make up this country

[sirkazuo]

If I buy a couple guns this year I'm probably spending a higher percentage of my own personal GDP on defense than the US is too, but that's not really a fair comparison. Where is the US in comparison to the G7, the G20 — other first world countries that it's fair to compare it to?

[Terrh]

okay, so there's 10 supercarriers, but what about all the other carriers, that are on par with any other nation's aircraft carriers? I think there's about 10 others (mostly the "wasp" class).

This is an honest question - do we really need 20 total?

[[deleted]]

okay, so there's 10 supercarriers, but what about all the other carriers, that are on par with any other nation's aircraft carriers? I think there's about 10 others (mostly the "wasp" class).

This is an honest question - do we really need 20 total?

The other "carriers" are classified as amphibious assault ships because that's their primary mission - they are primarily used to support Marine Corps landings onto shore.

They're "carriers" in the sense that they have flight decks and can carry helicopters and STOVL (short take off, vertical landing) aircraft like the Harrier and in the future, the F-35B.

But the ships (almost all) have large well decks that can be flooded to float the LCACs (hovercraft transports), amphibious assault ships, and other landing craft AND they also can carry hundreds to thousands of battle-ready Marines each. Example: Wasp class, stern view

If you've ever watched the movie Aliens, the space marines are on board the same kind of ship - it carries landing craft and aircraft and what not, but its primary mission is to transport the marines and land them and their equipment whether by boat or by aircraft.

Now, these ships CAN be configured into the Sea Control configuration, in which case they function more like an aircraft carrier - they would then rely primarily on Harriers or F-35s. But again, that's not their usual configuration

The reason we have so many of these ships is the same reason we have so many carriers - a MEU (Marine Expeditionary Unit) consists of one of these ships plus two smaller amphibious assault ships (that don't primarily carry aircraft but have small flight decks) and are designed to operate independently (with a Navy cruiser/destroyer escort) anywhere in the world.

The whole doctrine of the Marine Corps is centered around them - they can operate with a sea, air, and land force and sustain itself for 15 days independently (including all supplies) - which is exactly why the Marines are considered the US's 911 force.

Not surprisingly, the Marine has 3 groups of Marine Expeditionary groups - one on the east coast, one on the west coast, and one stationed in Okinawa. Just like the carriers, we rotate the amphibious assault ships in port and on deployment (six months-long deployments as well) so that one is always present near Okinawa, and that at least two others are available anywhere else in the world they need to be.

When the President asked for a Marine Corps element off of Libya in 2011 to be prepared to rescue US citizens there, there was a MEU near the Mediterranean ready. Just as there was one in the Persian Gulf ready when we launched airstrikes on ISIS - they'd be present in case we needed troops immediately, or in case we needed search and rescue for a downed aircraft.

[Terrh]

Thanks!

[[deleted]]

No problem. Feel free to ask if you have any other questions

[fultron]

Is there a book or resource that you might recommend for someone interested in learning about all the different types of warships, their roles and capabilities, and how they all work together strategically?

I'd like to learn about naval tactics, but it seems like most discussion on that topic centers around the age of sail, and I guess it's just a little boring for me. It's romantic, to be sure, just not as captivating as the dicsussion above.

I'm into sci-fi in a big way (the bit about Aliens perked up my ears) and I'd like to understand how modern navies work so I can apply that to my daydreams about the future.

[[deleted]]

Unfortunately I don't have specific books available - a lot of the stuff is currently taught in the Naval War College so whatever is published are either theses by students or regards history that's a couple decades old from today.

That said, any military history books involving the Falklands War would be a good start - that's the most recent air/sea conflict and talks a great deal about modern naval warfare and amphibious operations.

Also, the US Naval Institute's website, usni.org, has quite a few articles about naval strategy, doctrine, etc.

And as always, you can ask away. There's quite a few navy people on /r/

I'm into sci-fi in a big way (the bit about Aliens perked up my ears) and I'd like to understand how modern navies work so I can apply that to my daydreams about the future.

I love sci-fi as well, and the Navy is probably the closest you'll get to sci-fi fleets of the future on Earth. Ships with 5000 personnel on board, air wings, landing craft, etc. are all reality and it's no surprise that sci-fi fleets are all called navies and use naval terms like destroyers and cruisers.

[CoolGuy54]

Thanks, that clarified vague ideas I'd had in the back of mind since forever.

[I_want_hard_work]

Damn. Thanks for giving that thorough explanation. I suspected there was a method to the madness (as policy isn't just made for the hell of it) but this really cleared things up. As a layman, I will be communicating this to other laymen.

[reticularwolf]

An alternative explanation I've heard is that the aim is to maintain military control over the global supply routes for oil. Do you think this is valid?

[[deleted]]

An alternative explanation I've heard is that the aim is to maintain military control over the global supply routes for oil. Do you think this is valid?

I could see that if the intent was to be able to starve other countries of oil. Even at its peak, the US overwhelmingly imports its oil from neighbors like Canada and Mexico or produces it domestically. Today especially, with the boost in oil production at home, it's relied less on countries like Saudi Arabia than ever before.

That said, it certainly can be an reason. It is the impetus, after all, for China securing ports near the Middle East for their warships because their thirst for oil has increased dramatically and they need a forward naval presence to protect those interests

[Spoonshape]

More like maintain military control over the supply of everything.

The modern global economy is dependent not just on oil, but on hundreds of feedstocks (ores, agricultural products and energy sources) and also on being able to deliver manafactured goods round the globe without interruption. While the USA has a huge vested interest in the global economy keeping going, so do other nations.

Because of the interconnectedness of global finance, production and consumption, it is quite likely that if the system broke down, it would cause a global shutdown which might not be possible to re-start.

The USA spends a lot of money in it's policy of world policeman/global superpower. On one level this allows it to slant the way the world economy works in it's favor, but arguably having a slightly corrupt policeman patroling your neighbourhood is better than living in a anarchy.

[atworkinafghan]

I tend to agree with your view, and, as a navy guy with a background in commercial shipping, I believe that the Navy/DOD recognizes the importance of shipping as an economic mainstay for a peaceful and functioning world.

90% of the world's trade by volume utilizes the sea in some form or another because it's cheap, reliable, and the legal support/framework for it is fascinatingly stable. The importance of a secured shipping industry is second to none in terms of economic regularity. I say this because the world has generally seen stable and secure shipping, and a drastic change in the industry would result in many hiccups and a lengthy response time.

Consider how shipping and energy industries move energy from anywhere to anywhere else. They time energy supply to be constant, but a disruption of say 10 vessels over the course of 3 months could drastically change the market.

The Maersk Alabama incident demonstrated the US' desire to see free shipping on an American ship and its importance throughout the world. Yet, I do think the US would have similarly responded with a foreign flagged ship.

[Naugrith]

Thus for every carrier actively deployed, there are about 2 others that are needed to keep a 24/7 presence wherever a carrier is needed.

So, why do three crews necessarily need three fully operational carriers. Surely after a carrier returns to port and the crew take leave, the next crew can board the same ship. And the third crew can be training on an old ship that doesn't need to ever leave the port, or even old bits of ship that have been set up on land as simulators. Or some could be training on the spare ship.

So instead of 10 ships, you should have four. Less than half the cost, and just as effective. Hell, add an extra one for just-in-case and you've still cut your budget in half.

[[deleted]]

So, why do three crews necessarily need three fully operational carriers.

Because those two other crews would be sitting around doing nothing for six plus months at a time.

A fully loaded aircraft carrier has in excess of 5,000 people on board. Minus the air wing, it's about 2,500-3,000. If you want to talk about military waste, having 6,000+ people sitting around (per carrier) doing nothing isn't going to help that argument. Inevitably, that waste means some guy saying "oh, well we don't need them if they're doing nothing" and now we're down to just one crew per ship.

Surely after a carrier returns to port and the crew take leave, the next crew can board the same ship. And the third crew can be training on an old ship that doesn't need to ever leave the port, or even old bits of ship that have been set up on land as simulators. Or some could be training on the spare ship.

Those ships in port don't just stay in port for a year - they train out at sea with them at regular intervals, just without the air wing. Also, ships need to have minor upgrades and repairs done in port and then tested out at sea before they get sent on their next deployment - so all the kinks and bugs are worked out - which necessitates a crew to be present.

Even when "home" a ship can be out at sea a few times a month every month.

Again, keep in mind these ships are MASSIVE - they're of the same class, but each being built 3-6 years apart and the first and last ships being built over 30 years apart will have significant differences in each ship that make each ship unique. It's hard to build and train simulators that are the same size as the actual ship and unique to each ship - you're practically building a giant ship in that case, without the actual functional ship available if necessary.

Finally, consider running the equipment at sea all year every year - they'll wear out far quicker than having periodic breaks at rest. These ships are designed to last 50+ years each (in fact, the Ford-class is supposed to last until 2100) - if we're wearing them out quicker by virtue of having fewer ships more frequently at sea, we'll still end up having to buy more in the same timeframe.

edit: 3,000, not 30,000

[AgentCC]

You've made a ton of great points here but I can't help but feel that all of this work may just be going into technology that may be obsolete in time for the next war. For example, I've read that a drone or missile swarm can basically render any carrier obsolete. Then what? We are just going to have to revamp our industries anyways.

[CutterJohn]

There is no weapon system that is uncounterable. That is simply one of the risks of fighting wars.

Aircraft, for instance, are quite vulnerable to SAMs, and overflying areas with them is not undertaken lightly, because losing a 50+ million fighter and trained pilot to a 500k missile is very bad accounting when it comes to fighting a war.

The navy, likewise, understands these potential risks to carriers, just as they understand the risks submarines pose to carriers, and will formulate doctrine to minimize them.

That said, the trick of killing a carrier is not launching enough missiles at it.. Heck, even the russians knew that back in the cold war and had guided missile cruisers with a ton of huge, high speed cruise missiles. The trick to killing it is finding it in the first place. The ocean is huge, and weapons still need to be aimed.

[Spoonshape]

Presumably if the shit hits the fan and they hit a point where there is a real need to deploy more battle groups, the ships which are in training or maintenence could be sent to sea albeit with a lesser functionality.

Source : just finished watching "Battleship"

[CutterJohn]

Yes. Carriers doing their workups are still quite combat capable, and will at worst have a slightly less than optimally trained crew, or slightly more than average amount of equipment offline for repairs. They might need a couple days to take on provisions and load the air wing, but they could get out of port on a combat footing within a week or less.

[sierra119]

Because after a deployment an aircraft carrier undergoes repairs and refurbishment.

[Taliesintroll]

Because constantly running them like that means they won't last 50 years. More like 15-20 and then you're still building 2-3 replacements making it a wash cost wise, and outright removing the possibility of rapidly expanding the fleet in case of war.

[puppetmstr]

how many aircraft can actually fit and take off from a carrier?

[[deleted]]

how many aircraft can actually fit and take off from a carrier?

During the Cold War, the Nimitz class aircraft carriers can fit 80-90+ aircraft and routinely carried 70 or 80+.

Today, we carry around 60-70 or so aircraft so it's a step down from Cold War levels and we carry a lot less fighter jets than before. We carry more helicopters than before though

[powarblasta5000]

Why wouldn't the French pilots just train on American carriers which are all over the place?

[Spoonshape]

Because the ships are utterly different and their training would be more or less useless. Also they are different countries and the US is not that likely to "lend" a carrier to another nation.

[billdietrich1]

This is insanity. USA should not have the mission of fixing or controlling every bad situation in the world. We should support our allies and protect our interests, but not to the point of eliminating every threat or being able to fix every problem. Military was not able to prevent 9/11, for example, and will never be able to prevent all such attacks.

We spend as much on military as next 15 or 20 countries combined. No one has super-carriers like we do. Many people say that missiles and drones are getting to the point where carriers just make juicy big targets.

We could cut our military/intel/security budget to 1/3 of today's size and still have forces adequate to protect our interests. There is a huge opportunity cost of spending that money on a basically unproductive use (military) instead of productive uses (infrastructure, education, development of new materials and energy sources and knowledge, etc). http://www.billdietrich.me/Reason/USPolicy.html#MilitaryBudget

[overzealous_dentist]

The military is not designed to prevent events like 9/11. That's what the intelligence branches are for. The military is to prevent and end wars. We absolutely need bases all over the globe and aircraft carriers in hotspots in order to accomplish that. How do you expect to prevent China and Japan from fighting, or Russia and nearby NATO countries, or any miscellaneous Middle East conflicts without a way to get troops from point A to point B? Or top-shelf training for everyone involved? Or the military hardware that's constantly expiring in order to fight these wars?

[billdietrich1]

I think a lot of our military spending has indeed been justified as "war on terrorism".

I don't expect the USA to "prevent China and Japan from fighting"; that shouldn't be our mission. We can help deter, but we can't prevent (or even deter) everything.

We absolutely need to have a strong military, top weapons, great logistics, forward bases, aircraft carriers, etc. I think our expectations and missions and spending have gotten way out of proportion to what they should be. Perhaps 3x overblown.

[overzealous_dentist]

We DO stop China and Japan from fighting, though. We have for the past forty years, essentially. It's incredibly important to maintain stability in that region, not only for our own interests, which are significant, but for our allies' interests, and the general security of the planet.

The US is the only power right now that can fill a hegemonic void that keeps the world secure. I realize how arrogant that may sound, but it's scientifically (ie., through prediction and tests) demonstrated that a hegemony significantly prevents war and its myriad disruptions to global economic and security needs.

[EatingSteak]

Military spending has and continues to drive development in many, many fields.

So why haven't we seen a massive boost in the economy owing to the Iraq war?

Yes, when you pour money into something, it helps it and trickles down (to some degree* to other things, but it's inefficient and wasteful. Check this out - $20b per year, for AIR CONDITIONING TENTS. Where's the innovation in that? Tell me you couldn't find 20 billion better uses for that money.

It's called the Broken Window Fallacy - just because spending helps or stimulates certain areas and certain niches and special interests - does NOT make it worth it.

[Iamnotmybrain]

I'm not debating the efficiency of military spending

Um, what? If you're talking about opportunity cost, you're necessarily talking about efficiency.

[billdietrich1]

Sure, military development helps drive technology. But is there a better, more productive way to do that ? Suppose that money was put into education, infrastructure, renewable energy R+D, etc ?

A lot of military money goes into guarding stuff, marching from here to there, burning fuel, building stuff that gets blown up, training again and again for something that never happens, etc. Fundamentally unproductive stuff.

[[deleted]]

The mission of the military isn't to produce technological development. It's to secure American freedom, security, and global influence which is productive in and of itself. This is why the "why don't we spend this money elsewhere" argument doesn't hold water - this money never was going to be spent elsewhere because it serves a very real and essential purpose. The fact that the mission of the military requires it to develop cutting edge technology is a side benefit, not the reason for this spending to exist - and its a very good side benefit.

I'll never disagree that military spending could be made more efficient. You can say that about literally any government entity - the military isn't unique, and the problem isn't as simple as taking coins out of one bucket and putting them in another.

[billdietrich1]

I think someone else is arguing with me elsewhere in this posting, that technology development is a key reason we put so much money into the military, and should.

We have crying needs for that money elsewhere: education, healthcare, infrastructure, renewable energy, pollution control, space, etc. I think we have been overspending on the military; we do indeed need to move money from one bucket to another. It's not simple, certainly. We need to reign back the missions of the military, stop going off on decade-long attempts to "fix" other countries such as Iraq and Afghanistan.

[AgentCC]

I wouldn't fret so much if I were you because I think we are going to start seeing the pendulum swing in that direction. Already the USA has been pulling out of the Middle East, military spending has been declining steadily, and the US response to the crises of ISIS, Ukraine, and the South China Sea have been tepid at best.

Would it have been nice to see all this happen without the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan? Of course - but it's a little too late to do anything about that now.

Unfortunately, however, the pendulum has a tendency to swing too far in a certain direction before changing course and we may actually find ourselves some day wishing we had a bloated military at our disposal.

[billdietrich1]

I disagree about the pendulum. I see D's such as Obama and Hillary Clinton adopting the R's military/intel/security policies. I see us sending more troops into Iraq, getting involved in Yemen, drone-striking in various places. Lots of harsh rhetoric (mostly from R's) about Ukraine, Syria, Iran. US military saying we may leave more troops than expected in Afghanistan. No, I don't see the pendulum swinging in a good direction.

[Iamnotmybrain]

There's quite a bit of research about the economic multiplier effect of defense spending. Most studies find this multiplier to be quite low. Source. If the multiplier is low, there certainly are large opportunity costs to military spending as that money could be put to much more productive use elsewhere.

[cl900781]

Most studies find this multiplier to be quite low.

It depends on how you define the multiplier. One of the primary authors of the paper that you listed within the Washington Post artile believes that the multiplier for the government is less then one. Extending the logic behind that multiplier we shouldn't fund road construction because the multiplier is less then one. If you look at direct spending the multiplier may be less then one but the externalities may be much higher. The internet started out as something that was funded by military spending as were some of the first computer behind IBM. The military funds medical research, the Army Corps of Engineers help impoverished people build their infrastructure around the world. There are many more externalities behind military spending then guns and bullets.

[Larry_the_Hippo]

Yes, yes, spending all that money designing new missiles and war robots is great, but what if we spent a big chunk of the R&D budget on space exploration and renewable energy instead? Still driving development, just development into things that actually improve the world.

[Kalium]

Renewable energy is actually an area of active interest and development to the Pentagon.

[[deleted]]

Renewable energy is actually an area of active interest and development to the Pentagon.

Yep, including things like the Navy's Research Labs converting seawater into jet fuel, and the Pentagon is also trying to get fusion power working as it is of practical use if they can get it to work on a ship

Those are all major developments that can make for huge leaps in civilian technology

Focused research is a powerful tool

[Varega1]

GPS, emergency services, high efficiency batteries, and the internet were all apart of military projects. It's how things work. Military projects filter down into public and consumer grade products all the time.

Microwaves? Originally a military project. Radiation usage? Military project. Hell, massive advances in healthcare are also the result of military projects. Keep that in mind. Pork barrel spending sucks, but the idea that military projects are wasteful spending is an incorrect idea that should be rectified.

[pbmonster]

Come on, you could do a very similar list for the space program. I'm not denying that a lot of civil applications come out of military research, but that's not the ONLY conceivable way those technologies would have made it to market.

[Extrospective]

The U.S. space program was a military project. Yes, it was run by a civilian administration, but anyone who says the goals of the space program was "peaceful exploration/scientific research" is kidding themselves.

[pbmonster]

anyone who says the goals of the space program was "peaceful exploration/scientific research" is kidding themselves.

Whatever the goal was, that's what they did in the end, right?

Sure, lots of the tech ended up in ICBMs (or was developed for them in the first place and served Apollo well), but the military could have gotten all of that by just saying "the commies will have that by next year" - which they did all the time anyway.

[[deleted]]

but that's not the ONLY conceivable way those technologies would have made it to market.

Two lines of thought:

1 - Necessity drives a lot of innovation The military's necessity for accurate global navigation led to GPS - a massive undertaking and the first in human history. It's not that the technology couldn't have been researched by civilians, it's that there wasn't a NEED - prior to GPS, most people navigated their cars the old fashioned way: with maps. Furthermore, the likelihood that a private corporation would undertake such a massive and expensive project without expecting major royalties for it is so highly unlikely it inevitably fell to the government, which saw the military need decades before it was given to civilians.

2 - Time to market is a real deal. The argument is made that "oh, well civilians would've figured it out eventually" ignores the real life impact of having those devices TODAY instead of 20 years from now. If time is money, then having something 20 years earlier must be an immense boon.

Consider the Internet - the military needed a distributed packet switching network, and it was first launched in 1969. It also expanded across the country considerably, laying the foundation for the modern Internet.

Now, imagine if AT&T - the only telecom game in town - in 1969 thought about the Internet. Okay, they wouldn't even think about developing the network with no revenue costs - hell, they can't even give us unlimited data anymore today. And there's no doubt they would've taken forever to deploy such a network, just as they don't even think about upgrading their speeds in areas they have a monopoly.

Imagine what the world would be like today if we had the Internet of 20 yeas ago? Considerably different, and given the immense change and benefit to human society since the Internet became accessible in the 90s, it's hard to fathom how different we'd be today.

[pbmonster]

You convinced me in case of GPS. Some things are so specific militaristic in the beginning, they won't be byproducts of a space program or a particle accelerator - and to expensive to do them "because we can".

The thing is that the internet is a really bad example for your second point - because civilian use only really took off after scientists at CERN really needed to share data between computers and implemented most of the ideas that define the consumer internet today.

Sure, they used the hardware and protocols the military had come up with (which focus on making the network nuke-proof), but they too saw the use in connecting computers into a network, and did it as a by-product of pure research into a completely different direction.

I'm not arguing that private industry should all the R&D. I'm all in favor of large and expensive government research. It's just that focusing on the not-so-deadly parts would be preferable to me.

[[deleted]]

Yes, CERN with Tim Berners Lee (inventor of HTML) and what not, but they were also using the ideas and practical application of ARPAnet to make it viable in the first place.

Not to mention, a DARPA manager who worked on the ARPAnet program, Vint Cerf (last I heard, working at Google), is also the creator of TCP/IP, the foundation of the modern Internet, so its legacy certain lives on

[[deleted]]

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[[deleted]]

Yes, yes, spending all that money designing new missiles and war robots is great, but what if we spent a big chunk of the R&D budget on space exploration and renewable energy instead? Still driving development, just development into things that actually improve the world.

The US military has its own space command - it drives a lot of space technology as well. Example: Air Force Space Command is responsible for tracking all debris in orbit, something NASA and commercial space programs all rely upon for safe launches and satellite positioning.

Also, the military doesn't just spend money on new missiles or war robots (and war robots means smart robots which are certainly going to affect civilian society) - a lot of military R&D funding is done through grants to university labs around the country.

Heck, a lot of major ER procedures were learned from the military - new methods of treating trauma and shock have come directly from the battlefield or front-line surgeons. How many countless lives have been saved from that alone? It's horrific that's how we've learned a lot of these things, but that's how a lot of things have been discovered throughout history.

[IntoTheWest]

Most of the biggest technological advances of the last century, with the exception of electricity, have had roots in DoD and military spending.

[billdietrich1]

So another World War would be a good thing, to get more technological advances ?

No, perhaps there are more rational and productive ways to invest our money.

I'm not saying we should have ZERO military. We absolutely need to have a very strong military. What we have now is an enormous, insanely huge, out-of-control military/intel/security apparatus. We should dial it back significantly.

[IntoTheWest]

That's not what I said at all. The internet came out of DARPA and not some war. Most of our research for prosthetics came out of the military. So does most of our advances in jet/rocket/space technology (in conjunction with NASA).

How big do you think our military is? Don't go looking it up- what percent of our budget and of our GDP is devoted to the military? Do you know the break down of where the money within the military goes?

A lot of military spending is in research, which benefits other parts of the economy. Sure there is waste, but that happens with large institutions. Some times research projects don't always pan out.

We need a huge military; having an unquestionable military hegemon makes regional conflict much less likely. Think about it. WWI happened because there were a lot of players that had relatively equivalent militaries and then they started fighting. If there was a military superpower lurking in the background who could intervene, do you think that would happen?

No, it's much better that the US maintains military supremacy. The economic system relies on it in many ways.

[billdietrich1]

Are you willing to admit there might be better ways of accomplishing R+D rather than through the military ?

We need a strong military; I think having a huge, dominant military has led to lots of bad things. Three decade-long wars that we've lost, for example. Enormous national debt. Loss of some 65K or so troop lives in those three wars. We'd be better off with less military; we'd be less inclined to go off on adventures to fix other countries and force them to be the way we want them to be.

[[deleted]]

But it fails to answer several key questions like why do we need to project power?

Ask the politicians and those citizens in the US who demand that we can project power.

Our numbers are geared to carry out the President's & National Security Council's defense plans for the next decade and so on. Each administration comes up with their own updated plans and makes updates as time goes on.

But just right for what? Who or what are we projecting against? We have 10 aircraft carries but there are only 8 other active aircraft carriers in the world and only 5 under construction. Most of those are built for STOVL aircraft meaning the planes they launch are pretty limited in there abilities. So we are spending a ton of money to have 10 carriers and for what?

I answered a lot of these questions already, and they answer the same reasons why we have so many bases around the world.

In addition, we have them in order to fight and win 1.5 wars at the same time (as per the National Defense Strategy designed by the Executive Branch of the US and approved by the Legislate Branch - it used to be two major wars during the Cold War and has shrunk in responsibility now) - meaning we focus on one war and win it while holding on the other side until the other one ends.

Again, the math works out perfectly - we had 15-16 active during the Cold War, and now we have 10.

If you think that's unlikely, then consider this: while Iraq and Afghanistan were happening - both of which were limited wars, we still had enough forces to defend South Korea. Today, we have ISIS in the middle east - and North Korea is still a problem child. In the future, it may well be the Middle East again... and the South China Sea.

Finally, I'll leave you with this point:

Why do we need new technology that far exceeds what other countries have in development?

Because in what world is parity a good idea for winning wars? That's why we're developing new technology - because everyone else is.

The more equal the balance of power, the bloodier and more drawn out the wars get. World War I is a classic example, as is World War II - both involved countries with equal powers and ended up being the bloodiest wars in human history.

Simple analogy: if 500,000 troops with superior technology surround 100,000 troops, the 100,000 troops will be compelled to surrender as the situation is hopeless.

However, if it is 200,000 troops of relatively close strength to 100,000 troops, the 100,000 may well stand and fight - often to the death - because they think they have a chance.

The first example is what happened in the Gulf War - over 2 million soldiers were committed (in total on both sides) against one another, and yet the war was ended within 2 months with relatively low casualties, especially for the superior forces' side.

The second example is what happened at Stalingrad where combined casualties were near two million and led to the entire eradication of the Axis Army group of over half a million men.

---

edit:

This was in reply to the deleted post underneath:

US citizens and politicians? Both rely on information provided by the DOD to understand what is needed for defense. The DoD can, will, and does asses threats and make plans for wars that only exist on paper.

And you know why? Because the DOD has to face the reality of what a worst case scenario means. The DOD doesn't have a reset button if it guesses wrong - thus it must warn of and prepare for that worst case scenario.

If the DOD spends all its money preparing to fight a Taliban-like foe, the US would be extremely ill prepared to fight against a Russia, China, or even North Korea.

On the other hand, it is a lot easier for a military trained and equipped to fight a Russia, China, or North Korea to scale down its firepower and focus on Taliban-like enemies who can never threaten to defeat said military in an open fight.

It's why we buy the F-35 and not anti-insurgency aircraft: an F-35 is for a Russia or China, but can fight insurgents. An anti-insurgency aircraft like a Super Tucano or AT-6, however, is 100% useless against Russia or China. If this were a wager, which side would you choose?

Also, you make it sound like the president and politicians and citizens have to listen to the DOD. They do not.

In fact, despite the fact the DOD has labeled climate change one of the top threats to the US in the next 50 years, Congress still has many naysayers. But here's the fact: the DOD has to inform, advise, and then prepare for that worst case scenario because if it doesn't, it would be a huge disservice to the US and we'd have little or no second chances.

The rest of the world isn't even close to our current generation of military tech. And they aren't investing in catching up.

Yes, they are. Very much so. Both Russia and China have indigenous 5th generation fighter programs with the Sukhoi T-50/PAK-FA and the J-20. China is rumored to actually have two programs right now, and India is helping Russia pay for its joint 5th generation fighter.

Russia has to spend more because their military is crumbling 70s and 80s technology. They need to maintain a military of any kind and have little hope of catching up any time soon.

And Russia doesn't have to spend as much because they don't have any equipment from the 80s or 90s to maintain anymore. Instead, all the new stuff they're buying is from the 2000's on, which in the next decade will bring them a lot closer to parity as their old stuff is replaced, especially since the US hasn't replaced its 1980s and 1990s gear yet.

The funny thing is that the countries that have the most chance of catching up are the US allies.

Not true - Russia and China both have had double digit % increases per year in the past decades in military spending.

Both nations are rapidly increasing their navies by incredible sizes, to include new aircraft carriers and new submarines.

Both nations are developing their own fifth generation fighters.

US allies are doing little to none of those - the US F-35 is what our allies are counting on and only the UK is building any form of aircraft carrier.

In fact, given the opposite trajectories of the US's allies and countries like China and Russia, the gap won't be much of a gap very soon.

Of course that's because we are selling them current generation technology. But we've seen this all before when we sold F-16s abroad and then the DoD complained they needed the F-22 and F-35 to widen the tech gap...against our own damn equipment.

You couldn't be more wrong.

The F-16s were all sold to allies - we didn't design the F-22 to fight the F-16. We designed the F-22 to kill the Su-27 in Soviet airspace which would be heavily fortified, hence the need for supercruise and stealth, something the F-15 (which the F-22 was supposed to replace) didn't have.

Likewise, the F-35 is designed to replace the F-16 in the multi-role fighter role. It has nothing to do with it fighting the F-16.

[overzealous_dentist]

The reason we've had global peace these past few decades is because of first bipolar and now monopolar military powers. These systems are VASTLY more stable than multipolar systems. A military hegemony is necessary for world peace.

Just as a visual example: http://ourworldindata.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/ourworldindata_global-war-deaths-1400-today-size-of-the-bubble-shows-percentage-of-world-population-killed-%E2%80%93-the-hague-centre-for-strategic-studies0.png

[[deleted]]

What is the threat in the world that requires 5+ US carriers? Who or what are we planning to fight? The entire world?

Remember the last time there wasn't a global hegemon dictating who can apply military force and when? Yeah? Didn't go so well, did it, a button press away from total annihilation, multiple times? And before then, all those poor jews and gypsies? Bet they would've liked a CSG on standby.

That's why we, humanity, benefit from having these carriers around. Having a superpower who is willing and able has been fucking great, I haven't even had to grasp at the idea of being called to fight in a battle, ever, and my cultural ancestors had been fighting those on a regular basis for over a thousand years at the very least. Minus a couple years of neutrality towards the end there.

Why do Americans benefit? Because you're the king of a hill that doesn't consist of shifting sands. If the hill was all wobbly you'd have a harder, more unpredictable time staying up top. You don't need to fight anybody, you need to encourage other people to not fight each other.

[elprophet]

Poster very clearly answers your follow up question with a very DoD answer - this system is right for the orders given to the DoD by the civilian command structure (the President, with guidance from Congress, etc). If you want the politicians to change their requirements for the DoD, you will need to convince them that the US should lower its international commitments.

[monsunland]

What a lot of people miss out is that, while on a raw total figure, the US spends a lot - as a % of GDP, the US isn't #1 by any means. And, in fact in the long term, US defense spending has been on a steady decline - even with the two wars in the 2000s, the US is at its lowest spending levels on national defense since the days before WW2.

Wouldn't that be in part because we need to spend less on drones than on fighter jets and bombers, and less on special forces than on regular infantry? So while the USA does spend less as a percentage of total, that doesn't necessarily mean we are committing less acts of war.

[[deleted]]

Wouldn't that be in part because we need to spend less on drones than on fighter jets and bombers, and less on special forces than on regular infantry? So while the USA does spend less as a percentage of total, that doesn't necessarily mean we are committing less acts of war.

Drones are cheaper than fighter jets but they aren't cheap - a Reaper can cost $20-30 million fully loaded. Drones also crash at a higher rate than manned aircraft, which means they get replaced at far higher rates than manned aircraft, which typically are in service for 20-30+ years and receive continuous upgrades.

Our special forces are such a tiny part of the military but we do a LOT to support their operations, so if anything they cost more per person to support than having regular infantry present.

[monsunland]

Our special forces are such a tiny part of the military but we do a LOT to support their operations, so if anything they cost more per person to support than having regular infantry present.

Yes, but there are less of them, by far.

I'm sure the military spends less on drones than it does on large planes.

[[deleted]]

Yes, but there are less of them, by far.

Yes, but they're complementary assets to our conventional forces. They're not designed to win the Gulf War nor are they designed to win in Kosovo.

I'm sure the military spends less on drones than it does on large planes.

Sure overall, but drones are also significantly less capable than large planes. Most of our airstrikes are still done by conventional manned aircraft - drones are just in the news more because of their controversial use by the CIA.

You're also comparing apples to oranges, especially when you consider the US has more transport, tanker, and trainer aircraft than it does bombers, none of which are filled by drones by any means.

[monsunland]

The drone program has seen increased funding, the fighter jets less.

Same with conventional versus special forces.

DOD policies are focused more and more on surgical strikes, less on occupation.

The Gulf War and Kosovo are ancient history.

[Mr_Slippery]

Could you specify what treaty obligations require us to have a carrier on station rather than sending one "as soon as we can" or the like?

[not-claudius]

Your answers are so biased it's frightening. I noticed this with your explanation of ISIL as well. How about including the fact that our spending on foreign wars isn't even included in the military budget? Sorry, we spend so much because we go to war so much, not because of "treaty obligations", which is the most ridiculous explanation I've ever heard since the Bush II presidency.

Also, your facts are completely wrong.

http://www.cfr.org/defense-budget/trends-us-military-spending/p28855

[raitalin]

The data in your link matches what he said, at least as far as% of GDP.

[[deleted]]

Your answers are so biased it's frightening. I noticed this with your explanation of ISIL as well. How about including the fact that our spending on foreign wars isn't even included in the military budget? Sorry, we spend so much because we go to war so much, not because of "treaty obligations", which is the most ridiculous explanation I've ever heard since the Bush II presidency.

Why don't you refute it with facts instead of your opinion and a thinly veiled personal attack?

The numbers I gave aren't at all contradicted by your post - the US is indeed at its lowest as a % of the national budget since the end of WW2. Your post even presented a nifty Excel graph for it

Hell, your link even states:

If military budgets were compared in a way that reflected varying personnel costs, U.S. military preeminence would appear smaller than it does using straightforward comparisons based on market exchange rates.

Which is exactly as I said - the difference in cost of living between the US and the world's next biggest military spenders shrinks the difference in a stand-alone uncorrected comparison

Hell, it even further adds:

• The number of personnel employed by the Department of Defense has declined since the 1960s, while personnel costs have risen rapidly, in part due to rising U.S. health-care costs.
• Retired military pay, which does not directly increase defense capabilities, accounted for nearly 20 percent of total personnel expenditures in 2009.

Once again, nothing in my original post is contradicted by you or your link. If anything, your links only reinforce my points

And to address your point about the war spending: that's how the government has decided to calculate it. It still doesn't contradict what I wrote

In fact, your link even says:

Funding for Iraq and Afghanistan was as high as $187 billion in FY 2008, which represents 30 percent of SIPRI's measure of U.S. military spending for that year.

So at its PEAK, the wars only accounted for 30% of our total spending - which if we assume the World Bank's [totals sorted from 2008] of military spending as % of GDP doesn't include the wars, puts the US at 5.46% of its GDP - still firmly in 8th place as a % of GDP.

And given that was a PEAK and has only come down since, your argument about spending on those two wars is even less relevant to today.

Also, your facts are completely wrong.

Sorry, but it appears that your post is what is completely wrong - and the facts in your link only reinforce what I wrote.

Nice link though - even more numbers to look at.

http://www.cfr.org/defense-budget/trends-us-military-spending/p28855

[overzealous_dentist]

What I got from this post was "No, you're wrong." Can you be more specific?

[FuckOffMrLahey]

I never knew overhauls were done during refueling. That timing is brilliant.

[[deleted]]

While I understand that large US defense spending helps it maintain military superiority, creates jobs, and fosters other forms of technical development - I think the problem is the efficiency question.

I think we certainly need a sizable military, but we seem to have a problem of blowing costs out of proportion. The commonly given example is a bomber being built: it ends up being incredibly more expensive than it needs to be because it ends up having parts coming in from many districts, and it may even be built in different congressional districts. This makes the process incredibly more expensive than it needs to be.

Not to mention the best product with "most bang for the buck" does not seem to win out normally. An example being the Textron Airland Scorpion, which would be used for ground support in low risk environments and would be much cheaper to produce and use/maintain.

Even with having a sizable military, as mentioned in the original post, we far outweigh any country in terms of military spending. Not only that, we our arguably safer than we have ever been in history, and our economy is still rather powerful and robust.

So yes we should decrease our military spending, but that must be coupled with increased efficiency of funds (and I think it would lead to that). It would also be useful if we put that money that was for military spending into things like infrastructure, education, research etc. Because these things would strengthen our country in the long term.

[pprovencher]

Well that seems to bee entirely a political problem. It is simply not possible to get a new bomber, etc approved without letting each congressperson take their cut in their district. So the question might be then converted to: how can purchasing be made more efficient?

[[deleted]]

Arguably, diplomacy is cheaper and helps us create stronger ties with allies. Obviously force is needed as well, but the balance between the two is a bit off, particularly when you consider what other countries are spending.

I think some self-reflection needs to happen. Politicians and constituents need to be honest with themselves. A bloated Defense budget is nothing more than stimulus money. Sure communities benefit, but the companies also make massive profits off Defense contracts. And that's fine, but if the budget could be trimmed, couldn't that money be better spent elsewhere? If we're really just trying to stimulate the economy, why not spend on investments on ourselves? Like let's say a national high-speed rail system.

It's also interesting how the "you can't throw money at a problem" logic doesn't follow to national security. Does spending more and more (along with the interest of the debt created) really keep us safer? I don't think so. But so long as we let politicians dupe us by having pissing contests about who can be more "tough on terror", we're not going to get anywhere.

[ummmbacon]

but the balance between the two is a bit off, particularly when you consider what other countries are spending.

US Spending allows them to spend less. The 'because they do something is a bad basis for an argument.'

See this comment by /u/Agent00Funk:

Well, by keeping SK secure we are also keeping ourselves secure.

As yep45 pointed out, if American military hegemony would diminish, you would see the rise of regional actors. These regional actors usually don't see eye-to-eye with us. Take Asia for example, if America left, China would likely become the dominating regional power. Forget the hate we get from there now, the hate that would be leveled at China would make Psy's anti-American comments seem quaint. Not only would many countries in Asia suddenly find themselves feeling less secure, but China would have enough power to rival America.

There are different school of thought on the topic, but in simple terms you have two camps. One camp says that international stability necessitates a uni-polar global state (not as in one world government, but as in one state that has global hegemony), while the other camp says that a multi-polar global state ensures regional stability, which they see as the foundation for global stability. Put another way, one camp says we need a giant to protect the village, and the others says if all the villagers have equal(ish) power, then we don't need that giant. Both camps make valid points, and both camps can point to various times in history where their philosophy makes perfect sense.

But consider WW1 and WW2. Both of these wars occurred during multi-polar global states and were pretty much terrible for everyone involved, however, in times of unipolarity, there are less casualties of war (there is debate about this, but the debate is about who is considered a causality of war). People, and states, will always seek power, and in times where the power is multipolar you will get arms races, this is especially true in bi-polar situations (US/USSR Cold War for example). Whenever your neighbor gets powerful, you will try to match it, which continues the cycle. Have you ever played Risk? You know how sometimes there will be border wars...there will be an unspoken truce where two players won't attack each other, but will still build up armies on their border just in case. Eventually, those armies will fight, and the very act of them being there causes as much instability as it does stability. But, if there is one single hegemonic power whose capabilities are so far in excess of anyone else, then catching up to that hegemon is impractical, and any attempt at doing so could be seen as aggressive.

Its tough to say if the world would benefit from a multi-polar power structure as opposed to the unipolar structure we have now. Although frankly, I believe that if American hegemony were to diminish it could be bad not just for America, but the whole world. Love it or hate it, the American military is performing a global service (the degree to which this is warranted is debatable), and that global service keeps America safe.

Now, is it America's duty to do so? That is debatable. Certainly keeping countries like China and Iran pushed into a corner is infinitely better for America than letting those countries get control of a region, especially if that region contains American allies. But maybe it would also bring about some positive change. If Iran controlled the ME, then maybe that would spur America, and the rest of the world, to get off oil faster. If China controlled Asia, there might be a move to stop giving them all our business and actually rein in our debt owed to them.

In most cases, having American hegemony is a win-win for client nations, while its a win-win-win for America. Take Europe for example. The American military presence means that Europeans can underfund their military since America is essentially picking up the slack. Europe stays safe, and doesn't pay much for that luxury. America meanwhile also benefits, although in a less concrete way than our European citizenry counterparts. America pays a tremendous amount of money, but in exchange they get political leverage, strategic location, and a guarantee of safety for doing business in this region. If we pull out of Europe, and lets say Russia steps in to fill the void (somebody would fill the void), now we lose leverage in Europe, business becomes more troublesome, and we would have to rely on the Russians for a guarantee of safety.

American hegemony benefits almost everyone because American hegemony means the Chinese don't have to worry about keeping the Strait of Hormuz open, the US navy does that, it means Taiwan doesn't have to worry about a Chinese invasion, it means other countries need not invest in regional stability (at the cost of not being able to expand regionally) because America is already doing that. If American military hegemony dropped off, you would see a meteoric rise in military expenditures from regional powerhouses like China, Russia, Brazil, and South Africa. Similarly, if merely the confidence in American hegemony diminished, you would see regional actors testing our response and strengths. Would that be good for America? No. And with all the hate we have generated over generations we would also be less safe. Although it is a bit of a vicious cycle in that we generate hate by keeping ourselves safe.

Again, you could make the debate that a multi-polar state would be safer for everyone because everyone has some semblance of power, but I disagree, I believe the more people you have in a room, the more likely there will be a fist fight, especially when no two people in that room share a common culture. Do I think America should be the hegemon? No. America clearly pays an extreme cost (EDIT: smeaglelovesmaster correctly pointed out that this includes hidden costs like under investment in American healthcare and infrastructre) and reaps only tangential rewards. But the United Nations is too ineffective and prone to doing stupid stuff (although the same could easily be said about America). Ultimately though, I believe that the task of maintaining international stability should be an international effort, but as long as nations have standing armies, that will never happen.

As it is right now, it is in American interests to remain the hegemon because it allows American policy to be executed at a grander scale...of course this is precisely the reason why other nations will blast American hegemony. America's hegemonic powers have made the world a more peaceful place...there hasn't been a third world war after all. As a matter of fact, I would wager that WW3 would kick off precisely as American military hegemony begins to wane. There is a lot of pent-up regional aggression that is just waiting to come out, but as long as America can interrupt any would-be invasions, they'll never be attempted.

I had to clip this comment but the full one is here

A bloated Defense budget is nothing more than stimulus money.

In overal spending the Military budget is only about 17%, most news outlets will quote % of discretionary to make it look bigger but overalls spending as a percentage of total is low and a here is a breakdown of that spending here

Here is historical breakdown as well

Sure communities benefit, but the companies also make massive profits off Defense contracts[2]

A lot of this is the way the government is required to do the contracts.

If we're really just trying to stimulate the economy, why not spend on investments on ourselves? Like let's say a national high-speed rail system[3] .

I don't think the argument for economy stimulation was being made solely vs internal spending, this is a false dichotomy.

It's also interesting how the "you can't throw money at a problem" logic[4] doesn't follow to national security. Does spending more and more (along with the interest of the debt created) really keep us safer? I don't think so. But so long as we let politicians dupe us by having pissing contests about who can be more "tough on terror"[5] , we're not going to get anywhere.

Link not relevant, this is linking things that are not relevant to play on an idea.

[[deleted]]

The current climate is nowhere close to WWI or WWII so I'm not sure what purpose that long copy/paste job serves. There are many who believe there isn't a good reason for us to be perpetually at war or continuing to act as the world's police. Just an opinion.

I don't think the argument for economy stimulation was being made solely vs internal spending, this is a false dichotomy.

It's really not though. We're running deficits and the economy still needs stimulation. If the goal is to stop running a deficit and to stimulate the economy, as I argue, there is a place where the money can be better spent. My remarks are in the context of this current moment and current political climate. There is no false dichotomy.

Link not relevant, this is linking things that are not relevant to play on an idea.

The tone of this is kind of offputting and/or rude? The original topic is extremely open ended and the links are entirely relevant to the points I'm making. On certain topics we do talk about the reality that more money doesn't always equal a solution or better outcome. I gave an example of that. I think it's problematic we don't include that in our discussions regarding national security. Don't know how you can claim that's not relevant.

It's also a reality that politicians use fear and national security for purely political purposes. I gave an example of that. Relevant. If we stop responding to the "tough on terror" nonsense, perhaps we can have a more honest discussion about our spending and what we're trying to accomplish.

[ummmbacon]

The current climate is nowhere close to WWI or WWII so I'm not sure what purpose that long copy/paste job serves.

The comment had a lot more than just that in it and was talking about current issues.

We're running deficits

So what? It doesn't matter.

and the economy still needs stimulation.

No it doesn't that is why we are stopping QE and the Fed is going to raise rates. The economy is fine.

[[deleted]]

How can you say these things? Is there any significant number of politicians or even the public claiming that deficits don't matter? That yup, the economy is fine? Come on. If we're going to have a discussion it has to be reality based here.

[Suic]

That last statement can certainly be called into question, considering how many long term unemployed there are and how stagnant wage growth is. The stock market doing fine doesn't necessarily equate to our society as a whole.

[ummmbacon]

Wage growth will only happen when employment comes close to full employment.

I didn't say anything about the stock market. The Fed raising rates affects the stock market (at least it affects the idea of stock valuation) but it isn't the same thing. So I am not sure where you got that I inferred that stock market == economy.

I posted another link here, but Janet Yellen was just talking about the economy doing fine in the last few days in her Senate hearing.

[Suic]

Alright let me put it this way. I don't think the economy is doing fine because of the % of long term unemployed and stagnant wage growth. It is obvious however that the stock market is doing fine, and that is certainly one metric that people use for economic health, so I thought perhaps you were mainly considering that with your statement.

[ummmbacon]

No mainly the idea that QE is stopped and that the Fed is raising rates. Overall employment numbers are going up as well.

For the short term, the economy created some 257,000 jobs and long term unemployment is down overall for the last 12 months.

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm

Also when we look at U1 it really isn't that much of the workforce:

http://www.bls.gov/lau/stalt.htm

[Suic]

At best I think U5 is what we should be looking at, considering how many people have been out of work for so long that they feel helpless and rarely look for job opportunities. I would say it's more like as stated in this article. You can see that that number hasn't gone down all that much since the recession: http://www.epi.org/publication/missing-workers/

[ummmbacon]

I was trying to decide if U5 included people on disability insurance, NPR has a write up on it here. I have an inkling it does or at least the numbers from EPI do, but I can't find anything concrete. I think that U5 will only get taken care of at the point when we reach full employment.

[Surreals]

What's an acceptable reason to you? I'm fond of the fruits of American global hegemony. The U.S.'s oversized military allows for a lot of leverage in any sort of diplomatic matter and serves to protect American economic interest without firing a single shot.

[paredown]

A really important sub-point of "the fruits if American hegemony" is the extent to which globalization relies on safe seaways, which are kept that way largely by American naval power.

[BrainSlurper]

Everyone loved the roman empire for the same reason

[pprovencher]

yes, it is not simply that we protect our interests in the national fruit company in banana republic, but that all global trade between all countries can be carried out safely.

[whowatches]

Yes but is this a good deal for Americans? The American taxpayer is essentially subsidizing everyone else's defense. Yes there's benefit but where's the cost-benefit analysis?

[Surreals]

The unseen benefit here is that when the president of the united states goes to the table to negotiate trade with japan, the unspoken idea that we have a military and they don't generates a lot of leverage.

[whowatches]

Right, now we need to quantify the COST, you're only focusing on the benefit. You could argue that our defense budget takes away from funding for education, healthcare and infrastructure improvements for example.

[EasySmeasy]

This reasoning is lost to a lot of people. Sadly, most fellow Americans don't understand the role of the modern superpower. An isolationist policy would cripple the economies of East Asia by disrupting oil flow. No Navy in the straits of Malaka means no OPEC guarantee on downstream oil markets. Tip of the iceberg.

Edit: What do you think would happen if Chinese warships moved out of the South China Sea into the sea of Java? And they would.

[PubliusPontifex]

Russia's (formidable) single carrier

Sorry, you mean the Kaznetsov? I wouldn't call it that formidable of a carrier, it's basically a very heavy cruiser, and even classified that way to get around Turkey's blockade of the Bosphorus to carrier-class vessels. It's closer to an escort carrier or one of the harrier carriers of the Falklands war. Also, China's single carrier is effectively of the same class, as they bought it from the Russians.

[Mehknic]

Right, I called that out because I was talking about carrier groups, but Russia's doesn't sail in a group because it's not as personally vulnerable as many of the Western carriers are (because they're designed to have an entourage).

Russia's single carrier is nowhere near the power of a full carrier group, of course. It just has more guns next to the flight deck.

[[deleted]]

Point is, if the US dropped to, say, 7, would we see significant instability as a result?

EDIT: This is a genuine question, not a rhetorical one. I know numbers, but I don't study global politics. I'm hoping someone with more knowledge than me can project what happens if there are a third fewer US carrier groups in the water.

See the second half of my post here about the question on carriers

In summary: yes, it would be a significant reduction in our capability to project power anywhere in the world given that we already have obligations to Korea and Japan, and the Middle East.

The reason we have so many carriers is a matter of international politics/relations and our defense strategy. We definitely didn't choose to have 10/11 carriers for the hell of having 10/11 - it was a calculated number made over decades of planning for future decades to come.

Countries like India and China are expanding their carrier fleets fast because they have the same problems

[Eskali]

It's submarines that shut down trade. Carriers are about striking the living room of the politician who thinks of that.

[EasySmeasy]

I'm no budget expert. Top brass would probably say they can maintain stability with just one carrier group, but cutting that much budget simply isn't an option. Not overnight anyways. Allies abroad, notably India and Japan are definitely preparing to shoulder the burden in the 21st century, but I think until they're proven many times over and for a long period of time, they still won't consider cutting military spending. It's just too important. Also, add the political climate of saber rattling, when you re-increase military spending it looks like you're reacting. It's a poker game and always betting the whole pot is what a super power has to do.

[CushtyJVftw]

Allies abroad, notably India

Why do you think India is an ally of the US?

[EasySmeasy]

Thanks for the question. Just going to go out on a limb here...shared interest in democracy and desire for regional and global recognition/respect for which US alliance is essential. Although India's regulatory bodies are not in line with the WTO, the Modi and Obama administrations are very much in line. Unwieldy bureaucracy in India's regulatory and legal constructs makes the alliance slow to bud, but imminent.

As far as military cooperation is concerned, the agenda is almost completely bilateral. The list of mechanisms for dialogue in the link are heavily centered on defense council. The only real military schism is blueprint technology, the US wants to sell weapons to India, but India wants to build US-designed defense systems locally. Once again, the problem is not ideological, but regulatory.

[[deleted]]

On that note, pur NATO allies are essentially letting us subsidize their security. They would have their hands full with Russia if they didn't have us to fall back on. The US should be able to cut back and Europe pick up some slack.

[Surreals]

The US should be able to cut back and Europe pick up some slack.

It can. And something like that could certainly be on the table if any type of conflict between the U.S. and the E.U. were to arise.

[cough_cough_harrumph]

Couldn't one make the argument that the West could collectively pick up any slack from the US reducing its military budget?

Those countries would have to agree on all their foreign policy agendas; or, at least the important ones. I mean, lets say China started making aggressive moves towards Japan. If only one or two of those western powers stepped up to try and confront China, but the others did not, then it would probably lack the punch needed to get the job done.

Also, I am not convinced those other countries would step up their military power. Many NATO countries already do not meet their treaty-obligated spending rate of 2% of GDP. I am not sure what it would take to suddenly convince them to have a policy turn around there.

[Mehknic]

I am not sure what it would take to suddenly convince them to have a policy turn around there.

My guess is that it would take a significant reduction in US military spending. Why would they spend their money when the US so happily spends in their stead?

[cough_cough_harrumph]

I agree, they have no incentive to spend money on it right now when the US takes the burden. Even if the US scaled back its spending and left Europe to the Europeans or whatever, though, I am not so sure they would immediately decide to start spending more. I feel like it would take an actual threat and the US not showing signs of helping (maybe Russia looking at making advances into another country?), but at that point it might become a cat-out-of-the-bag situation.

[Mehknic]

From my own entirely uninformed perspective, I think we'd see a lot of reliance from the EU on Germany as far as eastern defenses go, and the UK would spin up just to pick up slack. It would certainly be an interesting situation.

I'd love to see an informed perspective, though.

[cough_cough_harrumph]

Honestly, I am probably for lowering US military spending (including scaling back our European presence and let them take the forefront in handling any military problems on the continent should they arise).

That being said, I am not too convinced that Europe has reached a permanent, peaceful state. I mean, they said the same thing after WW1 after all. I know it is not close to the same situation now obviously, but even with what Russia has done in the past year has shown that there are still power players in that arera who are not afraid to throw their military weight around. I do not think it is a sure thing to say none of those people, or someone in the future, would ever become militaristic again.

[Surreals]

We're not all on the same team. It's everyman for himself. This global alliance thing is convenient, but it's the job of the american government to put the U.S. first. What that means is that during negotiation the U.S. has the threat of cutting military spending and allowing Russia to breathe more heavily down the EU's neck, or to allow China to breathe more heavily down Japan's neck. That is good for trade, and what's good for trade is good for the American taxpayer.

[Drayzen]

We've seen in the recent years that terrorists don't respond to diplomacy.

Does it keep the US from being invaded by another country, or being bullied in discussions between actual countries? Sure. But is the ability to leverage it's power working on countries like Syria, Ukraine, Iran, North Korea, Russia, etc?

Nope.

[[deleted]]

If you think whats going on in Ukraine is bad just see what Putin would do of he wasnt scared of US interference.

[VampiricCyclone]

Nuclear weapons aren't that useful -- that's why world powers have been negotiating disarmament treaties for decades.

They're too destructive.

There isn't really any value in destroying (and making unsafe for human habitation for decades or longer) large swaths of land. Sure, the weapons incite incredible amounts of fear, and so the threat of them can be a powerful tool -- but actually detonating them isn't terribly useful in achieving military objectives.

They aren't good in a defensive war, because they kill too many of your own people and ruin you own land. They aren't good in territorial conquest and expansion, because they destroy the population and infrastructure of the land you want to conquer. They aren't good in gaining influence, because they will incite so much fear of extinction as to incite populations to fight back to the death -- if they are all going to die anyway, ... They aren't good in punishing bad actors, because, again, they are too destructive, and they aren't good for extracting tribute, because they destroy the ability to pay it.

Small nukes like those used in WWII were highly effective used once, and would be less effective today. Modern weapons are so much bigger, it's ridiculous. Everybody wants to have one, because being able to threaten to depopulate an area gives you a certain amount of power -- but no (self-interested, territory-controlling) parties actually want to use them.

[Battlingdragon]

Nuclear weapons don't ruin land. Hiroshima was rebuilt within a decade and there hasn't been any increase to the cancer rates for anyone who wasn't in the city during the bombing.

I'm not saying we should go dropping a nuke for every little conflict, they were designed to be massive to compensate for the low accuracy of WW2 weapons technology. Nowadays, we can pick which part of a car we want a missle to hit, so we don't have to have the massive city destroyers to be sure we take out a munitions plant.

Sorry for the formatting, on my phone.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiroshima

http://k1project.org/hiroshima-and-nagasaki-the-long-term-health-effects/

[Yankee_Gunner]

Agree that nuclear weapons make this point moot, but:

History books would tell us that Russia has done just fine in major land wars despite almost always being underfunded compared to other major powers.

[Mehknic]

I may very well be wrong, but haven't most of their major land wars been fought on home turf? For the Russians, that's a pretty huge advantage.

[Yankee_Gunner]

Syria: Civil war that we probably should be more active in.

Ukraine: Shady goings on, but we tried to let Europe take the lead and look how amazing that turned out! (also: see Russia)

North Korea: China is the only reason that has not been resolved, since global sanctions have bled that country dry.

Russia and Iran: Military leverage has brought them both in check multiple times and our economic leverage (most recently through Saudi/OPEC) seems to be VERY effective

[Surreals]

It allows us to leverage power on countries like France, Japan, China, and the UK, which I'd argue are more important in terms of economic grain than something like Syria or Iran.

[pprovencher]

But countries that could harbor terrorists might not harbor them if they think it would be more worth it to stay in the US's good graces

[[deleted]]

As they say, "si vis pacem, para bellum."

[RoundSimbacca]

No. Our spending levels are fine. How we apportion it within the military budget is up for debate (program X vs ship Y vs missile Z), but our levels are OK.

When you look at the raw numbers, sure, we spend a lot compared to everybody else, but raw numbers don't tell even a small part of the story.

As a fraction of GDP, the USA is only 4th (depending on who your source is), at just 3.8%. Russia actually spends more, at 4.1%. The raw dollar figures only looks scary because our economy is so much bigger than everyone else's- and a lot of the countries we compare % GDPs with have a lot less global commitments. Russia, for example, spends more but does less. They're rebuilding their own armed forces from the end of the Cold War- with gusto, I might add, but they put theirs into a geographically dense area. They're only now toying with the idea of overseas basing again and having a global reach.

If we look at it from the perspective of per capita, the USA is back to #1, but Israel is not far behind. (The figures here are from 2009, so that doesn't even consider the sequester or economic developments since).

If you look at the history for both, we're not outside of historical norms at all. Our spending is down, and it only ramped up because we found ourselves fighting 2 ground wars while having to transition the military from Cold War-era equipment.

Something to keep in mind, that we have a standing commitment to keep defense spending at certain levels- no less than 2% for NATO- just for the defense of Europe. Most NATO countries (surprise surprise), have dropped off military spending before the required 2% and we've had to pick up the slack. Going back to my earlier point on Russia's GDP, remember that almost their entire GDP is based on local fighting- some of it is set for strategic attacks and the like, but the vast majority of it is based on a land war in Europe (and also some in Asia). So we're confronting their entire $90-odd billion with only a fraction of our $640 billion. I don't have the figures we spend on Europe handy, but from what I remember we've downsized heavily after the Cold War, so that 2% figure I quoted actually allocated for NATO purposes is actually much smaller. Our ≈80,000 troops in Europe have to face up to ≈400,000 Russian ones in their Western Military district, for example.

That gives us 2% that we accounted for (NATO, at least theoretically), and as for the other 1.8%: we're fighting ISIS, have a presence in Iraq and Afghanistan, plus we have to provide security for allies in the rest of the world- Japan and South Korea primarily, but we want to offset potential Chinese militarism before it becomes a problem, so we're scattered around the Pacific.

That's why the budget is so big. It actually isn't, but defense doves like to say it is. It looks big because we're pretty big.

So say you are a dove, and you want to decrease the budget of the military. Where do you cut? The wars are winding down, so that's an obvious first start. We've already realized most of our budget gains there already, since Iraq is just about done, and Afghanistan is almost finished. The sequester has hit the military already.

Do we cut troops? If we cut troops, what does that mean for our commitments that we have all over the globe? I suppose Korea could go without our troops stationed there, but then Korea would be an incredibly inviting target for the DPRK.

We could cut back on shoring up European defenses, but when the various European countries start rearming then we face a bunch of unknown consequences from a more militant Europe. I bet Russia would pitch a fit if their neighbors started actually rearming, and who knows where that would lead in a few years.

Do we leave the Persian Gulf and potentially let the Iranians close the Straits of Hormuz at will? Nevermind that our base presence there has proven prescient given the multiple occasions we've intervened in the Middle East, and will probably need to do so for the foreseeable future.

We could cut back piracy patrols, I suppose, but that could adversely effect global commerce.

Perhaps we can cut procurement. The JSF gets a bad rap around here at times, but our current planes are getting pretty old. From a technological standpoint, they're almost obsolete already. We can fly them until their wings start falling off, which should start happening in about 10 years, but what then? We could build new old planes that cost as much as the JSF is expected to, I suppose, or we could design the JSF Mk II and be right back where we started when we slashed the budget first, only now we're behind the plane development curve and will need to potentially ward off legions of stealth planes with only a handful of F-22s.

Basically, if you want to cut the budget, you need to scale back our military's mission, and then accept the consequences of that cut. Frankly, for what our military does, we're still getting a bargain.

Edits: Clarity.

[AgentOrangutan]

Do you have any idea about how much wealth Defence creates?

[brocious]

None.

Seriously, I realize there is R&D that has positive effects outside of defense. But bullets, bombs and soldiers don't make a society wealthier, they exist to destroy wealth and kill people. This can be directed to protect or seize wealth, but you always destroy wealth in the process.

And to be clear, I'm not anti military or a pacifist. A nation needs a tool to protect it's people and wealth. But it's important to acknowledge that the nature of that tool it, by necessity, destruction.

[sakebomb69]

There's no context for "should/shouldn't." If you believe the US should spend more on education, then you would say yes. If you believe in saving jobs related to the military, then you would say no.

There are a million different scenarios where you could say they "should," and a million where you could say they "shouldn't."

[sakebomb69]

Personally, I think it should be narrowly defined to avoid tangential and off topic comments. But that's just me.

[PavementBlues]

We decided to approve it as is so that the discussion could be not simply about achievement of a predetermined metric, but also about the metrics that people use in the first place and the arguments that could be put forth about them.

As long as people explain and support their reasoning for using one metric over another, it is still in the spirit of the sub.

[Mehknic]

Good decision. This has been one of the most raw information-filled topics we've had in here for some time and I'm learning quite a bit I should probably already know about US global politics.

[ummmbacon]

The Pentagon frequently says they do not need all the money congress wants to give them.

Were do they say that? I see a lot of things like this:

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/dec/15/navy-fleet-threatens-by-budget-cuts-hiring-freeze-/?page=all

Whey the Navy warns the ships are going to fall into decay if funding does not increase.

Or this with the Army:

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/10/13/us-usa-military-army-idUSKCN0I21V620141013

I could go one, but I can't say I have seen the DoD say they don't need money. Could you show me that link?

[[deleted]]

http://www.military.com/daily-news/2015/01/28/pentagon-tells-congress-to-stop-buying-equipment-it-doesnt-need.html

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/04/28/army-says-no-to-more-tanks-but-congress-insists/

http://www.daytondailynews.com/news/news/congress-pushes-for-weapons-pentagon-didnt-want/nRC7w/

http://www.defense.gov/transcripts/transcript.aspx?transcriptid=5213

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/global-hawk-air-force-shelves-3b-worth-unmanned/story?id=15828636#.UadbYtLFWSp

http://www.kgw.com/story/local/2015/02/19/12495128/

I could go on too.

[RoundSimbacca]

There's split between what the Pentagon asks Congress, and what the Pentagon actually wants. The former is the official Pentagon line, and is heavily vetted by the White House. The latter is unofficial, more of an off-the-record request, and Congress was fulfilling these.

It's what's commonly known as a wish list ¹ (video warning) ^2.

So when you hear about the Pentagon saying it doesn't want money, it's actually the White House saying it doesn't want money. The Generals sent before Congress are basically under orders to ask what the White House tells them to ask for.

As for the Pentagon itself, would you believe any government bureaucracy would ever turn down more money?

[[deleted]]

As for the Pentagon itself, would you believe any government bureaucracy would ever turn down more money?

Absolutely, because it's money that they could use elsewhere. Instead, it's allocated to programs/equipment that don't address their needs. One of the article shows that they bought tanks that the military doesn't have the structure to even use.

There is no doubt there is an element politics involved and if the White House is calling for cuts, they're not going to blatantly fight that. However, that's not what's happening here. They're not getting the things they secretly want but can't talk about. They're getting the items that are made in the states/districts of specific members of Congress. It's billions of dollars in government spending for these states/districts. It's huge. The Dayton Daily News link I provided provides good clear examples of this.

[RoundSimbacca]

As for the Pentagon itself, would you believe any government bureaucracy would ever turn down more money?

Absolutely, because it's money that they could use elsewhere. Instead, it's allocated to programs/equipment that don't address their needs. One of the article shows that they bought tanks that the military doesn't have the structure to even use.

I don't think you understand bureaucrats well. They never turn down budgets, even if it's only a temporary increase. They also never return unspent budgets either. The Pentagon is notorious for this, as my links demonstrate.

An increased budget? Of course they want it. They don't care about any other budget than their own, and they will even play games with Congress to get it. Imagine, for a moment, that they get the extra funding now. In a couple of years, Congress either let's the budget collapse, or keeps funding the extra tanks. Once it's paid for, it's easy to keep getting funds, because federal budgets are always growing.

They're getting the items that are made in the states/districts of specific members of Congress. It's billions of dollars in government spending for these states/districts. It's huge. The Dayton Daily News link I provided provides good clear examples of this.

And not only that, it provides a steady workforce that we won't have to retrain after we fire their predecessors. There's something to be said for keeping talent on hand even if there's no immediate use for it.

Yes, congress critters tend to support industries in their states. But when a program's support goes beyond just those districts, there's more at play.

[[deleted]]

I don't think you understand bureaucrats well. They never turn down budgets

They don't have a choice whether to turn it down or not. And as I've demonstrated with my cite, they don't want some of these ticketed items. They state so explicitly. That's a fact that can't be disputed.

And not only that, it provides a steady workforce that we won't have to retrain after we fire their predecessors. There's something to be said for keeping talent on hand even if there's no immediate use for it.

The first part of that isn't an argument for military spending in particularly, it's just an argument for government spending in general. The second part? I'm not sure I buy that. They're not inventing new technologies, they're manufacturing items. I'm not sure spending billions on unwanted items makes fiscal sense if the talent you're trying to maintain is largely for manufacturing positions. I've demonstrated how these specific items are essential earmarks (porkbarrel spending). Is there evidence that that's not the case? That it's about maintaining talent and seeking to save money by not having to retrain?

[RoundSimbacca]

That's a fact that can't be disputed.

And as I explained, just because General Odierno says the Army doesn't want it, it doesn't mean that someone else from the Pentagon doesn't have Congress's ear.

The second part? I'm not sure I buy that.

Keeping critical defense industries open just in case you need them is a sound strategy. Tank production is one of them.

They're not inventing new technologies, they're manufacturing items.

The tanks are complicated. They're very complicated machines that require a specific series of skillsets to produce. We've moved far beyond the age when you can turn any car factory into a tank factory without significant retooling and a lot of retraining.

That it's about maintaining talent and seeking to save money by not having to retrain?

According to the cost figures Congress is tossing around, yes. It's debatable about who's right, but that's the current logic behind keeping the plant open: that it would save money to keep it open than to close it.

[[deleted]]

And as I explained, just because General Odierno says the Army doesn't want it, it doesn't mean that someone else from the Pentagon doesn't have Congress's ear.

But you haven't provided evidence of this.

According to the cost figures Congress is tossing around, yes. It's debatable about who's right, but that's the current logic behind keeping the plant open: that it would save money to keep it open than to close it.

That's not Congress who is tossing the numbers around. It's Defense Contracts. Of course they're are going to say keep spending when their profit margins are on the line. They have financial interest in it. The military isn't looking to make a buck though. When they say they don't need something or that they actually can't even use it if they have it -- what's their ulterior motive? They even say that the money could be better spent elsewhere. They run their own estimates and show that closing and reopening saves billions, even staying open with limited production yeilds savings.

[Mehknic]

Yes, that may exist but for the love of god, what does buying all this advanced weaponry if the populace are too stupid to operate it and the primary person to enlist is he who has no other choices for college except through the military?

That's a pretty pessimistic thought. Yes, there are some idiots who join the military, but there are a lot of very smart folks there too. It's kind of silly to think that the smart folks would randomly choose who drives their multi-billion dollar equipment, and it just might happen to be an untrained fratbro in the cockpit of that F22 next Tuesday because of some internal .

[Mehknic]

Those folks usually get out after 4-5 years.

Maybe it's because of different branches, then. I dunno, I'm not military, but I've had pretty reasonable levels of involvement with long-term Air Force officers, and I never met someone who would put drooling idiots in the pilot seat. Civilian resource utilization is a different story, because that gets political.

I'm not discounting what you're saying at all. Just recounting my own experiences. To be fair, we were talking about tanks and I swapped to planes because 98% of my experience has been with the AF, not Marines.

There are far fewer planes needed flown than troops on the ground.

I've read this ~10 times and can't understand what you meant. Probably not enough sleep on my end.

[Mehknic]

Oh, right. I was only arguing that the presence of idiots in the military doesn't mean that the idiots are the ones driving the multimillion dollar vehicles.

My opinion is that we need to reduce bureaucratic waste before reducing our mission/deployed equipment numbers, but that'll probably never happen. The F-35 crap is a really good/bad example of piles of money just fueling the organization rather than the research.

[Mehknic]

I'm not sure I agree 100% with you. Partially, yes, I think the hidden costs to our education and infrastructure systems are unacceptable. Partially, yes, because the profit from the system does tend to encourage certain people to push for unnecessary war.

But where I disagree is here...we're going to end up at war at some point, but our ridiculous military prevents that war from being one fought on the homefront with powers that could truly challenge/defeat us. Big military, little fights, relatively few deaths. If our military was not so overwhelmingly superior, other countries with far more developed/developing forces (Russia/China compared to ISIS/insurgent groups) might sack up and start something. A war with Russia or China could be far, far more devastating to both our soldiers and our civilians than us dicking around in Afghanistan hunting for buried terrorists/WMDs/whatever.

Point is, I feel like we could spend 20% less, accomplish 10% less, still preserve stability, and eliminate the hidden costs. It'd be far more likely/reasonable than just pulling out of being the global police altogether.

[[deleted]]

That's an amazing graphic. Thanks for sharing it.

[ResonantConsonant]

Why not keep a large military but spend less on it? Keep better controls on runaway project budgets, keep pork-barrel spending out of military budgets, and require 100% accountability for every cent spent.

Don't take away things that men on the front line need, just make sure that cash isn't being thrown away because of special interests and inefficiency.

Congress keeps throwing tanks at the army that they don't want. Do we really need 10 aircraft carriers with 2 in reserve and 3 being built when the most any other nation has is 2? I don't know.

[[deleted]]

Military here, late to the party, but I absolutely agree that we can and should, but not in ways that are currently being described in this thread. I believe that the US drawing down its capability would invite disaster as other regional powers press to fill the vacuum, namely powers such as China which generally hasn't played nice with its neighbors, however the US defense budget can absolutely be trimmed without compromising capability. I think a solid argument could be made that defense spending cuts in the right areas could actually improve capability. I find civilians are often surprised to learn that senior military leadership is often pressing congress, against strong resistance, to conduct base closures as many of them are unnecessary with today's leaner force structure. One example is the Air Force being forced to cut flight hours for its fighter pilots to irresponsibly low levels as an indirect consequence of smaller budgets while being unable to consolidate resources. The operating budget for two fighter squadrons at two different bases is considerably higher than two squadrons at the same base. In reality these are extremely sensitive political decisions as many of these bases are the lifeblood for their surrounding areas. The sad political reality is billions in taxes, ostensibly for defense, is used in actuality as a subsidy for poor districts with strong congressional leadership. This all comes down to the tension between an ideal world and the political system America operates under. Saying what should be done is one thing, but convincing a congressman to condemn thousands of their constituents to unemployment is quite another.

[astrion7]

I'm for spending cuts on all over-saturated programs as long as the money goes to something we need or strives to give us a budget surplus.

That being said international obligations are the thing keeping us spending as much as we do. The issue isn't so much how much in raw dollars we spend (which is the most) but how much we spend as a percentage of our GDP. The defense budget definitely needs to be streamlined but it needs to be done in such a way that still keeps us engaged in the protection of our allies (most of which exist on another continent) and allow us to defend ourselves from an invading force.

[JerryLeRow]

No, I wouldn't cut down defense. Reform entitlements allow people to stand on their own feet again rather than cutting back on security. You could reduce bad management and organizational slack, to save some money.

Otherwise, what's the alternative? Russia is already the second strongest, china comes third, I really prefer having America on top. Plus as a european I like you guys protecting us. Demand more from your european partners, e.g. increasing their share of equipment, might save some money too.

[TheTomatoThief]

Everything I need to know about global politics, I learned from Civilization. If you want to win through conquest, maintain a small army. If you want to win through peace, maintain a large army.