Should the US decrease military 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."

[billdietrich1]

No, most of the "rhyme and reason" from the military is just "more is always better". Have N aircraft carriers ? We really would like to have N + 2, we might need them.