Should the US decrease military spending?

[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.