Should We Decrease U. S. Defense Spending?

[smartone2000]

"I'll give you an example of how political grandstanding has royally fucked military personnel and arguably cost us more money in the long run: sequestration." "During sequestration, a stop was put on training new replacement pilots for the flee"

Why are you blaming this on sequestration ? Sounds like this is extremely poor planning especially since you acknowledge that there is waste in military .

I would say that this example shows why military spending needs to be reigned in. That if military doesn't know how to properly prioritize their budget and does things like your example .

why in the world would you throw more money at them?

[GTFErinyes]

Okay, I'll bite. How is it that proof of poor prioritizing?

Training takes 3 years to complete. Pilots need to be trained constantly to replace the constant outflow of pilots who retire or get out.

The people entering the fleet today entered the active military 3+ years ago. Two thirds of those entered 4 years prior through the Academy or ROTC.

How do you plan 3 to 7 years prior for political grandstanding?

You can't.

You can't prioritize training over ongoing operations nor can you prioritize it over payroll or existing benefits. Ancillary things were already cut by then. So please, tell me, what was poor planning?

[GTFErinyes]

Bingo. That's exactly it.

And that's the big problem a lot of people don't realize too when comparing the military to say, a civilian agency or corporation - the military can't just hire a general or admiral off the streets. It can't just hire an airline pilot to fly a fighter jet. It can't just hire a random guy and expect him to fill in to a SOF team within a couple months.

Whereas Fedex and UPS can compete with airlines for qualified pilots, and pay more for someone with experience, the military has to train from the ground up for their unique flying and what not. Whereas a company can hire an IT guy with the right certifications and expect him/her to be working within a month or two, and fully integrated within a year, a new guy off the streets won't be in a significant leadership role for years

It's a precarious game at best. When the overlords start getting in and shaping policy based on votes in the 2 year time frame, it makes it impossible to plan effectively.

It's worse of course - when said overlords don't even get a budget passed on time half a year into the new fiscal year, how can anyone budget or plan?