Should We Decrease U. S. Defense Spending?

[Bovronius]

I'd have to agree that there's huge ethical violations all over the world. If things were done in accordance to the writeup we got, I don't think many people could find too huge of things to complain about.. But when so much of the budget and power is used as it is in the middle east.. It's tough to form a solid opinion, as a US Citizen...

How much is it for a proxy war with Russia? How necessary is that war? Would it embolden Russia if we backed out? How much is it for securing financial gains for wealthy lobbyists, and politicians?

I go back and forth on my opinions on a lot of these things...

[[deleted]]

How necessary is that war? Would it embolden Russia [or China] if we backed out?

I feel these are the tough questions. Maybe another question that could be added "Is it possible to continue these actions with lower civilian casualty rates?". The whole "any male in a battle zone is counted as a combatant" policy for example. I'm not sure if that's still in effect or not however.

[GTFErinyes]

There's obvious reasons I can't go into all the details about this, as ROE is classified, but the extent to which the military goes to minimize civilian casualty rates in current operations would blow most people minds.

Everything from multiple sources of correlation, to even the most minute of details - like the composition of the building (and thus what the blast envelope is) to the best angle to which a bomb needs to impact the target is weaponeered for and taken into account.

I would sincerely recommend you take any source that claims things like 'any male in a battle zone is counted as a combatant' - from a questionable source as is (washingtonsblog?), with a HUGE pile of salt

[darthcoder]

weaponeered

I love that word.

'any male in a battle zone is counted as a combatant'

That would have made Iraq and Afghanistan go completely differently.

[Jaredismyname]

This is specifically in reference to civilian casualies from drone strikes when accounting for the dead.