Quote:
Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch
While I agree with it, the if you were to cut 300 billion plus from the military budget you would probably see a sharp spike in unemployment as it would effect the development of systems, it would crush civilian logistical supply to military bases as they close, plus any other revenue generated by the civilian side supporting the military, and because of that you would probably lose a big chunk of your income tax.
The smart move for the U.S. military would be to after the end of Afghanistan to refuse aid to countries like Pakistan and Turkey, refuse to participate in peace keeping and intervention and only use their military for humanitarian support in the U.S. and not internationally.
The U.S. still has a TO+E that is required to participate in two land wars and at least two peace keeping missions simultaneously.
Super Powers and mid powers also can't focus their military abilities, they have to do all things equally well, that means being able to fight a major power, being able to secure within a minor power and to be able to fight asymmetrical wars equally well.
Plus if you focus on asymmetrical warfare, then you can guarantee that the next situation will be based around an entirely different style of warfare and all of your work specializing will have been rendered useless.
Plus if you look at it the U.S. has done a great deal to change their mission capabilities, they've changed the way that they train their ground forces, they have increased their reconnaissance and military capabilities, and they basically dumped things like their Seawolf class submarines in favor of the Virginia class which is not only cheaper but better able to operate in brown water operations. They've also converted some of their ballistic missile class submarines into special forces boats.
They killed their F-22 raper project in favor of attempted to build cheaper more well rounded fighter bomber platforms.
They've increased their amphibious fleet at the expense of their blue water navy as well.
I'm not sitting here and saying that the U.S. military is an efficient spender, because its not really, but its the one thing that all Americans believe to be essential.
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Two good things about cutting back on the military though, you can target the cuts to specific areas, therefore reducing the impact, it makes perfect sense to close all the bases in the pacific north west, Bremerton, Edmunds, etc, it is a high employment hi tech area and most of those jobs would be absorbed by the local hi tech industries anyway resulting in little impact on the economy.
Second you can also target them onto the more extreme tea party states,
'here you go, how do ya like a balanced budget now?, say goodbye to Fort Hood'