Panetta warns of problems from military spending cuts

[wormwood]

[eynon81]

[eynon81]

[Precocity]

[spacemonkey]

[eynon81]

Non's plan for long term American security awesomeness:
1. reduce the size of the army and marines to 25% of current active levels. focus on recruiting and retaining quality personal.
2. dramatically increase the size of the national guard...limit the ability of the Feds to send them overseas...emphasis the "social" element of the guard; education, money for college, training, socialization, etc.
3. Centralize the foreign intelligence services (we have like 6 different agencies now), put them under the DoD. Create a large and unified special forces branch.
4. Keep a big AF and big Navy...but reduce the number of carriers, which are basically expensive floating liabilities with little tactical purpose outside of interventions into other countries and tradition.


*ok, I wouldn't be opposed to creation of a foreign services brigade made up of Army, Marines, and Special Forces that could be used at the request of the UN for short term and hostile peacekeeping missions. This is not altruism. The idea would be for members of this brigade (career soldiers) to gain experience in the field in case of the outbreak of a major war. The future General Lees of the US army need their Mexicans and Comanches to fight.

[spacemonkey]

Better yet. How about the human race evolve beyond the need for war and militaries all togethere.

[dontworrybehappy]

As one retired general told me, the best costs money. Yes, we spend more money on our military than anyone else, and for it, we have the best military, the best training and the best equipment. Just like buying a high quality bar b que pit costs more than a junky one, a high quality fighter jet will cost more than a junky one. High quality tanks cost more than our enemies because they are better. People don't realize, just because a military costs more, doesn't mean you get more "stuff" for it. A lot of that cost is training to keep pilots top notch at all times. Russia can't afford to do this, which is why, despite having decent equipment, America would slaughter them in an aerial battle.

I don't mind paying more, because we are getting more. We're not the most powerful military in the world because of our size, we're the most powerful military in the world because of our capability. Russia just came out with a fighter (Mig 31) to try to compete with our F-15, which came out in the 70's. We still have more capable avionics and missiles than the 31 does, in addition to better trained pilots. But with that advantage, comes cost.

[Precocity]

[eynon81]