Is America’s Military Big Enough?
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
President Trump has proposed a $54 billion increase in defense spending, which he said would be “one of the largest increases in national defense spending in American history.”
Past administrations have increased military spending, but typically to fulfill a specific mission. Jimmy Carter expanded operations in the Persian Gulf. Ronald Reagan pursued an arms race with the Soviet Union, and George W. Bush waged wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Mr. Trump has not articulated a new mission that would require a military spending increase. This has left analysts wondering what goals he has in mind. Erin M. Simpson, a national security consultant, called Mr. Trump’s plans “a budget in search of a strategy.”
The United States has higher military spending than any other country partly because its foreign policy goals are more ambitious : defending its borders, upholding international order and promoting American interests abroad.
“Our current strategy is based around us being a superpower in Europe, the Middle East and Asia-Pacific,” said Todd Harrison, the director of defense budget analysis at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. “We’ve sized our military to be able to fight more than one conflict at a time in those regions.”
Some of Mr. Trump’s statements have suggested a reduced footprint for the United States military.
He criticized America’s role as a global military stabilizer. Last month, in his first address to a joint session of Congress , he said the United States had “defended the borders of other nations while leaving our own borders wide open.”
He also called for defusing tensions with Russia, the United States’ chief military competitor.
But Mr. Trump has also taken positions that point to a more aggressive military posture.
He has advocated challenging China and Iran more directly.
He wrote on Twitter that America must “greatly strengthen and expand its nuclear capability.”
These statements have left analysts unsure about the role Mr. Trump wants the United States military to play in the world.
The following is a closer look at Mr. Trump’s proposed upgrades to four crucial aspects of the military — troops, air power, naval power and nuclear weapons — and what his new spending might achieve.
1 Troops
The United States has approximately 1.3 million active-duty troops, with another 865,000 in reserve, one of the largest fighting forces of any country.
The United States also has a global presence unlike any other nation, with about 200,000 active troops deployed in more than 170 countries.
Many are stationed in allied nations in Europe and northeastern Asia. Mr. Trump has criticized these alliances, saying the United States does too much to defend its allies. It seems unlikely, then, that Mr. Trump intends his spending increase to bolster those deployments.
“The general concept of readiness often happens without a conversation about what the forces are for,” said Benjamin H. Friedman, a research fellow at the libertarian Cato Institute in Washington. “They don’t know exactly what they want to do, except that they want a bigger military.”
Mr. Trump wants to increase the number of active-duty military personnel in the Army and Marine Corps by about 70,000 — a rise of about 11 percent over the current total of 660,000.
The United States increased troop levels in the early 2000s for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, but has scaled down as it has withdrawn from those conflicts. Mr. Trump has been critical of those missions, suggesting that he does not plan to ramp up operations in either conflict.
Gordon Adams, a former senior White House national security budget officer, said, “Unless you decide you’re going to war — and going to war soon — nobody keeps a large military.”
2 Air Power
The United States has around 2,200 fighter jets, including about 1,400 operated by the Air Force. Mr. Trump wants to add at least 100 more fighter aircraft to the Air Force.
Analysts informally categorize fighter aircraft by “generations” as a way to compare capabilities. While there is some variation among analysts on how planes are classified, there is a broad consensus that American aircraft are more advanced than those of other nations.
While Mr. Trump has focused on the overall number of aircraft, this is an imperfect metric for either air power or cost.
The military already has plans to spend an estimated $400 billion on new F-35 fighter jets, a fifth-generation plane. But Mr. Trump has not provided any details on which programs he would expand.
Because different warplanes serve different roles at different costs, it is difficult to know what problem Mr. Trump is trying to address by adding 100 fighter aircraft.
3 Naval Power
The United States Navy has 275 surface ships and submarines. Mr. Trump wants to increase that number to 350, including two new aircraft carriers.
The new carriers would add to America’s already overwhelming advantage: More than half of the world’s 18 active aircraft carriers are in the United States Navy.
In early March, Mr. Trump said that the United States Navy was the smallest it had been since World War I.
Most analysts reject this comparison. Technological advances mean that individual ships are far more powerful and versatile than they were a century ago, allowing a single ship to fulfill capabilities that would have once required several ships.
Mr. Trump has not specified new missions that would require additional carriers, which could take years and billions of dollars to build.
Expanding the fleet size could come at significant cost. The Congressional Budget Office estimated that building a fleet of around 350 ships could cost about 60 percent more per year than average historical shipbuilding budgets, with a completion date of 2046.
But a larger fleet could help reduce pressure on the Navy, according to Brian Slattery, a policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank. “They’ve had to push those deployments longer and longer because the Navy needs to be in all the same places in the world, and there are fewer ships to do it,” he said.
Others argue that the Navy’s resources are stretched because they have too many deployments and that a more modest strategy around the world would alleviate the strain. “To the extent that they are not in great shape, it’s because they have too many missions,” Mr. Friedman said.
4 Nuclear Weapons
After Mr. Trump tweeted his pledge to expand America’s nuclear capability, he told the talk-show host Mika Brzezinski of MSNBC: “Let it be an arms race. We will outmatch them at every pass and outlast them all.”
He has not specified whether he hopes to build more warheads or develop new weapons systems for delivering them.
The United States and Russia possess the vast majority of the world’s nuclear warheads, although both have reduced their arsenals under a series of treaties.
Mr. Trump criticized the latest of those treaties, a 2010 agreement with Moscow called New Start, as “just another bad deal,” according to Reuters .
He has not clarified whether he will consider abrogating the treaty, which could open the way for the United States and Russia to expand their nuclear arsenals and capabilities.
Analysts say Mr. Trump’s call for a nuclear “arms race” could potentially cost billions. But as with other spending plans, he has not articulated a strategic goal.
While Mr. Trump has said that he wants to defeat the Islamic State, he has not explained how increasing the size of the military would accomplish that.
Mr. Trump’s focus on big-ticket items is mainly “useful in more conventional military campaigns,” said Michael C. Horowitz, a University of Pennsylvania professor who studies military leadership. “The kind of investments you would make if you were primarily focused on counterinsurgency campaigns are very different.”
Mr. Trump’s announcements appear to emphasize optics as much as strategy, Mr. Horowitz said. “To the extent that tangible pieces of military equipment symbolize strength, those are things that I think the administration is interested in investing in.”
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This seed is for the three or four NT members who actually care about facts...
The only "logic" I can see in requesting such a huge increase in military spending is in preparation for the war against Iran.
I see one other reason Trump would push this idiotic increase in military spending, he knows it will tickle the ears of his base just before a mid-term election. He's such a worthless piece of trash he's willing to spend an extra $54 billion in an effort to get Republicans elected this fall because he knows it plays well with his base. The US military is bloated and overinflated already, we will still be the most powerful military in the world even if we cut military spending in half, but to the "Macho man" image that Trump and his base wish they were, the more money spent on outdated pointless weapons compensates for their tiny manhood's and frightened little weak souls. It also bolsters the part of his base who are hoping and praying for their fantasized "war on Islam" which they believe will be a pre-curser to their awaited Armageddon.
Nah... That's not reasonable. It would mean that Trump takes his own supporters for fools.
oh, wait........
Yep - conservatives aren't happy unless we're wasting more money by expanding the world's biggest military budget.
That fools are the ones that don't realize this is an old article and it's already been passed with the Democrats approval.
Or it could be for his new ''Space Farce''...Although $54 billion wouldn't be near enough money for this new branch of the military.
IMO, Trump see all this spending as big bright shiny things (toys)...Most of what he says is contradictory so it's next to impossible to know what he is talking about or what the mission is.
... which doesn't seem to bother the Unthinking Faithful TM in the slightest...
You DO realize your seeded article is well over a year old, right?
Yes, I do.
If you think you have more current numbers, please post them.
Is America’s Military Big Enough? if anything, it's too big. America spends 5x more on defense than the next highest spending country. We could cut military spending by half and still exceed all other countries defense spending. That money could be better used to improve our infrastructure, pay off foreign loans, focus on science and research, ect.. There's no need for increased defense spending.
Until recently, we had to add the budgets of all our NATO allies to our own, which made the situation even more absurd. But since Trumps has apparently decided to junk NATO, maybe he thinks NATO's budgets should be added to China's.
And what about Russia? How should we evaluate Trump's buddy Putin?
Our military spending alone exceeds all of NATO combined.
Nowhere near the level of spending we have.
Yes it is too big, bloated.
It's the Donald Trump of militaries!
And the Democrats as they voted overwhelmingly to pass it. This article is from February but the spending bill was just recently passed without much opposition.
Correction this article is from March of 2017. The bills passed were actually larger than what Trump requested here in this article.
No democrat is foolish enough to vote against a military spending bill in an election year
I didn't send you any messages. You know Perrie can check that shit so if you're lying you're in trouble.
And just to be clear....I wouldn't touch you with a 10 foot pole
'please don't send me any more messages cursing at me.'
That was me MUVA. Don't blame Trout Giggles for that.
You mean like the republicans who claim to be against deficit spending and then vote for budget-busting military and tax bills every goddam time?
Yep--just like Democrats railing against deficit spending, and then running the highest deficits in history.
It is rather pointless to ONLY think one side does the same hypocritical things.
Indeed. The US spends 598.5 billion on military spending. Lets round that up to 600 billion. Even if we cut that spending by half, we would still spend more than any other country. That half (300 billion) could be divided and applied to other government funded services, like education, science, infrastructure, health, ect. Even if other services received 10 billion each, that would significantly improve our domestic services and benefits.
I hate war. I hate that people die in war, I hate paying for others to die in war. And I dont like caring for the injured either) However:
Unfortunately at this time with this leader I think we'd better give him this.
We may find we need more war capabilities that ever before IF our president's gambling and bulling the the world's future doesn't go as he wants, is working toward and expects.
IMO: At this time We are just one more unpredictable country lead by an unpredictable leader asserting our influence anywhere and anyway we can. So maybe we better have the biggest, best war machine handy. Just in case.
Plus look at all the negotiating power it brings.... O my !
sad
save it
It is too big but that money could be used on military infrastructure.
Buildings on military bases are crumbling. Military housing is a disgrace on some bases. Mr Giggles is a dorm manager and they have to go without a security system because they have no money. He says they are foregoing a lot of needed things because they don't have the money.
Spend that money on the actual military members and their families
Bingo.
Can we include the disabled and handicapped who were military members from the past ?
IMO: Veterans for my whole life have never been properly taken care of and I think that sucks as on one hand every day we ask more people to protect this country and on the other we ignore too many of the people who did serve and suffer from their service and are still suffering.
If you are willing to ask people to serve, take care of them when they need it if they do.
I dont see that, we do not take care of many of our veterans, at least not real well. Instead of us, our government taking care of the veterans, many vets are forced to rely on volunteer organisations to do help them, IMO: That's not right.
Absolutely. I should have said that in my comment. I heard a rumor that veterans who were rated 100% disabled will go from $35K to $13K. I don't know the veracity of that statement
I dont know either but $13k is about what I think most social security disability checks are so it's certainly a possibility and I've seen disabled vets living on less.
Indeed. Rather than expanding the military, the military can focus on maintenance and research & development projects.
Absolutely. Make sure veterans get the services they need.
Agree 100%. As someone who is retired/disabled military vet myself, I am always amazed when I see the annual military budgets and find that pay and benefits for the active duty forces, which are generally always lower than the civilian work force, are always near the bottom of the appropriations barrel. Retiree pay and benefits are always considerably lower. Past presidents did not care about doing anything to alleviate very much, and so far neither has Trump. If Trump wants a good military, he better plan on keeping his troops and their families better taken care of!
Thank you for your service.
Which neither seems fair or right.
Absolutely! Rather than expanding the military, more focus should be on talking care of current military personnel, veterans, and their families now. Let's take care of what we have, rather than focus on something we don't really need.
The military industrial complex is alive and well. Yet our infrastructure is falling apart and needs hundreds of billions of dollars in repairs and upgrades.
But as long as we can blow up the world 100 times over, no problem the infrastructure can wait.
My State is doing great in that area. And we don't have a "State Tax" either. I guess we have good State, County and City leaders.
Maybe so if everything is covered and your state is doing fine that's a good indication your leaders are doing a good job.
Most States that don’t have a state income tax though do need to make that revenue up in other ways such as higher auto license fees, state sales taxes.and especially in higher property taxes.
I grew up in Illinois and I was considering snowbirding back and forth to there now that I'm retired. Illinois has no state income tax but when I started looking in the area I intended on buying a second home in their property taxes are 8 times the rate I pay here in Arizona. No Thanks.
Needless to say I'm now looking to snowbird somewhere besides Illinois.
You may have good state leaders, and you may not pay state income taxes but rest assured your state government collects what it needs to function in other ways and you still pay for it.
Apparently....MOST STATES.....don't have good leaders. I can't bitch about taxes in my state one bit. They keep them low.
Oh....and my State has ALWAYS kept up with the infrastructure, instead of letting it get to a point where it's cost prohibitive to repair because they were spending too much on "STUPID OTHER" things.
"Leadership" and just having "Leaders" are two different things.
Wonderful, what state is it ? Hows the weather there in the summer ? Whats the property taxes like and are you accepting snowbirds ? lol
Yeah I know unfortunately it seems many of Illinois leaders don't learn that till they are indited.
Ain't it that way "Most" times in politics ?
Yeah but illinois seems to have a really bad record of it.
Weather is fantastic...although a bit humid at times in the summer.
And Yes...…. Tourists are welcome anytime . You all help keep our roads in order and our taxes low.
It's a Detroit thing.
Humid I can take, 2 months plus of 110 degrees daytime and 100 degrees at night gets real old real fast. What state are you in ? I'm looking for better and closer than Illinois but somewhere to spend like 4 or 5 months a year at to get out of this damn heat so, I wouldn't consider that simply a tourist.
However, I'm also not going to spend more in property taxes than I do on the house to do it...lol So that's something else I've learned to watch for. But good living and low taxes sounds good to me. As long as the summer weather isn't over 100 degrees !
Ever !
lol
Property taxes = approx. 2800 S.F. house = approx. 980 bucks a year.
"But good living and low taxes sounds good to me. As long as the summer weather isn't over 100 degrees !"
Averages about 85 in the summer.....but it can be a wet summer in the afternoons too.
our biggest bitch is the road construction going on all over the place. They get it done pretty fast, but" oh boy" does it snarl things up for us residences at times.
Do you live at one of the poles ?
LOL That sounds great after 100 to 118 here. What state is it ?
our biggest bitch is the road construction going on all over the place.
Well I'd want ya to wait till I was gone for the winter for that....
LOL Where isn't there road construction going on all the time. Here in Phoenix hell they shut down our interstate highway system to do construction on them sometimes even. For days !!
I'm a "Central Sunshine State" resident. Have been since 1973. Pools and A/C come in handy. They are required Staples here.
Florida ?
No thanks
I finally got out of there after almost 20 years of avoiding hurricanes I'm not bringing all my treasures back to change losing it all now. Thanks anyway if its FL.
Great location for vacationing though, I agree.
Now why not ?
I've had not one problem since living here....hurricanes and all. Make bunches of money too, with all the construction back on track.
Been there, done that and moved on. I worked at "Florida Pool and Spa" as a service manager in Melbourne Fl, for over 11 years about 10 years ago. We build em like crazy about 300 units per year average. Nice pools and they weren't cheep.
I still have friends in Melbourne great town wonderful place to live and work. Not for me anymore though.
I had just bough my first house in melbourne two weeks before Hurricane Floyd beared down on us, 155 miles an hour with a 50 mile wide eye wall. That damn thing did not turn from hitting us with a direct hit till it was almost at our doorstep. Me and my new home were totally unprepared and Home Depot was out of everything to prepare for it within hours, I was screwed !
thankfully we ended up just getting what was about a cat 2 afterall. But That allurted me to what I had gotten myself into.
I also toured Homestead after their encounter. Nothing taller than a car for as far as the eye could see.
Come back to Florida and set up shop there again, Well Ah No thanks. It took too much time and effort to get everything out the first time.
I'll think I'll find some where else to spend June, July, August and Florida's infamous September.
Thanks for the suggestion though.
I know that company. Worked with them a few times on New Projects I was doing. Actually had them redo the entire pool at the Hotel I project managed renovations on back in the day too.
"Me and my new home were totally unprepared and Home Depot was out of everything to prepare for it within hours, I was screwed !"
Living here for 45 years get's ya lots of knowledge. One thing you learn fairly quickly ...… "ALWAYS BE PREPARED"...… and ....."NEVER PROCRASTINATE" !
Lived in Palm Bay while working at Patrick AFB for 13 years. Luv'd it. All of the hurricanes went either North or South of us. Presently living in NM, but now that I retired, wife is "demanding" we move back to Palm Bay/Melbourne - so she can do the beaches and Dizzy Whirled. It's a thought - there are a lot of golf courses there.
LOL That's about as far as I ever get, Thinking about returning,
I have a good friend that would love to see me move back to Melbourne But I dont see me ever doing that. It Really did take me years to get out of there with everything I ever worked for. I doubt I ever return for good.
Yep Good old Florida Pool and Spa. Great company ran by a great guy back then. Yeah we did business with lots of companies we built with home builders covering a pretty large area of Florida.
The pool building company still exists in name only now, it was sold to a company that only services pools not builds them some time ago when Scott the owner died suddenly.
What a shame, he was young, healthy, happy ,married with two very young kids still and he was one Hell of a great person. Scott took over for his father and had started at the very bottom so he knew the trade from top to bottom very well. He was also probably the best boss I ever had in 46 years.
If you had dealings with the company when I was there and he was in charge I doubt you had any problems whatsoever because both Scott and the company were highly professional and worked hard at having a good reputation every day.
Thanks for the walk down memory lane. I do miss Fl, But I sure as Hell don't miss the hurricane seasons.
Never did have a problem with them.
Me either and I deal with them 5 days a week for over 11 years. I was only gone about 6 months when I heard Scott had died suddenly, I couldn't believe it. He really was one of the good ones.
Thanks again, it's been awhile since I've thought about good old Fl pool. It was a good part in my life, I miss it. FL pool was my only job that the day I left them I actually shed a couple of tears.
Have a good rest of the day
California and New York are fine examples of states with high state taxes and high property taxes.
Don't forget Massytusits.
Ca. Also has the 6th largest economy on the planet. Without Ca. 10 red states would starve to death. Of the 10 poorest states in the country, 9 are red states. Fact.
They wouldn't starve to death.
Why so damn melodramatic all the time?
SMMFH
Maybe he was talking about the 10 million Illegal Aliens who are Cali residents only.
Easy mistake when talking Cali.
Maybe.
The whole premise is sheer lunacy.
No state would starve without California.
I've always thought it was wonderful that America has the biggest, strongest, most advanced fighting force the world has ever known. Who the Hell would be stupid enough to ever invade this land ? Between our military and almost a gun in every home here it would be a suicide mission for sure.
That said, We already had the most powerful military on the planet. IMO: president trump wants to increase our military power even more mainly as a deterrent to be used to help avoid military conflict as he pushes his agendas and his will on the other leaders of the world.
Pushing others to do what they don't want to do (Bullying) requires at least the threat of retaliation if the other party doesn't succumb to your demands.
Putting America first requires we out ourselves above the rest of the other nations on the planet, So, yeah you better be ready to back that move up.
Who pushed the Democrats to vote to spend more than Trump was requesting?
I have no idea, do you ?
Perhaps they are trying to curry favor with trump or perhaps they see what I see and want to make sure the president is backed up so we all dont suffer, but I do not know.
Most politicians seem to understand we need the strongest military in the nation, and why.
It's typical of the budget process that represetatives of various states try and add projects and other stuff ot the budget to benefit businesses based in their state. The military has been saddled with soem very expensive 'junk' onver the decades because of this type of pork barrel spending. The way ti works, the militarys build their budgets (what they feel they need and what they want) from the local level all the way up to the service level, to the joint level, the proposal is put together and then congress/senate pushes their agenda onto the budget.
Is there a need for a space force? The air force has been handlind this task as an 'addiitonal duty' to flying our nation's military airplanes. Whether it needs to be a separate entity? I'm in both camps....but as space becomes a bigger club of nations, possibly.
As to the article's assertions? When we won the Cold War, the lesser known fact is that our military was gutted, as there was an air of we don't need so many.....and i believe it went too far, and now we are still recovering from those mistakes. Addiitonally, what used to be done with a paper and pencil now needs to be done with electronic systems, which cost more to purchase, maintain and, eventually replace.
And I have little doubt each local level wants all they can get.
It's actually cheaper in the long run to do it electronically because you don't have to feed, clothe, and house the computer. What used to be done with pencil and paper took 4 airmen where today it takes one computer
Not really, what we need to do our jobs and enough to answer the needs of newer technology and the associatied training that goes with it.
True, to an extent, but then that computer goes on a network and can only be use on the network, so the computer and the network must remain up and operational, that requires people and procurement also. I've said this a few times in my career, the more we move to tech, the more we are at the mercy of a single fuse........
Somehow I have more faith in the personal to only ask for what they need more that the higher ups passing just those needs along up the latter.
Ah...but they never asked us working stiffs what we really needed.
I remember the end of every fiscal year being bugged about how to spend our excess budget money. I'd tell the NCOIC I need a new noise dosimeter or an air sampling pump or a velocimeter. Nope. We're talking small shit like paper, paper clips, stuff like that. Well, how about a new chair? Nope. Not in the same fund.
After awhile I told the NCOIC to leave me alone if I couldn't have a new noise meter.
oh hell yeah
Yeah, we sometimes see end of year fallout money and try to get things we need to keep the comm infrastructure up and running. Luckily enough, we have a good group of people and if you request something (and ar able to justify it) it will go on the list. As it goes up, sometimes we get whittled back or, dependent on the budget we receive back down after a spending bill is signed, we have to go through the process of racking and stacking to see what we can live without.
fallout money
Thanks....could not remember what we called it.
Yeah, That's what I need, Fallout money, Like it fell out of the sky and I found it !
Hell, with enough fallout money I'd could have a real blast.
JMO, I think our spending is more politically determined than strategically determined.
For example, and just my perception, the F35.
It pushes me right to the edge of a tourettes attack. Let's see, IIRC it was proclaimed as a ground attack platform, in some folks imaginations an air superiority platform and oh, by the way, we can SELL it.
Ground attack? I have to ask, how is the F35 better than the A10 in round attack and loitering? The Apache and SuperCobras aren't too bad either.
Air superiority? Why, would we stop production of the worlds most advanced 5th gen air superiority fighter, for something more expensive and vastly less capable?
A lot of money could have been saved by simply developing newer electronics for the F22. Maybe some variants?
BUT OHHHH, gee, we can't sell the F22, so piss our future air superiority down the drain while everybody else catches up.
But hey, politically driven projects like the F35 have a lot of political inertia behind them.
Again, JMO, the fat is in the politics.
I'm really enjoying the grotesque spectacle of rightwing commenters lamenting the politicization of bloated military spending while knowing that these very same people have attacked--and will again--Dems for "weakening this country" every time they've tried to rein in this most wasteful of all our spending. And it's a real tribute to the gigantic hypocrisy of the disgustingly-named "Freedom Caucus" (i.e., former teabaggers who are trying to run away from that now detested sobriquet) as well as all these anti-deficit rightwing republicans in general who keep running on being sent to Congress to reduce spending and end up voting for every fucking republican pork product they can in their districts at least.
So now you are chastising Republicans for doing the same things as Democrats.
No hypocriisy there, no sir!
SMMFH
The Dems are not trying to rein it in as they voted for the spending increase.
As others pointed out, of course, this is a vote in an election year, so sure, nearly all politicians are going to cover their asses. I'd also point out that of the only 54 votes against that bill, 49 of them were Dems. IOW, only 2% of republicans voted against, 12 times (as a percentage) more Dems did so.
But I was really talking about what happens when Dems are in the WH and control Congress as during Clinton's administration there were massive base closings (despite objections of a number in his own party) and other military spending reductions that were viciously assailed by republicans and the same attacks on Obama when he brought military spending down (with zero, zilch, nada deleterious effect on our security at home or abroad despite constant false attacks from republicans). Here's a little reminder of the situation with Obama:
So, you enjoy grotesque spectacles, huh? I'm sure you can find some nudes of Rosie online if you look hard enough
I am really enjoying seeing people get all frothy over something that was written some 17 months ago.
Must be "breaking news" to some here!
SMMFH and LMFAO
Why, The Subject hasn't changed much. Military spending being disgusted is timeless.
Why?
Because some are acting like this is current news.
It isn't.
True , but like I said most of the conversation seems to be relevant to today and military spending discussion never really go out of style.
I am always amazed by how some want and demand lower military spending in one breath, and then criticize Trump when he demands the rest of the world pay "their fair share" for military spending, so we can pay less.
Seems rather counter-productive to me.
Yes having the rest of our partners pay their share is very important, I dont know how many criticize the president for what he's doing (some times I do) but for myself some times it's more How the president does things more than what he does that I dont agree with and criticize.
I've always believed trump has good intentions but I rarely agree with his means of ways of accomplishment.
Kind of obvious in the discrepancy on military spending that "asking nicely" didn't work.
I agree, I always look for the central option. Trump seems to go for the throat on his first strike, may times that tends to alienate people long term.
Is America’s Military Big Enough?
Nope:
ISIS Has Just As Many Fighters In Iraq And Syria As It Did 4 Years Ago
The U.S.-led coalition to defeat ISIS in Iraq and Syria may have routed the terror group from its urban strongholds in Mosul and Raqqa, but new reports from both the Department of Defense and United Nations reveal that tens of thousands of ISIS fighters are still lurking across the war-torn countries — an army of jihadists on par with the group’s peak strength in 2014. (Cont'd)
But I thought they were on the run and almost wiped out?
Without a doubt our conventional military is more than big enough. What we need to focus more and more on is cyber-warfare. Any future war with any major power will be won or lost before a single shot is fired.
The same is true of "conventional" weaponry.
We're spending incredible sums on piloted fighters, when is seems highly likely that the next war will be fought by pilotless aircraft, be they AI or piloted-at-a-distance. Piloted aircraft have far greater design constraints, and are therefore much more expensive, than pilotless... which can sustain much greater in-flight maneuvering because... no pilot!
Likewise for heavy carriers in a world with long-range missiles (nuclear or conventional).
Who are we preparing to fight? Hezbollah or Iran or China? It's not the same military...
... but we go on blithely....
Comment removed at posters request. [ph]
I'd bet that China is working on UAVs... but I'm kinda leery of Infowars...
Agreed, but here is another source on this aircarft.
Here is another source that shows the wide array of UAV's that the Chinese have...
Thank you.
Since your link is a couple of years old, I Googled some of the UAVs cited in it, to see if there's anything newer.
The most interesting I found is this .
All told, my feeling is that there are a lot of programs launched... waiting to see which works best, with production a few years down the road, yet.
That's still a short enough calendar to be very worrisome. The F-35 program is supposedly for another thirty years at least, so any UAVs begun by China within the next ten years will be direct competition... And ten years seems to me to be an absolutely sure thing.
Good link and following the links at the bottom of that one is interesting as well...
The only thing is, if we are going to move more and more towards robotics, we better be working like we did to get to the moon when it comes to cyber security. That is the one advantage of humans, they are a lot harder to hack.
Please do not cite InforWars. I don't need to read about how pedophile lizard people operating out of a pizza shop are building better carriers than ours.
True... but they depend on a lot of computer power to fly a modern fighter.....
Cut it dramatically and pull our troops from around the world. We need to stop being the world police. Unfortunately that will never happen because whoever is in office their side just justifies their military actions as necessary. Bush ramped this shit up and obama expanded on it and unfrotunately Trumo may expand it even further.... until all politicians are called on it our military will continue to be used for political purposes and geo political positioning