Cut Defense spending to cut the deficit?

[Darth Rotor]

As a German I feel (anecdote) that most of the American bases are already abandoned.
Almost all bases I ever visited are closed now.

I thought I had posted a link to the bases. Hmm.

The EUCOM major formations are:

2nd Stryker Cavalry Regiment
12th Combat Aviation Brigade
170th Infantry Brigade
172nd Infantry Brigade
173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team (Vicenza, Italy)

I think the other four brigades are based in Germany. So the US is at roughly one Division (+) rather than two Divisions (-) in Germany.
http://www.hqusareur.army.mil/institution/default.htm
There are thirteen Garrisons in Germany, three in the Benelux area, and two (Livorno and Vicenza) in Italy. Click on Garrisons (about halfway down the page, in the middle) and select the country/area to see where the open bases are.

If you look at the Seventh Army and USAREUR web sites, you note that a lot of organizations are logistic and HQ/C2, not combat formations. These units are aligned consistent with the forward deployed NATO strategy of doing out of area/non Article V operations that the alliance agreed on in 1995, with the NATO deployment to Bosnia, and elsewhere, to include Afghanistan today.

NATO doesn't just defend. In the words of Kembai Shimada ...

"If we only defend, we lose the war."

DR

 

[Kthulhut Fhtagn]

Calling all of that money military spending is stupid also.

Agreed, Defense spending also includes non-military organizations responsible for homeland security. That's why it's called defense spending.

 

[Newtons Bit]

The entire defense budget for 2009: $533.8 billion
Federal deficit for 2009: $1.4 trillion

BTW, that's an interesting method of measuring naval capabilities: by tonnage. I could have sworn that battleships were demonstrated to be obsolete during WWII.

And our modern aircraft carriers are over twice as heavy as our WW2 battleships. And I would wager that they're at least a 1000 times more powerful even without nuclear armament.

 

[Darth Rotor]

And our modern aircraft carriers are over twice as heavy as our WW2 battleships. And I would wager that they're at least a 1000 times more powerful even without nuclear armament.

And greener, with nuclear power ... though all that JP-5 for the jets is the flip side of the coin.

BTW, that's an interesting method of measuring naval capabilities: by tonnage. I could have sworn that battleships were demonstrated to be obsolete during WWII.

USS New Jersey: Naval Gunfire in Viet Nam (60's)
USS New Jersey: Naval Gunfire Lebanon (early 80s')
USS Missouri: Operation Desert Storm

Not obsolete, but still manpower intensive, which is why the 1991-1995 defense reviews eventually let them go. You can man 4-5 DDG-51's for each BB. I was so sad to see them go. Got to land on the Missouri a few times. Happy was I ...

 

[Kthulhut Fhtagn]

ah, yes. wanting to scale back America's military presence in Europe and Asia is tantamount to wanting to reduce our defense capabilities to slingshots and paper airplanes.

very good.

That's not what I said parky. It was a sarcastic reply to the comment made by willhaven.

Cut it back to the bare minimum.

Slingshots and paper airplanes would be the bare minimun afterall. You can even see the quote in my post. Of course, I don't actually agree with closing down all these bases for one thing. It doesn't seem to me like we'd actually save much money.

 

[Thunder]

Parky had demonstarted on past occasions that he is not knowledgable about military affairs.

funny stuff.

 

[technoextreme]

Agreed, Defense spending also includes non-military organizations responsible for homeland security. That's why it's called defense spending.

Well I was referring to the fact that my funding for graduate school comes from the defense department despite the fact that you wouldn't even begin to guess what I'm researching. It technically does have a firm fitting in defense research but its the last thing you would think of when I would say what it was.

 

[Darth Rotor]

Well I was referring to the fact that my funding for graduate school comes from the defense department despite the fact that you wouldn't even begin to guess what I'm researching. It technically does have a firm fitting in defense research but its the last thing you would think of when I would say what it was.

You are among friends here. It's OK to admit that you are doing a detailed study of the effects of massive inflictions of porn on young men at remote outposts ...

 

[tyr_13]

I think that there must be some parts of defense, war, military, whatever spending that could, and should, be cut. Saying it shouldn't be done because it isn't enough to impact the deficit in a large way is just a silly premise as it is never going to be one solution to that, but it can help.

Anyway, I'm more concerned about misdirected and wasteful spending in the military. A lot of good research projects get shafted for political reasons for example. We can also get a lot more 'bang for the buck' on certain tech, training, and weapons than on others. However, how does one tell a good investment from a bad one? It's incredibly complicated, but that doesn't mean it can't be done.

 

[dudalb]

I agree there is stuff in the Military budget that could and should be cut.
SDI for instance. Time that boondoggle was ended.
My concern is some people want basically want to slash the military budget to the point where The US could no longer intervene..no many what the circumstances...overseas. It's just a mask for Ron Paul style "Non Interventionist Foreign Policy" which amounts to Isolationism..the idea that if we ignore the rest of the world, it will go away.

 

[tyr_13]

I agree there is stuff in the Military budget that could and should be cut.
SDI for instance. Time that boondoggle was ended.
My concern is some people want basically want to slash the military budget to the point where The US could no longer intervene..no many what the circumstances...overseas. It's just a mask for Ron Paul style "Non Interventionist Foreign Policy" which amounts to Isolationism..the idea that if we ignore the rest of the world, it will go away.

I've also heard the, in my view, overly optimistic opinion that the US cutting back on it's role as de-facto world police would result in other countries stepping up to fill the gap, and uniting the global community at the same time as scaling back animosity toward the US.

It may have a hit of truth, but is completely naive taken as a whole.

 

[MikeMangum]

Well, that depends on your accounting. The good people at the War Resisters League probably post the higher estimates (with current military spending at "653 billion", but the main point is that an extra one, two, three hundred billion dollars a year adds up over time with interest.

My point was not that there can't be savings in the defense budget, it was that the size of the deficit utterly dwarfs any savings that can be found from cutting defense. Other cuts are needed.

 

[dudalb]

The War Resisters League think that war in ANY circumstance is wrong. Good thing they were not in power in the 1930's.
I admit that I have a low intellectual opinion of absolute pacifists.
And, like most hard core ideologues, they are willing to lie and distort to promote their views.

 

[Darth Rotor]

I've also heard the, in my view, overly optimistic opinion that the US cutting back on it's role as de-facto world police would result in other countries stepping up to fill the gap, and uniting the global community at the same time as scaling back animosity toward the US.

It may have a hit of truth, but is completely naive taken as a whole.

I offer you the UN mission in Somalia as evidence of what happens when the US steps back.

I offer you the moronic, dual-key UN crap in Bosnia as evidence of what happens, when the US steps back.

On the other hand, I admire the tenacity of the African Union's attempts in Sudan/Darfur, bloody difficult that is.

DR

 

[dudalb]

Truth is, Isolationism, the idea that the US should not get involved with any foreign countries and should, except for "trade" (ie, except when we can make a buck) simply ignore the world outside our borders (except for maybe Canada and Mexico) has always had an appeal in the US, on both the left and the right. It is most recently going under the name on "Non Interventionism" and it's most vocal advocate is Ron Paul.
IMHO, common sense dictates that it is equally stupid for the US to Intervene at the drop of a hat, or to NEVER intervene no matter what is at stake.
And I might argue that a large US economic presence overseas is going to be seen by many overseas as US Imperialism, even if the US Government is not involved.
The point is a lot of those who want to cut defense spending "to the bone" really want to cut defense spending to the point where US Military invention is just plain impossible.

 

[Kthulhut Fhtagn]

Well I was referring to the fact that my funding for graduate school comes from the defense department despite the fact that you wouldn't even begin to guess what I'm researching. It technically does have a firm fitting in defense research but its the last thing you would think of when I would say what it was.

Well, there's that too!

 

[tyr_13]

I offer you the UN mission in Somalia as evidence of what happens when the US steps back.

I offer you the moronic, dual-key UN crap in Bosnia as evidence of what happens, when the US steps back.

On the other hand, I admire the tenacity of the African Union's attempts in Sudan/Darfur, bloody difficult that is.

DR

Oh I agree. It would be, in my view, a very bad thing for the US to withdraw totally, or even to a large extent. Like most people, I think the US should pull back from some things, and get move involved, or differently involved in others. But who gets to say which is which? Thus we get to have fun arguments!

 

[thaiboxerken]

I don't agree that not having permanent, military presence in other countries is Isolationist. I don't think we need to have bases in other countries. If we have one or two bases in each region, instead of the many, many bases we have now, we can save money and still be able to help allies that need it.

 

[Praktik]

I've wondered about this and one thing that comes to mind is just how much structural adjustment would it take for the US to seriously cut its military expenditures?

How many towns rely on building weapons systems that may or may not add to America's security?

How many jobs in those towns depend on the weapons workers (food, services, entertainment, etc)?

Seems to me there's an entire - oh what should I call it - MIC underneath that spending which would be very painful to actually reduce significantly, so realistically speaking in this economic downturn how can make-work jobs from graft be taken away and other seemingly obvious places to cut be cut?

You need places to put those workers and spaces are limited now so I'm thinking while the budget pressures make people think more about cutting defense another way of looking at it is a giant government job/welfare system - cutting away that support now might be foolish. Seems to me the best time would be in an age of surplus, good GDP growth, employment growth and in something of a "peace dividend" once the War on Terror finally makes itself redundant - which I don't see happening anytime soon.

 

[MikeMangum]

Well I was referring to the fact that my funding for graduate school comes from the defense department despite the fact that you wouldn't even begin to guess what I'm researching. It technically does have a firm fitting in defense research but its the last thing you would think of when I would say what it was.

And on that note, the DOD provides funding for (what I consider to be) very important research like Polywell^WP fusion.

ETA: which ties into this:

I agree there is stuff in the Military budget that could and should be cut.
SDI for instance. Time that boondoggle was ended.

I don't know. My understanding is that there has been alot of progress on anti-missile defense. The Navy shot down a satellite, which travels faster than an ICBM. It was a one-off deal where they had plenty of time to prepare for it, but it still shows that there is promise and that the underlying interceptor hardware works. Whether the detection, control systems, and software are up to handling multiple incoming targets with little or no notice with a high degree of confidence is another story, but that doesn't mean missile defense research is a waste of money. I would imagine that credible protection from nuclear missile attack is worth more than alot of other defense spending. Missile defense research has also had alot of secondary benefits in terms of applicability to other things.

Strategic_Defense_Initiative^WP

Space-related defense research and testing remains heavily-budgeted to this day, irrespective of the program names, operative/reporting organizations, politics, or reports to the contrary in the press.[citation needed] Although it is difficult to compile actual spending totals across the complete spectrum of space-based defense programs (including classified "off-budget" "black projects"), the U.S. has certainly invested well over $100 billion on "SDI" and follow-on programs, and holds a commanding lead over all current or potential future adversaries in the realm of space technology/warfare.

The vast majority of this investment has been made in basic research at national laboratories and universities, and these programs continue to be a key source of funding for top research scientists in the fields of high-energy physics, supercomputing/computation, advanced materials, and many other critical science and engineering disciplines: funding which indirectly supports other research work by top scientists, and which would be largely unavailable outside of the defense budget environment.

Granted, $100 billion is enough to cover the purchase and operational costs of around 10 Nimitz class carriers for roughly 40 years (except personnel costs), so it is not a small chunk of change.