Originally posted by: Evan
Originally posted by: eskimospy
Working in a law firm sure doesn't make you a lawyer, but it does give you the opportunity to learn their approximate HR budget. The reason I told you that is so that you can spare me your lectures about what makes up the DoD.
Unless you were in accounts payable/receivable at the DoD, I kind of doubt you have much knowledge of military waste. I know nothing about the law in comparison to the attorneys I've worked for and won't pretend that I can analyze the legal justifications for their spending.
As far as your idea that our defense budget is somehow paying for the reduced potential of 'threat agents', you just made that up. I already told you how and why our defense spending is so high, and it has little to do with national security. It has to do with power projection, which is at best tangently related and has a hideously large cost/benefit ratio, one I believe cannot be supported. Hence, large cuts.
Threat agents is a well known term in security, risk management, and intelligence, not made up in the least. Hate to break it to you.
Now for the rest of your post:
1.) The reason China does not invade Taiwan is not based upon the fear of armed defeat by the United States. Even with our current military if we were to attempt to fight China there, we would lose. Our naval assets are not useful in the straights, we would be vulnerable to land based aircraft and anti-ship missiles, and China could effectively remove Taiwanese airbases within hours of conflict beginning. China does not go to war with Taiwan because China's relationship with the US is far more important. It is not a military matter, but a diplomatic/economic one. Oh, and I have no idea how the value of the Chinese currency is an issue the DoD will deal with. Are we bombing their printing presses?
The U.S. military's presence acts as a diplomatic assurance to the Taiwanese. This has been reported ad nauseum. Secondly, I never once doubted the legitimate economic reasons China has for not going into Taiwan. They are very much concerned with keeping social order and it is well known exactly how concerned China is with social uprising and overpopulation. They already get immense guff for displacing millions by building dams, and the fallout from invading Taiwan could have dire consequences on China's terms of trade with the U.S., greatly affecting their booming middle class.
2.) Russia is emerging as a regional threat to former Soviet republics, not the US. We long ago decided that we would not go to war over these countries, it is not in our national security interest to do so, and it is once again not based upon the size of our military. Russia will not dare to attack a member of NATO, and that is the primary vehicle we will use to check their expansion.
You said cut 33-50% of the military and I explicitly said it didn't have to all be about troops. R&D into engineering and tech services is far and away more expensive than maintaining troops, so if you're cutting half the military budget you're cutting out a multitude of avenues the U.S. can deal with Russia in Poland. The U.S. suddenly can't use missiles to hedge against the risk Russia poses to the U.S. economically (by funding Iran with services), because then suddenly the AMRDEC can't fund their immensely expensive projects. Everyone would agree that unmanning the front lines is of critical importance, and you can't possibly do that by halving the DoD budget, just totally out to lunch proposition. R&D is expensive and that's just reality.
3.) Our military is not useful against North Korea's nuclear weapons.
Military intelligence gathering is, however.
4.) The leaders of the middle east are not irrational, you are simply falling for the same idiotic drivel that is always peddled about the enemies of the US. Negotiation is not only possible, but effective.
Yes, clearly ME leaders have proven themselves rational people. :roll:
I'm sorry, but your reasons for having this gigantic military and your idea that it is 'monumentally insane' to cut back our out of control defense spending are based largely upon poor understanding of how and when we use our military and the expectations of foreign governments for how we use our military. The whole point is that with a much smaller budget we could defend our regional interests just as easily as we do now. What we would lose is the ability to switfly bomb places like Iran and Iraq. I for one, think taking those options out of the hands of future presidents would do us far more good than harm.
Except you have yet to cite any specific cuts (as I knew you would fail to do) because you can't possibly justify your original figure of 33%-50%, probably realized you overreached with that number, and are backpeddling now to save face. I'd say a reasonable estimate is maybe 10%, which is a ballpark figure and really just a total guesstimate. I never once said that it's "monumentally insane to cut back our out of control defense spending", as defense spending is out of control without question. Just not some loony lib definition of 33%-50% out of control.
Though, I think your statement that we would be better off losing the ability to swiftly react with missiles says it all. Out to lunch.
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