Quadrennial Defense Review to Propose Killing Two Carriers, Cut JSF, Cancel EFV

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charrison

Lifer
Oct 13, 1999
17,033
1
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You do know that America won in both WWI and WWII without having any kind of strong standing army before the onset of war, right?

And that is one of the reasons Japan thought they could get away with attacking us. Having a strong standing force is not a bad idea.
 

Vic

Elite Member
Jun 12, 2001
50,415
14,303
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We should be workingtoward a nuclear weapon-free world. The political structure I mentioned above is important for that.

The more nations that have nukes the more dangerous, but what right does a nation have to say it can have them and others can't, would you accept that?

A nuclear weapon-free world is as impossible as a gun-free world. You can't repeal the laws of physics. These things exist and the means to build them are not that difficult or out of reach.

You just don't get it, Craig. You preach your pretty talk, but at heart, you really don't like or trust humanity. If you really believed half the shit you post, you'd know that the solution is not to force people to not be evil (and remove from the means to do evil), but to mitigate the reasons that cause people to want to do evil in the first place.
 

bamacre

Lifer
Jul 1, 2004
21,030
2
61
We should be workingtoward a nuclear weapon-free world. The political structure I mentioned above is important for that.

The more nations that have nukes the more dangerous, but what right does a nation have to say it can have them and others can't, would you accept that?

A "nuclear weapon-free world" is just another one of your pipe dreams. Like "good people in government." Or "good government policies."

As for the OP, I don't see what the big deal is. If years down the road we run out of battleships, I'm sure we could lease one from Blackwater, or whatever they call themselves these days.
 

Sacrilege

Senior member
Sep 6, 2007
647
0
0
We should be workingtoward a nuclear weapon-free world. The political structure I mentioned above is important for that.

The more nations that have nukes the more dangerous, but what right does a nation have to say it can have them and others can't, would you accept that?

You goal of a nuclear free world is noble, and I will be the first to admit that the "dual track" NPT is ridiculous, but the nuclear genie is out of the bottle. Any reasonably competent nation can pool scientists together and develop nuclear weapons.

Suppose every nation renounced nuclear arms and disposed of them. What is to stop another nation from developing nuclear weapons and fulfilling their expansionist (or whatever) will? They could say any conventional attack upon them would warrant an nuclear reprisal.

I really don't have a good answer to this conundrum. The fact is, a technically competent (more so than North Korea, or to a lesser degree, Iran) "rogue" nation could develop nukes in a month. Mutually assured destruction and missile defense seem to serve a role against such a scenario. And MAD has worked for decades now.

If you ban guns, only criminals will have guns. If you still go through with the ban, you better have some damn good armor.
 
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Vic

Elite Member
Jun 12, 2001
50,415
14,303
136
And that is one of the reasons Japan thought they could get away with attacking us. Having a strong standing force is not a bad idea.

Yeah... how did that go for Japan BTW?


There are very few things the Founding Fathers agreed on, but being against a strong standing army is pretty much at the top of that list.
 

charrison

Lifer
Oct 13, 1999
17,033
1
81
Yeah... how did that go for Japan BTW?


There are very few things the Founding Fathers agreed on, but being against a strong standing army is pretty much at the top of that list.

Did not go well for anyone. Probably would have cost much less blood and coin if the US has been better prepared. Most of WWII was spent ramping up production to fight the war.
 

Vic

Elite Member
Jun 12, 2001
50,415
14,303
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Did not go well for anyone. Probably would have cost much less blood and coin if the US has been better prepared. Most of WWII was spent ramping up production to fight the war.

Nonsense, Japan was stupid.
 

charrison

Lifer
Oct 13, 1999
17,033
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Nonsense, Japan was stupid.




Your right they were stupid, but had we been stronger would they or germany been so stupid? And if we had been more prepared, we probably could have reacted far more quickly to what was happening. We started the war behind in technology and production capability.

And we were also very lucky that our carriers were out of pearl harbor that morning
 

fskimospy

Elite Member
Mar 10, 2006
83,719
47,408
136
Did not go well for anyone. Probably would have cost much less blood and coin if the US has been better prepared. Most of WWII was spent ramping up production to fight the war.

It actually went pretty spectacularly well for us, at the end of the war we were a colossus the likes of which the world had never seen. It would always be great to have a huge army ready to fight a war, but that army has costs... BIG ones... and in peacetime you get nothing for it.

We spend a trillion dollars a year on defense, that's a lot more than is necessary.
 

charrison

Lifer
Oct 13, 1999
17,033
1
81
It actually went pretty spectacularly well for us, at the end of the war we were a colossus the likes of which the world had never seen. It would always be great to have a huge army ready to fight a war, but that army has costs... BIG ones... and in peacetime you get nothing for it.

We spend a trillion dollars a year on defense, that's a lot more than is necessary.

The cost of WWII was quite high and it probably could have been significantly lessened if we had been more prepared.

And last time I checked the dod only gets about $500B a year.
 

fskimospy

Elite Member
Mar 10, 2006
83,719
47,408
136
The cost of WWII was quite high and it probably could have been significantly lessened if we had been more prepared.

And last time I checked the dod only gets about $500B a year.

We'll never really know. That's all a Monday morning quarterback thing really. It probably wouldn't have happened in the same way, if at all. (and it not happening could have in fact been a bad thing for us)

The DOD's budget is about 500-600 billion, but when you add up all other various and sundry defense expenditures like our nuclear forces (not part of the DoD), war funding, etc... etc. It comes out to about an even trillion.
 

Sacrilege

Senior member
Sep 6, 2007
647
0
0
Yeah... how did that go for Japan BTW?


There are very few things the Founding Fathers agreed on, but being against a strong standing army is pretty much at the top of that list.

They were idiots for thinking that. There I said it. America's gods and goddesses were wrong on something.

A strong standing army has worked wonders for the US.
 

Vic

Elite Member
Jun 12, 2001
50,415
14,303
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They were idiots for thinking that. There I said it. America's gods and goddesses were wrong on something.

A strong standing army has worked wonders for the US.

Yeah, in the worst way. All the 'OMG big government' problems in this country stem from having to maintain a large standing army during peacetime. Standing armies are the enemy of liberty.
 

charrison

Lifer
Oct 13, 1999
17,033
1
81
We'll never really know. That's all a Monday morning quarterback thing really. It probably wouldn't have happened in the same way, if at all. (and it not happening could have in fact been a bad thing for us)

The DOD's budget is about 500-600 billion, but when you add up all other various and sundry defense expenditures like our nuclear forces (not part of the DoD), war funding, etc... etc. It comes out to about an even trillion.

Your right we will never really know, but we can look back and know it took us several years to ramp up production. We started the war behind in technology, so we needed 10 shermans to destroy a single panzer. Our fighter aircraft were outclassed and we had no longer ranger bombers. We started very behind. Fortunatly we were protected by large oceans and were able to turn significant chunks of industry into producing war machines.

Not even close, but thanks for playing about the trillion for defense.
 

charrison

Lifer
Oct 13, 1999
17,033
1
81
Yeah, in the worst way. All the 'OMG big government' problems in this country stem from having to maintain a large standing army during peacetime. Standing armies are the enemy of liberty.

I would have to strongly disagree there. Just because you want to be peaceful, does not mean your neighbors want the same.
 

Vic

Elite Member
Jun 12, 2001
50,415
14,303
136
I would have to strongly disagree there. Just because you want to be peaceful, does not mean your neighbors want the same.

Just because we're not maintaining a strong standing army does not mean that we're not prepared for war. As my prior references to WWI and WWII made clear. It is not difficult for a strong peacetime economy to transform to a strong wartime economy when necessary. What is harder, as we have learned, is for a wartime economy to transform back to a peacetime economy when that wartime economy is not necessary.
 

fskimospy

Elite Member
Mar 10, 2006
83,719
47,408
136
Your right we will never really know, but we can look back and know it took us several years to ramp up production. We started the war behind in technology, so we needed 10 shermans to destroy a single panzer. Our fighter aircraft were outclassed and we had no longer ranger bombers. We started very behind. Fortunatly we were protected by large oceans and were able to turn significant chunks of industry into producing war machines.

Not even close, but thanks for playing about the trillion for defense.

The Germans' ideas for producing tanks were retarded, it's one of the biggest reasons why they lost. They chose to produce highly capable weapons that were extremely difficult to build, while their enemies made simple weapons that were effective enough.

As for the defense budget, you're simply wrong. It depends on what you decide to call defense related, but it's in the ballpark of a trillion no matter what way you cut it. How much of NASA's budget do you want to call 'defense', as they launch a lot of our military satellites? Our nuclear forces are under the department of energy's budget, but I think I would call nuclear warheads 'defense'. To label our defense spending each year as only the DoD's budget would require some serious reality distortion.
 

Vic

Elite Member
Jun 12, 2001
50,415
14,303
136
Your right we will never really know, but we can look back and know it took us several years to ramp up production. We started the war behind in technology, so we needed 10 shermans to destroy a single panzer. Our fighter aircraft were outclassed and we had no longer ranger bombers. We started very behind. Fortunatly we were protected by large oceans and were able to turn significant chunks of industry into producing war machines.

Not even close, but thanks for playing about the trillion for defense.

A textbook example here of how pseudo-conservatives like to pretend that they don't believe in big government.

I hate to break it to ya, but we never beat the Germans with technology during WWII. We beat the Germans with the Russians. And superior resources. From a really big picture perspective, it is arguable that the Germans lost because they ran out of oil.
 

charrison

Lifer
Oct 13, 1999
17,033
1
81
Just because we're not maintaining a strong standing army does not mean that we're not prepared for war. As my prior references to WWI and WWII made clear. It is not difficult for a strong peacetime economy to transform to a strong wartime economy when necessary. What is harder, as we have learned, is for a wartime economy to transform back to a peacetime economy when that wartime economy is not necessary.

I generally agree with what you are saying, but you also have to have forces large enough to keep to from being seen as an easy target. So the question is what size army is needed to prevent things like WWI and WWII from happening. Both were terribly expensive for the world.
 

Vic

Elite Member
Jun 12, 2001
50,415
14,303
136
I generally agree with what you are saying, but you also have to have forces large enough to keep to from being seen as an easy target. So the question is what size army is needed to prevent things like WWI and WWII from happening. Both were terribly expensive for the world.

As I already said, Japanese and German stupidity were terribly expensive for the world. One could argue that Germany had a logistical shot at ruling the world. Japan, not a chance. You see, location is everything. It's not that the Nepalese people are stupid that they don't rule the world.
 

charrison

Lifer
Oct 13, 1999
17,033
1
81
The Germans' ideas for producing tanks were retarded, it's one of the biggest reasons why they lost. They chose to produce highly capable weapons that were extremely difficult to build, while their enemies made simple weapons that were effective enough.

That was because of the treaty of Versailles limited them to the number of units they could produce. So they built the best of everything. The law of unintended consequences strikes again.


As for the defense budget, you're simply wrong. It depends on what you decide to call defense related, but it's in the ballpark of a trillion no matter what way you cut it. How much of NASA's budget do you want to call 'defense', as they launch a lot of our military satellites? Our nuclear forces are under the department of energy's budget, but I think I would call nuclear warheads 'defense'. To label our defense spending each year as only the DoD's budget would require some serious reality distortion.

But the bulk or NASA or dept of energy is not DoD related and is not going to come close to the additional 500B needed to get to a trillion.
 

Vic

Elite Member
Jun 12, 2001
50,415
14,303
136
The Germans' ideas for producing tanks were retarded, it's one of the biggest reasons why they lost. They chose to produce highly capable weapons that were extremely difficult to build, while their enemies made simple weapons that were effective enough.

As for the defense budget, you're simply wrong. It depends on what you decide to call defense related, but it's in the ballpark of a trillion no matter what way you cut it. How much of NASA's budget do you want to call 'defense', as they launch a lot of our military satellites? Our nuclear forces are under the department of energy's budget, but I think I would call nuclear warheads 'defense'. To label our defense spending each year as only the DoD's budget would require some serious reality distortion.

That's right, we mass-produced the shit out of the Germans, and then gave all our excess production to our allies.

An irony here is the Charrison is supporting exactly the same kind of policies that got the Germans in trouble in the first place.
 

charrison

Lifer
Oct 13, 1999
17,033
1
81
As I already said, Japanese and German stupidity were terribly expensive for the world. One could argue that Germany had a logistical shot at ruling the world. Japan, not a chance. You see, location is everything. It's not that the Nepalese people are stupid that they don't rule the world.

Yes location was everything, but of them thought they had a shot at it. Had we been stronger, maybe they would have thought differently.
 

charrison

Lifer
Oct 13, 1999
17,033
1
81
That's right, we mass-produced the shit out of the Germans, and then gave all our excess production to our allies.

An irony here is the Charrison is supporting exactly the same kind of policies that got the Germans in trouble in the first place.


I do not support policies of invading our neighboring countries. I do however support keeping a standing army large enough to defend our interests. We can debate about what that should be.