Leaner Meaner Military..

[bigrun]

The U.S. military will steadily shrink the Army and Marine Corps, reduce forces in Europe and probably make further cuts to the nation’s nuclear arsenal, the Obama administration said Thursday in a preview of how it intends to reshape the armed forces after a decade of war.


http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/...c=nl_headlines

[DaTruth]

I have mixed feelings about this. The military is definitely bloated, and all branches could use some pruning. On the other hand, I'm not convinced of the effectiveness of high-tech weaponry (at the expense of overwhelming numbers) is in an urban warfare setting when there is probability of collateral damage. It would be nice if all wars could be fought using drones directed by a guy sitting at his computer in Tampa, but we are not there yet.

[Danzig]

all true datruth. fat lot of good all the ultra modern toys have done us; we've been in afganistan for a decade with that stuff.


on the other hand....this country for decades didn't keep a huge standing army. a big portion of our strength was our ability to ramp up production and get a lot of people trained and mobilized in a pretty short period of time. we were never a superpower til after ww2. that hasn't made us or the world safer, but it's become a significant drain on our treasury. now, to cut the bloat will be painful in the short term-but absolutely necessary for the long term.

[Riot]

Leaner, meaner, more mobile works for me. More Navy Seals less huge navy? Half a trillion savings over 10 years. That's a good thing, too. I'll guess the obvious, that the military-industrial complex will fight this tooth and nail, it's so much money out of their pockets. No more hundreds of big government contracts. They'll fight it from the jobs layoff perspective.

But good our military will be staged in their new bases in Australia, regarding China and N. Korea.

[bigrun]

Originally Posted by Riot

Leaner, meaner, more mobile works for me. More Navy Seals less huge navy? Half a trillion savings over 10 years. That's a good thing, too. I'll guess the obvious, that the military-industrial complex will fight this tooth and nail, it's so much money out of their pockets. No more hundreds of big government contracts. They'll fight it from the jobs layoff perspective.

But good our military will be staged in their new bases in Australia, regarding China and N. Korea.

They will continue to maintain carriers in key waters across the globe, close by China, Iran etc.....think Army and Marines will suffer larger portion of the cuts...AF and Navy not as much....Hope we learned something about invading countries that have not attacked us....

[Riot]

Originally Posted by bigrun

Hope we learned something about invading countries that have not attacked us....

Every Republican candidate for President, except Ron Paul, wants to immediately invade, militarily threaten, or blow up parts of Iran the moment they take office.