Is the U.S. Military Affordable

[gute]

With the current economic situation in the U.S. as well as the rest of the word - the United States at some point is going to have to make cuts and the U.S. military will be subject to cuts. I am a proponent of a strong active and reserve military, but we are in a bit if a pickle with our national debt. Obviously cuts are not realistic until we are able to get out of Afghanistan and Iraq. I do propose that we only cut defense about across the board - there are many domestic programs in the U.S. that could either get the axe or cut significantly.

The question becomes, how big of a military do we need? What are our national security priorities?

Some argue that the united States spends more on defense then China, Russia and NATO combined, but I find the argument illogical. The U.S. should spend on national defense based on our priorities and not what other countries spend. What is logical are the threats posed by others. I for one would not go to war with China over Taiwan and I believe the South Koreans are more then capable of defending themselves against the North Koreans (the use of nuclear weapons by North Korea could change my position).

Do we need 10 active duty divisions, six independant brigadres and dozens of CS and CSS brigades? Do we need three active Marine Corps divisions (this is a hrad one to bring up since I am a former Marine)? Do we need 11 aircraft carriers and the large number of amphibious ships which are basically small carriers? Do we need so many fighter and attack aircraft in the USAF active duty inventory?

I have read much on this subject, but I am curious what others think.

[Adam L]

This could be a very long post. I dont' have the time for it right now, but here's the very short version.

Yes, we are going to have a very hard time affording our military in the future.

Proposoals:

1) Reintigrate AF into Army
2) Keep Army big and Marine Corp small
3) Put lots of research into making carbon fiber cheaper to make and build with

I'll get back to this later or tomorrow, but for now these should make some interesting discussion points.

Adam L

[William F. Owen]

Proposoals:

1) Reintigrate AF into Army
2) Keep Army big and Marine Corp small
3) Put lots of research into making carbon fiber cheaper to make and build with

With the aim of being deliberately provocative, but from an entirely objective view point...

1.) Move all aircraft to the Air Force. Air Power is about the military application of anything that flies, manned or un-manned.
2.) US Armed forces are expeditionary. Reduce the size the of Army and increase the Marine Corps!

....I don't know how big the US Armed Forces should be because it is near impossible to understand US Foreign Policy.
The debate about the size of the Armed Forces in the UK has an almost child like nature because no one wants to ask the exam question.

[SethB]

I tend to pontificate that we should recapitalize with an eye towards long term costs.

As it stands, things tend to get bloated during procurement. If that process could be better controlled, we might be able to procure equipment that costs less, and costs less to run.

For instance, the cost to maintain an aircraft escalates as that plane nears end of life. Replacing it with a new plane that uses a smaller crew, a smaller support crew, less fuel and fewer parts might save enough money to make up the difference.

Would a new engine for the Abrams make it more reliable while simultaneously reducing the need for fuelers and tankers?

Similarly, do we need to duplicate capabilities? Does Excalibur provide anything that GMLRS can't do for less?

At the same time, we could look at what we need and why. Do we need a division, a brigade and a regiment on jump status? Do we need all 11 CVNs?

[William F. Owen]

I tend to pontificate that we should recapitalize with an eye towards long term costs.

Eminently sensible, but the problem is that the defence industry (US and UK) is under pinned by what can be be described as "voodoo economics."

The UK MOD has fallen over itself with a concept of "through life costing" which is predicated on the art of telling the future, with absolute certainty, to a certain point and then guessing at it afterwards.

If you want to see the same in the US, look at F-35. What some clowns are trying to do is take what they know in 2010, and extrapolate that to what the aircraft will have cost in 2035. Could we have done that in 1910 for 1935?
Could the projections made for the F-15C in 1980, adequately predicted costs and capabilities for 2010 - when it is still the majority of the front line fighter fleet?

[Uboat509]

1.) Move all aircraft to the Air Force. Air Power is about the military application of anything that flies, manned or un-manned.

No. No. No. Go ahead and give the AF all the air supperiority aircraft and all the strategic bombers but do not give them anymore control over ground attack aircraft or UAVs than they already have. No good can come from that.

[William F. Owen]

No. No. No. Go ahead and give the AF all the air supperiority aircraft and all the strategic bombers but do not give them anymore control over ground attack aircraft or UAVs than they already have. No good can come from that.

OK, but what's a "strategic bomber?"
Do the Air Force still operate the transport aircraft?

If you're arguing for the status-quo, then OK, but I was seeking not to default to the "Air Force is too stupid to operate aircraft for the Army."
If that is the case, it has to be explained, as the reason you're not doing it.

[Uboat509]

OK, but what's a "strategic bomber?"
Do the Air Force still operate the transport aircraft?

I was simply refering to anything that is not a ground attack aircraft.

If you're arguing for the status-quo, then OK, but I was seeking not to default to the "Air Force is too stupid to operate aircraft for the Army."
If that is the case, it has to be explained, as the reason you're not doing it.

Too stupid? Not at all, but they do tend to have different priorities. What is important to the Army is not necessarily important to the AF and vice versa. We are culturally very different organizations with different mindsets. I honestly believe that parochialism has more to do with the air force desire to control all air assets, than does any overriding belief that they can do a better job. The AF would rather spend money on the next generation of air superiority fighter than a new ground attack aircraft. The Army makes up for that with attack helicopters but if we send "everything that flies" over to the AF then you create additional levels of coordination and command to further complicate any operations requiring air support, which these days means pretty much any operation since, at the very least you would have to coordinate for MEDEVAC support if nothing else. The bottom line is that at a time when we are creating (recreating) combined arms formations that have all support, or at least most of it, organic to the unit, it doesn't make much sense to take all of the air assets away and give them to another service.

[slapout9]

OK, but what's a "strategic bomber?"

In the beginning, back when we new what we were doing, we had a National Policy of "Massive Retaliation at a time and place of our choosing". At the time the Air Force was the only one capable of creating a Strategy to support this Policy. And at that time no other had the atomic bomb and or the delivery method to hit the Continental USA. At that time only the USAF had a "vehicle" that could deliver an atomic weapon anywhere in the world, hence it was Strategic because it could implement our Strategy.

As more time went by and other services developed missiles Army,Navy(Polaris) and the USSR had the bomb and finally a missile to deliver it, the Air Force no longer had a monopoly on this Strategy so we moved to a National Policy of "Flexible Response" by any or all service(s). At which time we no longer had a Strategic Bomber but a more accurately described long range bomber. But the Air Force never got rid of the (SAC) Strategic Air Command structure for another what?? 40 years