Even a hawk like me can support defense cuts
The paper makes four bogus claims about what “reductions at this level would mean”:
The smallest ground force since before World War II. We’re going to have that anyway, because our troops’ real friends on the Hill would fit in an aircraft lavatory. Congressmen love photo ops with soldiers, but when it comes budget time they’ll always sacrifice grunts to preserve home-district defense-contractor jobs, no matter how wasteful. Congress is going to slash troops whatever happens.
The smallest Navy since before World War II. It’s also a much more expensive Navy, with ships costing up to $4.5-billion raw from the shipyard. The Navy decided that fewer, more-expensive ships are better, with supercarriers our maritime-strategy centerpiece.
In fact, our Navy is too small. Want a bigger one? Buy cheaper, smaller, faster ships. The next revolutionary shock in naval warfare is going to come when a second-rate power, such as Iran or North Korea, sinks one of our supercarriers.
The smallest tactical fighter force in the history of the Air Force. Again, this is a choice. Despite possessing incontestable air dominance over every other air force on earth, the “fighter pilot mafia” within our Air Force keeps pushing for extravagant hi-tech fighters. That means fewer airplanes.
Blowback
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Now that is truth to power.
rob verdi on February 16, 2013 at 6:41 PM
The Defense Department – not the military – the Defense Department is among the worst run of our government.
It starts with the idiots comprising the Joint Chiefs. Once they were the best military men of their age – today they are the nothing more than the best politicians of their age.
The military – I am sorry to say – just like the civilian government – needs to undergo a revolution – that typically begins with a massive tear down.
So it goes.
God bless our “fighting” men and women – go Navy – beat Army.
jake-the-goose on February 16, 2013 at 6:44 PM
As long as PBS and Big Bird get money, nothing should be cut from defense.
xblade on February 16, 2013 at 6:50 PM
Well said…. and awfully hard to argue with. Nice
jake-the-goose on February 16, 2013 at 6:52 PM
Yes, there is always wasteful inefficient spending in the military that can be cut. Yawn.
That’s why it should be one of the only things the federal government spends money on. Because all government spending is by it’s very nature is always, always wasteful and inefficient, no matter how hard you try to make it otherwise. There will always, always be some level of corruption, too, human beings being what they are.
Which is why federal spending in general should be cut and minimized. However, spending on national defense and security should be the last place cuts are made, after all other cuts are made and all other wasteful and inefficient spending has been addressed.
However, defense is almost always the first thing cut, and usually the only thing cut.
Did Peters’ recently lose a “TV analyst” gig or something? Maybe he’s looking for a spot as a token conservative somewhere.
farsighted on February 16, 2013 at 6:57 PM
How was that “incontestable air dominance” acheived, Ralph? How do you propose to keep it that way, Ralph, considering most AF aircraft were designed in the 60s and 70s?
Perhaps we should adopt the Russian and the now defunct Soviet Union’s old philosophy, where quantity has a quality all it’s own. Build lots of lower quality lower tech planes. However, a lot more pilots will die in combat. Sound good to you?
farsighted on February 16, 2013 at 7:06 PM
+100.
farsighted on February 16, 2013 at 7:07 PM
Beat me to it xblade. BULLSEYE!!!!!!
sanjuro on February 16, 2013 at 7:20 PM
I’d really like to know how he came up with that number.
BallisticBob on February 16, 2013 at 8:11 PM
Assuming it is actually true, of which I am skeptical, most likely early teething. Just as the purchase price per unit is very, very high for the first few if cost of design and development is factored in, the cost of maintaining the first batch or two is higher.
Along those lines, the first B17′s used in WW II were crap, though the had already been in service for a couple of years. The B-29 story, the highest of high tech aircraft at the time, was even worse.
And what he is missing, or deliberately ignoring, is the increased cost of maintenance of older equipment. IIRC, maintenance hours per flight hour of F-14s in the years before it was phased out was 5-10 times that of the F-18, which was a fairly well broken in system at the time.
Stories like this remind me of the media hysteria leading up to the First Gulf War. According to the media every weapons system was overpriced, unreliable, and would fail, resulting in the deaths of tens of thousands of Amrican military personnel. All this “journalism” was backed up by ex-military types expressing their opinions. The rest is history. They could not have been more wrong.
I haven’t paid much attention to horror stories about US weapons systems coming from the media or ex-military types since.
farsighted on February 16, 2013 at 9:00 PM
Thank you. And don’t get me wrong, I’m all for cutting spending where necessary, but I’m tired of folks(including folks on our side) treating all spending equally, because it isn’t.
xblade on February 16, 2013 at 9:44 PM
And it is slated to replace how many different airframes?
In one way or another it will replace four to five: most F15s, the F-18, the F-16, the AV-8B Harrier, and possibly some A-10s.
Now add up the total cost of all of those programs, from the very start to the present — cost to design and develop, acquire, and maintian — and put them in current dollars. Keep in mind all of these aircraft were first conceived, designed, and developed in the 1960s and 70s and are still in service. Then compare that number to Peters’ $1.5 trillion, which last I heard was actually much closer to $1 trillion.
One can legitimately argue about the wisdom of replacing all of those air frames with a single aircraft. But the cost argument is probably bogus.
farsighted on February 16, 2013 at 9:48 PM
One more thing. The reason for replacing five different airframes with what is basically one is to keep the costs down, especially the maintenance and replacement costs, which Peters’ is so concerned with.
The jury is out about whether or not that will happen, but we won’t get the verdict for about 40 years.
farsighted on February 16, 2013 at 10:12 PM