CompuServe Thread

You wanna straight answer? I don't have the exact figures, but you ought to consider that the majority of the military budget goes for personnel costs, including pensions and VA. This is a Huge chunk of cash, and IT DOESN'T GET SMALLER no matter what else you cut. Then there's the cost of converting warships to coed, including maternity wards, apparently, and the cost of all these "peace keeping" missions we're involved in lately. Then there's the cost of shutting down bases, and cleaning them up. Lots of stuff. But every year that the budget doesn't go UP is a CUT, because every year costs go up. -Karl

Paul – I'll try to get a current breakdown of the defense budget, but I don't have one handy. So far the base closure process (including clean-up) has cost more than it has saved. Something around 10% or less of the defense budget is research and development (this includes university grants that are written into the defense budget by Congress). Personnel, operations and maintenance costs, are the largest share of the budget, not withstanding a 25% decrease in force structure in the last five years (from around 2 million service personnel to somewhere around 1.4 million). My own Navy community, landbased maritime patrol aircraft (P-3's) has had a 50% reduction since 1980, yet the same amount of ocean to patrol is still there, the reduction in the Soviet/Russian threat is probably what allows the rest of the mission to be executable. The battleships Missouri and Wisconsin are decommissioned, both played active roles during Desert Storm; no battleships are in active service anywhere in the world, now. We have fewer aircraft and aircraft carriers now – the A6E Intruder will be phased out of the Navy's inventory by the end of this year, the number of F-14 squadrons is being cut in half. We are also reducing reserve carrier aviation from two to one reserve carrier air wings. During piece time operations, the rule of thumb is for each unit you need to have forward deployed, you need two more of the same at home (one in maintenance, one in 'training'). That would mean that to have four aircraft carriers forward deployed, would require eight more at home. We no longer have twelve active carriers and active airwings (we're now down to 11 airwings). There are many potential trouble spots in the world, without having to worry about "the evil empire"; a few months ago, it looked like the US could potentially required increased forces in five locations: Arabian Gulf, Somalia, Korea, Haiti, and the Adriatic Sea (near Bosnia). This even ignores the massive arms build-up now being conducted by the Peoples Republic of China (according to the media, anyway). "The evil empire" is not a current threat, but sometimes is it is necessary to look at potential capabilities, not intentions. Governments and policies can change. Hope this helps, and I'll try to get a better budget breakdown. Jeff Schweiger

Paul, Someone will probably already have answered this, but here goes. A significant, if not primary, part of the deterrence force of the cold war was nuclear. Ok, suppose we no longer need ANY nukes. Cut them all. You don't save much, in relative terms. Nukes are big bang, small buck. Although we haven't eliminated them, we have reduced the inventory, but it hasn't helped that much. The conventional threat from the Warsaw Pact is gone, and the threat from the remnants is reduced. This should be our big opportunity. We have drawn down some in Europe, I don't know how much. We probably could go all the way to withdrawl, but this has made some in our government and the European governments nervous. No one will say it, but their reactions indicate a fear that Europe might turn to internal fighting again. I must admit, I find it hard to believe that the Europeans would go back to war for internal disputes. OTOH, check the history. Until the post WWII era, European wars were common. Since WWII, there hadn't been any until the post-war power structure broke down. What was the primary reason for peace from 1945-1990? Some see the presence of American forces in Europe as a stabilizing factor, and these people are reluctant to leave. They believe we will end up having to go back during hostilities which we could have prevented by staying. I don't really believe this, but the risk is enough to recommend caution. Lastly, with the threat of superpower escalation gone, many former superpower client states feel unrestrained. This has led to MORE armed conflict since the cold war ended than while it continued. When U.S. interests are at stake, we have to intervene. When CNN, NBC, ABC, etc. show graphic depictions of human suffering, there is public pressure to intervene. However, the public wants it clean. Unfortunately, even little wars are dirty. To fulfill the requirements set forth by the public, the military needs increasingly sophisticated hardware. Soon, bombs will have to be smart enough to knock on the door, and determine if the guilty party is present before making an informed decision as to whether it should explode. Also, having become proficient at killing, the military is now confronted with the need to accomplish it's missions without killing. Non-lethal weapons are the wave of the future, but they won't come cheap. The force that can occupy Bosnia or Somalia, pacify them, remain invulnerable and not permanently injure anyone will be a very expensive force, even if it's half the size of our Cold War force. And because there are no Cold War restraints, it will be called on more often. This seems to be what the public wants. Short answer: The world changed. All in all, that was a good thing. Sorry about the length. <g> Kent

Invasion is the last resort of the diplomats. Before that level of action is even reached there is a projection of power that is used. This projection of power is reached by simple things, such as showing the flag when US flag warships make courtesy calls. It could also be as simple as moving a battle group from it's normal area of operations to another area (which just so happens to be closer to an area that the diplomats want to influence). The miltary are a two edged sword. They are used when the stuff actually hits the fan, but are more commonly used as a threat. By reducing the ability of the military to actually project power, a reciprocal effect occurs with diplomatic influence. In essence all diplomacy is is talk. In order to actually have 'suggestions' implemented, some sort of threat of action needs to be used. The easiest and quickest way is for the military to be used. Not in an actual combat role, but more as the threat. There are other ways (such as economic sanctions), but these are all long term and affect a wider range of people in a target nation (even those that support the action). While more humane (in that there is no direct loss of life), they rarely affect the group of people that need it. Do you think that Hussien and the clique in charge were actually deprived when economic sanctions were imposed on Iraq? I think not. The common people were affected and that was used as a propaganda measure against the coalition forces. While I support _some_ cutbacks to military forces, a balance has to be drawn. The government has to determine want it's role is to be and what it wants to achieve in regards to foreign policy, and then structure and budget the military accordingly. Learn from history. After WWI there were drastic military cutbacks (the 'War to end all wars' mentality) to the point where the military was smaller than it's pre-war levels. Look what happened. Trent 'Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori'