Ok, I'm sure I'm not the first person to wonder this and discuss it, but on the same hand this seems a taboo subject, so I thought I'd gauge TWW's reaction.

In this modern world, why exactly do we need a traditional army? Is the threat from abroad so overwhelming that we must continue to contribute such a huge proportion of our resources towards a military to defend us?

In real life terms, would having a ~50% smaller military seriously endanger our country?

Here's my proposal (and this would be staged over 10 years or so, no need to rip the band-aid off when it doesn't make sense):

- Close all foreign military bases
- Reduce the Army from 550,00 active and 550,000 reserve to 100k/100k.
- Reduce the naval by approx. 50%. 5 carrier groups should be sufficient to defend our shores since all other nations have <2.
- Similar cuts in other branches. All branches will emphasize smaller groups that deploy quickly and fight more effectively.
-Etc.

9/14/2012 3:15:30 PM

There is a real plan to take over the world.

If you look at the size of the military from that perspective, it makes perfect sense.

It'll never make sense if you look at it from a "keep America safe" point of view.

9/14/2012 3:53:43 PM

If we didn't maintain an army, our interior would be fair game for all manner of foreign interests, starting with Canada.

9/14/2012 4:01:44 PM

But I don't want to learn Mandarin.

9/14/2012 4:16:03 PM

This is crazytalk. Then we would loose all those jobs, from the enlisted boneheads to the evil scientists and engineers that work on weapons development. There is no room for them in the private sector with all this unemployment we have already. Not to mention that our net exports will be cut in half, because if we cut our weapons stockpile in two, we surely can't continue to export more to other countris.

9/14/2012 4:18:12 PM

Maybe I'm new to soapbox and my sarcasm sensor is broken, but do you guys really fear invasion from Canada or China?

9/14/2012 4:18:30 PM

Mutually Assured Destruction

9/14/2012 4:20:17 PM

without an army, we wouldn't be able to pillage and plunder spread democracy.

9/14/2012 4:21:13 PM

Igor, that's why it's done slowly over time. You'll never reduce government spending if you're always afraid of some government paid employees losing their jobs.

Take 300 billion if you want and start the world's largest re-employment program. Turn those evil scientists and engineers into productive members of society that do research and rebuild our infrastructure.

Hell, I'm not even necessarily advocating that they be off the public payroll (though long-term, that would be very nice), just that we could use that money more wisely.

If we cut our weapons stockpile in half, wouldn't that increase our exports of arms, at least in the short-term?

Also, weapons are half of our exports? Seriously?

9/14/2012 4:26:14 PM

You can still maintain deterrents and get mutually assured destruction from our nuclear stockpile. Why do you need a 1 trillion dollar army to achieve that?

Quote :

"without an army, we wouldn't be able to pillage and plunder spread democracy. "

That's more like it. Is our spread and lovefest with all things democracy worth this much of our resources? Is it worth risking our nation's future?

9/14/2012 4:28:51 PM

I was being sarcastic. Please carry on.

Although I do know some engineers who, once they started working in the defense sector, find it hard to leave because having a clearance means they get paid good size premium over what they would make in the private sector. And yes, I am sure that is possible overtime to reduce the size of our military without advese effect on the economy. However, being the biggest bully on the block sometimes has economic benefits, as attested by anyone who has ever had their lunch taken from them in school.

9/14/2012 4:34:03 PM

i know this is a troll thread, but...

i don't think people really have an understanding of the capabilities of china's military.

and 200k troops? lol. fuck worring about china. the mexican drug cartels could annex the southeast. (not really) (but seriously)

and L O FUCKING L at "All branches will emphasize smaller groups that deploy quickly and fight more effectively."

you clearly don't know what the hell you're talking about

BUT, had you said we need to get rid of the air force and fold their capabilities into the army and navy, I'd agree. they're a pretty big waste of space in the current global environment.

[Edited on September 14, 2012 at 4:59 PM. Reason : .]

9/14/2012 4:54:17 PM

i don't think people really have an understanding of the capabilities of china's military. of the national debt

and 200k troops? lol. fuck worring about china. the mexican drug cartels could annex the southeast. (not really) (but seriously)


We will be defenseless to be taken over when everyone stops getting paid.

They're owned by the first person to offer any unit of currency after the collapse; killing whoever for any reason to keep that buck.

9/14/2012 5:02:46 PM

I think you mean the southwest.

9/14/2012 5:06:52 PM

clearly you've never seen the atlanta drug trade

but yeah, i meant southwest

9/14/2012 5:09:20 PM

Quote :

"do you guys really fear invasion from Canada or China?"

not now

but srsly, the tendency of all nations is to lay claim to undefended territory, just look at what happened to the Republic of Minerva, which had no army and was conquered by Tonga: https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Republic_of_Minerva

9/14/2012 5:09:57 PM

This all boils down to what you want your military to do. Is it strictly to prevent the Canadians from invading? Do you want to maintain some level of force projection, and if so, what level of force projection do you require? Do you want no ability to project force? Bare minimum (evacuations)? Capability to launch air strikes? Full forced, government toppling, drop 100,000 troops anywhere on the planet? I guess the question comes to what do you mean by "All branches will emphasize smaller groups that deploy quickly and fight more effectively."

How important are our alliances, to NATO, Japanese, Koreans, etc.? Are you ready to cede America's sphere of influence in regions like Europe and Eastern Asia and all the consequences that brings?

There's the question regarding protection of the commons, things like sea lanes and whatnot. Right now, the USN ensures a level of safe travel and neutrality. This underpins a very large part of our global trade system, and there is no one else, even in coalition, that could replicate this. What do you replace this with, and who will pay for it? Would you be okay with this even if it means that neutrality could be threatened?

The United States also plays a huge role in terms of peacekeeping operations world wide. Even if we're not directly putting boots on the ground, dropping bombs, etc., we are one of the core logistics backbones to many peacekeeping efforts, and there is no one else who can fill that role anytime within the next couple of decades. Do you want to immediately dissolve all that, phase out over a few years?

These are the sorts of questions you need to ask. Determine the mission you want your military to do then size appropriately.

9/14/2012 5:42:41 PM

We would be screwed when the aliens come if op's cuts were made.

we can not afford to police the world. all of that stuff should be done by coalition and we'd be happy to send a few ships and a few troops here and there. we should have no sole international responsibilities.

All of our force "projection" should be defensive as in projecting force into the atlantic and pacific oceans to protect our borders and airspace. The air force is the 2nd most important branch with this.

Marines should be cut almost to the bare bone. We'd only need enough to land on our own coasts and take back a place lost to invasion like puerto rico, hawaii, or one of our other pacific islands.

Navy ships shouldn't really be sailing away from our basins unless its part of a un coalition.

Don't forget we have the national guard reserve that could be minutement to protect the homeland against invasion.

Our military policy should be isolation unless theres a coalition movement (that we don't lead but simply participate in).

[Edited on September 14, 2012 at 8:27 PM. Reason : H]

9/14/2012 8:27:21 PM

^^ Yep.

We could scale things back a bit from where we're at now, but the 2nd and 3rd order effects of going overboard would be problematic.

9/14/2012 8:30:36 PM

^Theres no way those "problems" would cost us 500 billion dollars. Get real.

9/14/2012 8:40:23 PM

You don't think our GDP would suffer ~2% if we completely shitcanned DoD and invited all of those problems?

9/14/2012 8:52:39 PM

Do you think we are the only country that has international shipping interests? We currently subsidize security for the entire globe. Do you really think it would be a pirate free for all if we cutback ? No other nation or coalition would step up?

What problems would occur if we pulled out of Germany? Japan?

What immediate problems does our active submarine fleet prevent?

What about the opportunity cost of half a trillion dollars invested elsewhere every year? How much of a gdp increase could that lead to?

[Edited on September 14, 2012 at 9:00 PM. Reason : free money]

9/14/2012 8:59:23 PM

You guys are nuts. Our military is barely large enough as it is to occupy a couple of nations. We have to expand our reach if we ever want to really achieve a stronghold globally.

The economic collapse is here. We need to grab all we can while we can still borrow . Once the rest of the world cuts us off we are going to need that oil.

9/15/2012 12:26:04 AM

1. there is no collection of countries out there that has the seapower necessary to fill the void that would be created by eliminating the majority of our navy. I'm not sure you comprehend where and when out navy deploys.

2. seriously? the problem if we pull of japan? instant destabilization of the entire east asian region. nothing stopping china from doing as it pleases. and let's not forget seoul would get wiped off the face of the earth with an arty barrage if not for the backing of the us military on the peninsula

3. while germany might not be as important now as it was until the late 80's, you can't tell me you have faith in russia's stability

4. do you even realize that china has a nuclear submarine fleet that can reach out and touch some of our western states? do you even know what the nuclear triad is? like it or not, so long as other countries have ICBM's, it is necessary to maintain a constant, unknown presence of nukes to keep MAD in place

i think you're trying to troll. but I'm becoming more worried you might just be incredibly stupid and naive

9/15/2012 2:08:29 PM

So you want to mothball 3 carrier battle groups, throw 400k army and 400k army reserves out onto the street. You want to have smaller groups that deploy quickly and fight more effectively? So you want to have units that are deployed damn near constantly..smart.

9/16/2012 12:24:02 AM

y'all really need to stop smoking weed.

9/16/2012 12:11:23 PM

Quote :

"i know this is a troll thread, but..."

And we've reached the point where the idea of not spending 5% of our GDP on military and bankrupting our government by maintaining the most powerful force in all of history is trolling.

9/16/2012 12:23:48 PM

Our military is a major contributor to worldwide stability. If you want major conflict, take away the threat of our response

9/16/2012 8:38:09 PM

We promote stability by destabilizing governments

9/16/2012 8:48:32 PM

I think we pretty clearly are a net stabilizing force...but damn, we do end up suffering from the unintended consequences of our own actions. You'd think we'd learn.

9/16/2012 8:56:34 PM

Quote :

"I think we pretty clearly are a net stabilizing force"

For who, exactly? Serious question. Who are we stabilizing the globe for?

9/16/2012 9:41:30 PM

did you not see my post? beyond the entire asian pacific region, we also ensure that nobody is going to shut down a strategic shipping lane like the straits of hormuz. or do you think iran would be just copacetic with everyone else in the region? i mean it's not like they haven't mined the thing before.

[Edited on September 16, 2012 at 11:11 PM. Reason : .]

9/16/2012 11:03:30 PM

Iran would not be hostile if cooled off so thats a moot point anyway.

9/17/2012 2:30:56 AM

Take it from me... whenever there is no education, there will always be an opportunity for others to take advantage. The middle east region of the world has little to very basic education, therefore, they often trust the intelligence of others.

9/17/2012 3:33:24 AM

Interesting read:



Dead Gitmo Prisoner's Tragic Letter About Why He Gave Up on Life

http://www.alternet.org/dead-gitmo-prisoners-tragic-letter-about-why-he-gave-life

9/17/2012 3:45:59 AM

Alternet? Really?

9/17/2012 5:54:24 AM

Quote :

"Our military is a major contributor to worldwide stability."

What an absurd statement. Nothing could be further from the truth.

The United States has actively destabilized governments. It's destabilizing governments right now. The CIA and other U.S. agencies have had a major hand in bringing down relatively stable regimes and allowing chaos to reign.

Listen to what Wesley Clark has to say here in 2007:



This is all strategic. It's not coincidence that the U.S. military is targeting certain countries and not others; this is part of the plan to destabilize the region in a way that will supposedly benefit U.S. corporations.

The sentiment that the U.S. can effectively micromanage the world is arrogant, but typical. It's also incredibly naive to believe that the people running the show actually care about U.S. policy being a "net positive" for the world. They are concerned with making sure it's a net positive for their bank accounts, that's about it.

9/17/2012 9:34:06 AM

Quote :

" The CIA and other U.S. agencies have had a major hand in bringing down relatively stable regimes and allowing chaos to reign."

are the CIA and other US agencies you refer to apart of the military?

9/17/2012 9:47:52 AM

Someone has to carry out their plans. Who do you think does it?

9/17/2012 9:49:37 AM

I'll go back to the last serious post that looked at the issue. And no, this is not a troll thread. I'm bringing up the very real opinion that our 20th century style giant fucking army has little to no reason living into the 21st century.

Quote :

"This all boils down to what you want your military to do. Is it strictly to prevent the Canadians from invading? Do you want to maintain some level of force projection, and if so, what level of force projection do you require? Do you want no ability to project force? Bare minimum (evacuations)? Capability to launch air strikes? Full forced, government toppling, drop 100,000 troops anywhere on the planet? I guess the question comes to what do you mean by "All branches will emphasize smaller groups that deploy quickly and fight more effectively." How important are our alliances, to NATO, Japanese, Koreans, etc.? Are you ready to cede America's sphere of influence in regions like Europe and Eastern Asia and all the consequences that brings? There's the question regarding protection of the commons, things like sea lanes and whatnot. Right now, the USN ensures a level of safe travel and neutrality. This underpins a very large part of our global trade system, and there is no one else, even in coalition, that could replicate this. What do you replace this with, and who will pay for it? Would you be okay with this even if it means that neutrality could be threatened? The United States also plays a huge role in terms of peacekeeping operations world wide. Even if we're not directly putting boots on the ground, dropping bombs, etc., we are one of the core logistics backbones to many peacekeeping efforts, and there is no one else who can fill that role anytime within the next couple of decades. Do you want to immediately dissolve all that, phase out over a few years? These are the sorts of questions you need to ask. Determine the mission you want your military to do then size appropriately. "

I want the military to protect our borders (and I mean that literally, not in a Iraq war sort of way), participate in coalition efforts of peacekeeping (participate at an appropriate level, not 99% of the coalition), have the ability to do responsive, quick interventions like air strikes, etc. There is no need for us to invade a country and put 100,000 troops on the ground in the blink of an eye. In the highly unlikely event that we REALLY we need to invade someone, we can ramp up to it just like every other country.

How much does our giant military actually, literally keep us safe?

By reducing the military budget, we'd have all sorts of opportunities to better use those resources.

9/17/2012 10:19:19 AM

I'm not sure you're fully aware of how many man hours are required to put one plane in the air for one flight hour.

This isn't ancient Sparta, not everyone one fights. Reducing each branch's troop strength to 100,000 would be a terrible idea and we would be unable to support many of our advance weapon systems

Also, ramp it up? With what? A draft? We need to maintain recruiting and training standards, you can't just train up a military in a few weeks.

[Edited on September 17, 2012 at 10:54 AM. Reason : a]

9/17/2012 10:42:11 AM

Quote :

"How much does our giant military actually, literally keep us safe?"

You're missing the point. The primary purpose of the military isn't to keep us safe. If it were, then it would be much smaller and it would be defending the borders.

To understand why the military is so large and is engaged in so many activities, you really just have to follow the money. Who benefits from all of this? The banks and politically connected industrialists.

9/17/2012 11:32:09 AM

I'm not fully aware of how many man-hours are needed for each flight-hour.

But I damn sure know that you don't need to spend >1 trillion each year just to have the ability to bomb a nation with a tactical strike if needed.

You don't think we could maintain our essential advanced weapons system with a reduced military? I'm not advocating for going back to the stone-age here...just that a mere 500 billion dollar budget should keep us sufficiently maintained and ready.

Quote :

"This isn't ancient Sparta, not everyone one fights. Reducing each branch's troop strength to 100,000 would be a terrible idea and we would be unable to support many of our advance weapon systems "

You are right, this isn't Sparta. There is no Philip the Second, or Xerxes, or anyone else invading the USA. No where did I imply that everyone would be made ready to fight.

As I said, we don't need the ability to invade another nation on a drop of the hat. If we REALLY needed to invade a country, we should be willing to institute a draft, sure. If we aren't willing to draft, then maybe the war isn't worth fighting. Ramp up to whatever size we needed just as we've done in other major wars that we have fought, just like most other nations have done throughout history.

9/17/2012 11:37:24 AM

Quote :

"You're missing the point. The primary purpose of the military isn't to keep us safe. If it were, then it would be much smaller and it would be defending the borders. To understand why the military is so large and is engaged in so many activities, you really just have to follow the money. Who benefits from all of this? The banks and politically connected industrialists. "

Isn't that exactly the point? I know why the military is absurdly large, I'm just arguing that it shouldn't be. The primary purpose of the military should be to keep us safe. If a military department or mission or technology isn't realistically helping us with that, then dissolve it.

9/17/2012 11:39:31 AM

Another problem that isn't being addressed here regarding expense is how inefficient military procurement is. We overspend like crazy.

9/17/2012 11:42:10 AM

I don't wanna go from having canada as a hat to being canada's shorts. them commie bastards will invade and make us learn french!

9/17/2012 12:14:51 PM

Quote :

"But I damn sure know that you don't need to spend >1 trillion each year just to have the ability to bomb a nation with a tactical strike if needed. "

Well, there goes the last shred of your credibility. The nuclear option cannot be our only option.

9/17/2012 12:26:03 PM

Where did I use the word nuclear? You can have tactical bomb strikes using conventional and advanced weapons that are not nuclear bombs.

Smart bombs, missles, etc.

Jesus, please read what I'm writing instead of arguing against something that is not even being stated.

9/17/2012 12:29:52 PM

Sorry, tactical strike tends to refer as tactical nuclear strike. Precision air strike and strategic bombing are terms for non-nuclear ordnance. Also, I'm not arguing the budget right now, I'm arguing man power. You cannot reduce the Air Force to 1/5th of its numbers and still have it function with the ability for a precision strike.

[Edited on September 17, 2012 at 12:43 PM. Reason : a]

9/17/2012 12:40:09 PM

you reduce it to 1/5th active 4ths reserves

civilian pilots that are teachers, mechanics and pilots in the real world but get a certain amount of hours training per year to the point where they are in a condition where they could ramp up if we moved to stages closer to major war.

Before ww1 we had no military and we ramped up into a beast pretty quickly

9/17/2012 3:13:19 PM