downsizing US military

[DinoDoc]

I'm curious how well this will go over in an election year when he asks Congress to vote on it.

[Sava]

congress loves shia lebouaf

[Guynemer]

these pretzels are making me thirsty

That was the answer to a question at bar trivia last week. I was the only one on my team who knew it.

"On Seinfeld, what was Kramer's only line when cast in a Woody Allen movie?"

[Guynemer]

I'm curious how well this will go over in an election year when he asks Congress to vote on it.

Like a goddamned lead balloon, no doubt.

Also, "since before WWII" is ****ing meaningless, as before WWII we spent nearly sweet-****-all on our military, at least compared to today. Get it down to actual-factual pre-WWII spending, and now you're speaking my language.

[Hauldren Collider]

Like a goddamned lead balloon, no doubt.

Also, "since before WWII" is ****ing meaningless, as before WWII we spent nearly sweet-****-all on our military, at least compared to today. Get it down to actual-factual pre-WWII spending, and now you're speaking my language.

I'm not sure I understand what you're saying in this post--are you trying to say that we spent less in World War II? Because during world war II, virtually our ENTIRE ECONOMY was devoted solely to the purpose of the military. We rationed everything from silk pantyhoses to car tires to run the war effort. You can make some claim about how in real terms we spend more on our military now but it's a preposterous comparison because the fact is that the military is still only 5% of our economy tops, and not MORE THAN HALF like it was during world war II.

Before World War II it could be argued we didn't spend enough, considering we were caught fairly flat footed when it started and it took us a long time to build up the to strength needed to fight. Had we been a little more ready beforehand, we perhaps could have saved countless lives. But who knows. Hindsight and all.

[Sava]

the prefix "pre" means "before"

[PLATO]

With the upcoming confirmed deployment of laser weapons on warships and the soon to be railgun deployments, the navy will probably get a large amount of the future defense budget. I imagine that the army will get their new helicopter and the navy will get their stealth ships. The Airforce will get their new fighters. The Marines will get the job of killing brown people with generation old weapons.

Sounds like status quo to me. Oh...and forget about closing bases when elections are near.

[Dinner]

Let's bomb Vietnam!

[Elok]

Warthog

Our first line of defense against the Decepticon menace!

[Hauldren Collider]

With the upcoming confirmed deployment of laser weapons on warships and the soon to be railgun deployments, the navy will probably get a large amount of the future defense budget. I imagine that the army will get their new helicopter and the navy will get their stealth ships. The Airforce will get their new fighters. The Marines will get the job of killing brown people with generation old weapons.

Sounds like status quo to me. Oh...and forget about closing bases when elections are near.

Marine Corps

Their requirement for the f-35 ****ed the whole goddamn program. Oh well. The B will probably do well in exports to all the people with helicopter carriers once the kinks are ironed out and we've footed the bill for all the expensive development.

[Al B. Sure!]

Get it down to actual-factual pre-WWII spending, and now you're speaking my language.

Your language is Ben-worthy. Pre-WW2 spending would produce a pre-WW2 military.

You do realize that our equipment and training is exponentially more expensive than WW2's and our equipment and training are the only things that one, keep America's military as the strongest in the world and two, limit American casualties. Not to mention it would completely hamstring the world's premier humanitarian force.

We've fortunately come a long way from the days of just handing a guy a rifle and an shovel and 3 weeks of drill before shipping him off to the South Pacific. We're now a technical and professional military with a ton of advanced equipment.

A Marine in our second-rate, lowest bidder combat gear wears over $10,000 worth of gear on his body between kevlar, body armor, NBC gear, M4, rifle combat optic, PEQ target point/illuminator, NVG's, rucksack, and comm equipment.

To train a basically trained enlisted Marine (sans military occupational specialty which obviously has greatly varying costs) costs some $50,000. The cost of Marine pilots is in the millions.

Then you factor in the incredible cost of air assets, tanks, combat vehicles, and the support structure (a bevy of trucks, material handling equipment, engineering assets, etc. etc.); all absolutely necessary components of a military and it's easy to see why the military is a multi-trillion dollar enterprise.

It absolutely has to be.

Unless you want to go back to giving our troops a rifle, a shovel, and 3 weeks of drill.

With the upcoming confirmed deployment of laser weapons on warships and the soon to be railgun deployments, the navy will probably get a large amount of the future defense budget. I imagine that the army will get their new helicopter and the navy will get their stealth ships. The Airforce will get their new fighters. The Marines will get the job of killing brown people with generation old weapons.

Sounds like status quo to me. Oh...and forget about closing bases when elections are near.

Can we still get the VTOL F-35?

And we need an AAV replacement.

[Ben Kenobi]

We need to cost costs, that includes the military. I'm fine with it.

If we can cut the military to WWII expenditure levels, then let see entitlements cut to WWII levels.

[Hauldren Collider]

**** your ****ing AAV, alby. STFU. The marines are never gonna do D-Day again. Oh wait, that was the Army. So yeah. Not happening. And why should you get the F-35 when you manage to get your harriers blown up by the dozen on the ground by a bunch of ****ing goat herders?

We don't need both the first and second largest armies in NATO. They should cut two marines for every Army personnel cut.

[Al B. Sure!]

Marine Corps

Their requirement for the f-35 ****ed the whole goddamn program. Oh well. The B will probably do well in exports to all the people with helicopter carriers once the kinks are ironed out and we've footed the bill for all the expensive development.

Our equipment sucks. Can we get something nice and not hand-me-downs from the 1970's for once? Or are we going to keep flying Harriers for 30 more years?

[Hauldren Collider]

You can get something nice and not hand-me-down when you stop spending all your cash on stupid **** you don't need like fighters and amphibious vehicles and just generally duplicating stuff that exists in other branches.