downsizing US military

[dannubis]

That is one summary I guess. The other one is: "We ****ing told you so. Now get over it."

[C0ckney]

meanwhile, holier than thou UKers have been enjoying American protection for over a hundred years

don't be so ungrateful

i was tempted, but it's too obvious, 5/10.

[Sava]

OH COME ON

[DinoDoc]

What the **** is your point? If we really needed to we could stick the army on ships. The navy doesn't need its own army.

They do. It's called the Marines.

[PLATO]

Because civilian evacuations is a bull**** excuse you trotted out to justify military spending. Of course it's insignificant compared to the millions of people who have died because of American military actions in places like Iraq and Vietnam in addition to being a really poor reason for spending so much money on shiny jet fighters.

I think sometimes it is hard to quantify the millions who haven't died because of the presence of the U.S. Military in the world. It is easy to point fingers at events that happened, but much more difficult to asses the benefit that our military has provided to world wide stability.

[pchang]

Why do we even have branches. Military is military. A truly unified command would help force cooperation/integration and reduce redundancies.

[Sava]

The main complaint I'm hearing is:

"It's bad that we have different groups called by different names."

[rah]

Multiple branches has always seemed silly to me. It seems to cause more issues than the benefits they claim.

[Sava]

uhmm okay

I'm failing to understand how fixing the semantics is going to be beneficial.

[100% Wolf]

uhmm okay

I'm failing to understand how fixing the semantics is going to be beneficial.

It's not semantics. Dissolving the Marines and handing their stuff over to the other three branches isn't just a name change. Dissolving all except one and putting everything under one command structure wouldn't be either.

[notyoueither]

People don't value dollars because of some threat to attack them.

Nope, they value dollars because of the role of the US in the world post 1945. Part of that is the military. I overstated my position, but the military has been a large part of making the US influential around the world.

The real point is to argue against the little USA that Guy seems to favour. A lot of people are alive today who would not be were the US not a hegemon. It's hard to prove one way or the other since we don't have the alternate history to compare to, but that's my view of it.

[notyoueither]

this is gibberish.

No, it's not.

[molly bloom]

meanwhile, holier than thou UKers have been enjoying American protection for over a hundred years

don't be so ungrateful

Much the same way the U.S. 'enjoyed' protection in most of the 19th Century courtesy of the Royal Navy.

[Guynemer]

Nope, they value dollars because of the role of the US in the world post 1945. Part of that is the military. I overstated my position, but the military has been a large part of making the US influential around the world.

The real point is to argue against the little USA that Guy seems to favour. A lot of people are alive today who would not be were the US not a hegemon. It's hard to prove one way or the other since we don't have the alternate history to compare to, but that's my view of it.

And a lot of other people are dead because we are a hegemon. Who knows which number is higher?

Moreover, I am not arguing that we never should have had a Cold War military. I am arguing that we shouldn't have a Cold War military NOW.

[Patroklos]

Why ungrateful? Because we told you that going into Afghanistan and Iraq were big ****ing mistakes?

"Europe" did neither of these things, especially regarding Afghanistan.