Why does the US need 1 million troops? They don't.

In case the Soviet Union attacks us in 1955. :1orglaugh

That's because no politician in today's era will ever vote for a draft in order to go to war. No politician will ever vote to raise taxes in order to pay for those wars.

They know the only way we can continue to run around satisfying the neocons wildest dreams of overthrowing every country in the Middle East is by having a standing army with a big budget. You can bet your ass we would have never gone to Iraq if Bush would of had to stand before the American people and tell them he was reinstating a draft and going to create a war tax...

Every war the US was involved in up until Vietnam was paid for by a war tax. Every major war also required a draft which also stopped with Vietnam. After Vietnam we kept a large standing army and have constantly raised the military budget every year.


I say cut the budgets for standing armies and require a draft and war tax in order to go to war.

I didn't say we did. I did say that the US government does 2 things right and that's make war materials and hire people.

Those are simple facts. The military budget won't ever be cut in any real way. We've been a military industrial complex since ww 2 with the budget going up up up over those last 75 years.

I'm surprised anyone knows what an A10 is really.

I'm reading a book right now called "The Outpost" and they are talking about a firefight where A10s were called in.

I am and always have been aware of spending by us and by other countries. I am and always have been aware of the different strengths of different military's in the world. You simply cannot admit that you made a misinformed statement...end of story sport.

No, I'm the poster child for "My brain can kick your brain's ass with one arm tied behind it's back" :1orglaugh:1orglaugh:1orglaugh

You're a clown! LOL!

I'm not sure that you are "aware" of much of anything.

Like I said earlier...why are you even on GFY anyway? You aren't even in this biz anymore. I'd think you'd want to hang out and chat with people that you have something in common with?

Incase pathfinder does not realize and I'm positive he does not. Traditional wars are a thing of past. This is why iraq and Afghanistan can never be considered victory.

both of those were more occupations

That's sort of what I am getting at.

I know what they are because I have personally seen them in action.

Not only that...but neither Iraq or Afghanistan's armies ever attacked the United States or threatened to invade us in any way.

WE did all of that because they did not OBEY us when we told them what to do.

This is supposed to be America. Our country was meant to stand for some ideals that are important.

Having a giant military and invading countries, occupying countries, overthrowing govt.'s and killing people all over the world are NOT even remotely part of the ideals that this once great nation was founded on.

The pieces of shit politicians and bureaucrats have made us a nation of scared, dependent people who live in fear and think that it's for our "own good" to be searched at airports and eavesdrop on our citizens and build a wall to keep the "evil" Mexicans out of the U.S.

I believe that if George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, or any of the other founding fathers were to meet a person like "theking", they would hang him from a tree for treason.

Did you just pull that number out of a hat?

China has 2.2 million men under arms, where as the US has only 1.4. India, btw, has 1.3 million men under arms.

When was the last time the US was invaded? 1812. (Yeah, Japan landed a small force on some islands in Alaska, but that was not a serious force.)

Who is going to invade us? China? Russia? Iran?

While I agree with you to an extent, but you have to look at the larger picture. It's not like we are pouring money down a hole and not getting anything back from it. We are. Computers, GPS, television... The Internet itself was a DOD project paid for with tax dollar moneys. (We sure got our money's worth there huh?)

We do need to pull back. We don't need all of these forces in Europe, Korea.... In the event we need to, the US can have boots on the ground in force pretty quickly anywhere in the world.

occupations are a little different than wars, and why it generally means 'there is never a victory'

I am the last one standing in my family...when I die the family name dies with me. So I will be the last of a long line of military men going back to the civil war. I have studied military history/wars since I was old enough to read...also at university. I served 12 years in the 82nd Airborne and have seen combat in Grenada...Panama...and Iraq. I also served during desert storm being one of the first 2500 troops sent into Saudi. I have maintained close ties with the military since I was medically discharged in '92...and I am still in contact with a few who are still serving.

There is little if anything you can educate me about the military...thank you very much. You are now dismissed...sport.

Actually... In 1854 the United States first used gunboat diplomacy with Japan. Five US ships sailed into Tokyo Bay and blocked the port until Japan opened two of their ports to trade with the US. We have a long history of big stick diplomacy and dollar diplomacy. It didn't start in the last 50 years.

Also most wars this country have been in we were not attacked first.

Maybe you should get a girlfriend and think about having a kid? :pimp

he would, but it's more dramatic this way

Thanks for the clarification Richard. Please go back to thinking you are better than everyone. Its not a good characteristic pal.

It took the US almost 2 years to fully mobilize AFTER Pearl Harbor, and that's after the lend-lease act was in place and things were geared up. It's unrealistic to think the US can mobilize in a reasonable amount of time to react to hostilities as quickly as things would ramp up in today's warfare. Thank fully in those days, radar and such was brand new nobody knew where anybody was in the Pacific until they were spotted, that slowed things down. ANd the Japanese never intended an invasion, they only wanted to eradicate our Pacific fleet.

Actually they only wanted to set us back from establishing a naval blockade against them long enough to consolidate their positions in their other conflicts...and then intended to sue us for peace. You know what they say about the best of laid plans.

You're right.
At the time the Whaling industry needed Japanese ports to refuel while they slaughtered whales (ironic now that Japan is the whaling country).

So Pres. Fillmore sent Commander Perry in and threatened the Japanese with bombarding their cities if they didn't sign a "friendship" agreement with us.

It wasn't really a "blockade" because the Japanese only had sailing ships and thought the U.S. Steam ships were "dragons". lol

By the way, Pres. Fillmore is constantly ranked in the bottom 10 of all U.S. Presidents. He only was President because Pres. Taylor died and he took over. His whole Presidency was scandal after scandal.

So I guess you could say that was an early example of the U.S. govt. using the military to bully another country and force them to obey.

It doesn't mean that the true IDEALS of which this country were founded in 1776 are part of that nonsense.

There are always BAD people in this world. And Fillmore was one of them.

At least back then, it seemed that there was some semblance of restraint. The govt. would get "cleaned up" for a while before the next would-be tyrant stepped in.

But goddamn...it seems that NOW, it just never ends.
We just openly invade any country we want to (as long as they don't have a military that can actually fight back), and then we occupy them for as long as we want to. :(

They wanted and needed complete control of the pacific to fullfull their plans of conquest. The only thing that stood in their way was our Pacific fleet, they knew that.

thank god i don't have it

it's definitely not a good characteristic walking around thinking everyone thinks they're better than you.

dafuq man

I think it's just that now we hear about it. Our govt hasn't been that nice around the world for a very long time. It's just before the things we did were usually kept quiet. Now it's pretty much impossible to keep anything quiet so we hear about everything,

You are correct but you are leaving out the fact that we had demanded Japan cease and desist from their would be conquests or we would establish a naval blockade...and that is the reason they attacked us at Perl Harbor. They knew that we would recover but they hoped to consolidate their conquests before we recovered and then they intended to sue for peace.

A good case can be made that the US needs 1 million newly unemployed dumped into it's current job market even less.

A lot less.

That's how you come across :2 cents:

BTW I am not just talking about this thread.

sounds good, Bryan, and duly noted.

ill be sure to look out for peoples feelings a little more.

To me actual physical size of an military is not a solid way to measure its ability to act.

Sure, China has a lot more foot soldiers than we do. How are they going to get to us? They have 1 aircraft carrier and about 400 aircraft in their navy. We have 10 aircraft carriers and over 2,500 aircraft. Our air force is roughly twice as big as their and significantly more technologically advanced.

The US has 10 active aircraft carries with 2 in reserve and 3 being built. The rest of the world total has 12 among them.

You can have all soldiers in the world, but if you can't transport them to the battle they are not going to be of much use to you.

China's not an adversary and never has been. We've been allied with CHina since before ww2, ~80 years. That point is multiplied by us being one of their top2 customers for merchandise.

Exactly. They the rely too heavily on us for their economy. They aren't about to risk losing that.

I think people worry that at some point the economic relationship could sour and cause us to become enemies. If that were to happen their military strength then could become an issue.

$17,416,243,885,462

We can't afford a war, so why pay to have the military immediately available for a war?

It would have to sour to the point that all that debt is completely devalued. You only need to look to the debt markets to see it has tremendous value. So China would lose a primary trade partner, all that debt asset and then try to float a twirpy fleet across 7000 miles of ocean to take on the USA.

Not bloody likely!

no one is going to send any troops (besides eventual peace keeping missions) anywhere in the future - unless you desperately need a reason to justify your spendings

BINGO!

That's why we invaded and occupied 2 countries!

That's why we NEEDED something to be afraid of after the "Cold War" was over. Too much money at stake. :(

Yep. There is so much money in play that now the military has become a "too big to fail" kind of thing.

If people complain about spending too much money on the military then they close a base others will complain that now there are huge numbers of people without jobs.

I believe we can have a streamlined, highly effective military without having to spend 25% of the budget on it.

The biggest, best military in the world does you no good if your country collapses under the weight of supporting it.

That is one reason that I made the statement...at this point in time no military has the capability of invading us. No military has the air power or sea power to launch an invasion of us. We are the only country that has the power to reach out and touch any country we choose.

China has the right frame of mind really. Their military is primarily for defense, not offense. They do not have a "blue water navy" and cannot project power outside of their borders.

Because if we aren't prepared and we are attacked it will cost us a lot more...

http://www.encognitive.com/files/ima...er.preview.jpg

http://timemilitary.files.wordpress....-pm2.png?w=753

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-aoiRDX19D5...al-complex.jpg

Time to turn some swords into ploughshares... :)

:stoned

ADG

I'm sure that theking knows better than General Eisenhower ever did. :(

Cool meme, but taken out of context. Let's look at the real Eisenhower:

And I think that history showed that the "communist threat" was greatly exaggerated.

Vietnam was a completely stupid ass war. And when the Soviet Union finally fell apart, I read that our so-called "intelligence community" was astounded at how backward and far behind us they were in every way militarily.

Communism was the boogey man to build the giant military machine to make defense contractors insanely wealthy (at taxpayer expense).

Once it was revealed that communism was a bunch of nothing...the defense industry needed a new monster to scare us dumbass citizens with.

A dozen goatherders with box cutters fit the bill. And they were actually able to convince us that it requires all of us to be searched in airports, a huge military buildup, AND invading 2 countries with countless people killed in order to respond to this horrible threat.

I just finished watching a documentary on the biggest bomb ever made, it was called the Tsar bomb, 50 megatons, Kruschev ordered it built to send a message in retort to Eisenhower's nuclear build up

Actual photo of detonation
http://www.tsarbomba.org/images/tsar...0explosion.jpg

Here's the pdf of the declassified top secret document President Eisenhower had drafted and he signed in which

http://www.nuclearfiles.org/menu/key...delegation.pdf

Taken out if context indeed.

[QUOTE=Rochard;19995754]Did you just pull that number out of a hat?

China has 2.2 million men under arms, where as the US has only 1.4. India, btw, has 1.3 million men under arms.



He meant spending on military. We blow them all away and I agree with Robbie, its fucking nuts.

Interesting reading, isn't it?

[QUOTE=tony286;19996394]Yes...that is what he meant to say but as is typical with him...he will not admit that he fucked it up