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

It's fascinating! And I'm glad ADG brought up Eisenhower as a trumpeter of anti-military in this discussion because it lends credence to my view of looking at the US realistically.

And realistically we are a nation built on guns and war. Not ideals. Our founding fathers were aristocratic land owners who didn't allow women to vote and mistrusted the rest so bad they created a representative government with an electoral college to usurp votes.

Looking into Eisenhower we can see that the fear of the enemy started at the very top and our leaders had no problem sacrificing 100 million AMericans in a nuclear war to combat the communist threat. That was almost 70 years ago and not only has nothing changed, it's been embraced and advanced to the point we are spending 3/4 of $trillion a year on military and the military is the biggest employer in the country.

As much as the idealistic side of me wishes that could change, the realist in me knows it ain't gonna. Not to mention the devastation to our economy and the world economy if we moved away from what we do best.

Keep the military, keep the spending, but use it in such a way to provide value. Not f35 programs and nonsense but as an employer of people who work to rebuild infrastructure, provide food and attention to those around the world who need it, etc.

So is it fair for me to say that you have a pragmatic view of the need for the military...which is very similar to my view.

i was under the impression this 'cut' had nothing to do with the f35 programs and such, and thus won't have any meaningful impact on the military expenditure of the country?

That's what I've read as well. That's why these "cuts" are bs. The f35 program has too much lobbying behind it across multiple states. Politics will keep the money pit going.

The cuts primarily hurt members of the military and military rediness...not programs.

Of course. trillion dollar money sucking programs prevail.

Too bad, politics and military don't make good bedfellows.