OK COG, when did you support what Obama has done (and supporting something he did doesn't necessarily make you an Obama supporter, but that is OK with me)?
My big beef with the military spending is twofold:
#1 Nearly half our of defense spending goes to cost overruns on weapons systems (many of which are leftovers from the Cold War era in some way) due to a terrible procurement and systems engineering process in the DoD. The big defense contractors don't want to change this and lobby against it strongly. If we need to spend $300 Billion a year (subsidy) to keep all of them in business, then just put it down to that on the budget and have them build something useful that will boost the economy rather than building weapons that often don't work and constantly changing the specifications. This is well documented (the overruns and bad SE process) and the defense budget could easily accept the sequestration cuts and much more if we got this fixed. Defense Spending has gone up roughly 50% since 9/11 so now we will soon be out of both wars (paying for the wars off the books was out of line in my book too - maybe for a year, but not for 10 years) and no real need to spend so much IMHO.
#2 Starting wars in many places often go by the Pottery Barn Rule, of "you broke it, you buy it" and we really don't need any more of those, nor can we afford them (in ways broader than money) if we can help it. They are incredibly costly and our military does a fabulous job of winning the battles and wars in most cases but just isn't equipped (if anyone is) to rebuild a country's institutions and infrastructure if it is even possible in many cases. This whole scenario is fraught with difficulty and danger. I don't think there has really been a successful military occupation anywhere (imperial type) in the world since the early 20th century because of popular fronts and guerrilla tactics. We don't need to get involved unless there is a clear exit strategy (a good one) or compelling humanitarian reasons and preferably both. Genocide is a good one and most experts agree that a regiment or a brigade (even the French one that was there at the time) could have saved most of a million lives in Rwanda without long term commitment. We have two big oceans and friendly small countries to the north and south so IMHO we should tail off being the policeman of the world (seas is OK because shipping is vital for global commerce - planes can fly around most places that are dangerous) and not get involved in any more wars with boots on the ground, especially in the Middle East. There are easier and cheaper ways to achieve our national goals with respect to other countries and war should be a last resort since always lots and lots of innocents get killed one way or the other.
Education, research and an employed work force are the defense of the 21st century IMHO and that is where we should spend our funds if at all possible.
Originally Posted by austxjr
One of the military's biggest expenses is R & D. Nuclear power has its origin in military R & D. Commercial air transportation has its origin in military R & D. Modern computers, Kevlar and Teflon are revolutionary products having their origin in military R & D. GPS was created and realized by the U.S. Department of Defense.
The Interstate highway system was born to facilitate military needs, and so was the Panama Canal.
BTW, Japan and Germany -- not to mention France, Greece and the U.K. did enormously well with U.S. assistance following WWII during the mid-twentieth, not early twentieth, century.
