Would halving US defense spending actually be so bad? Pros? Cons?

No, increase it.

At least to the point where we pay our military living wages. And we take care of them after their service.

If you want to cut from the budget there's a million other places. Starting with anyone on govt assistance over 2 years that isn't disabled. And not a penny goes to non-citizens in our country illegally.

originally posted by: jjkenobi
No, increase it.

At least to the point where we pay our military living wages. And we take care of them after their service.

If you want to cut from the budget there's a million other places. Starting with anyone on govt assistance over 2 years that isn't disabled. And not a penny goes to non-citizens in our country illegally.

Actually, those who make a career out of military service make a decent living. Just because to put in four years doesn't give you a lifetime pass, and open ended benifits. It's not like there is conscription. When you sign up, you know the deal. You have a choice.

Aside from that, the payroll of the military is not where a majority of defense spending goes anyway. Ships, planes, equipment, maintenance and black budget expenses are a far greater expense than soldier's pay.

a reply to: AnakinWayneII

Ive said it a hundred times at least... if you want to cut the pentagons budget that's fine but make it a targeted cut not just tell the generals cut x amount of dollars.


Cause when you do that you get the train wreck that was sequestration, they push out people and cut training for the boots on the ground people, not the highly over priced weapons systems that have a long history of not doing what was promised but are kept for political reasons or the generals are waiting to retire and start their "consulting" gig with the same company.

The military is so dominant in the US economy that practically everyone is in one way or another sucking on Old Uncle Sam's massive hairy teats.

originally posted by: Mach2

originally posted by: inthewinterdark
This would collapse the entire global economy. That however, is going to happen anyway and the sooner it does the slightly less the inevitable pain. Then we can get on with the transition from a fragile civilization with increasing points of catastrophic failure to building a more robust world defined with meaning and purpose.

'The Transition - Neurohacker'
www.youtube.com...

While I beleive your vision of a "brave new world" is an admirable goal, and one that, hopefully, will come to fruition, we are centuries away from anything like that. I would posit that we are more divided than ever, and the barriers, such as religious intolerance, economic disparity, and radical differences in basic philosophy are not going away any time soon.

I also have to wonder why you beleive economic collapse would lead to this utopia. If history is any indication, and I beleive it is, economic collapse generally leads to anarchy, and evil despot leaders. Quite the opposite of what you are implying.

I guess I just can't see the specific mechanics behind the path. Maybe you can enlighten me with a more detailed cause and effect timeline?

In 2008 there was almost a full global economic crash due to a debt crisis. However the monetary system was pushed further into debt to keep things going for a while longer. Halving the military budget would have the opposite affect to the actions that kept things going for a while longer and make it collapse right now. Regardless, there will be another monetary crisis, it's now 'baked into the cake'. Pushing the global monetary system even harder will break it and the economy of real good and services will begin total global collapse.

There have been over 50 hyperinflations over the past 100 years. This causes economic collapse, some lawlessness and tyranny. However those currency zones didn't die off. The people inside them leaned the importance of being economic with each other and the relationship of money as a valuable functional symbol in that economy. People in countries such as Poland, Hungary, Philippines, Vietnam still today think differently about money because their collective memory of hyperinflation is currently less than 80 years ago.

The Eurozone has a currency system quite resilient to hyperinflation thanks to the memory of the German 1920's hyperinflation. The Euro was designed from the ground up to cope with a hyperinflation event. The current German population are forgetting since it was more than 80 years ago. However the system they have was built by those who do remember. The Eurozone will hopefully keep enough of the global economy going and help us through the transition.

Once the global reserve currency hyperinflation happens, the entire western world will experience directly for ourselves that the valuable function of money is secondary to the economy of real good and services. Then we get an awakening of the global population for the next four generations or about 80 years. Long enough to change the global economy for the better and bring about much more individual's eutopias than ever before.

I don't know about halving the US defence budget. But there could be economies made if there was the political will.
That's the thing, though. There is no political will. Too many vested interests. But there's some questions that need asking about the defence spend.

There are dozens of bases which, militarily, are no longer required. The sensible thing would be to close them. But politicians don't have to nuts to see bases in their own constituencies/states close down because that will adversely affect the local economy. Quit building ships and aircraft that the Defence Department/US Coastguard hasn't asked for and doesn't need. Politicians often introduce such items into appropriations bills to protect the shipbuilders and aircraft manufacturers in their home states. Overseas bases. There's no reason why the US needs their own bases in overseas countries. They can often share local facilities. There's no reason the RAF and USAF can't work together on the same base in the UK, for example. It'd be less expensive long term and it would enhance cross operations. Make the host country pay their fair share too.

Strategic nuclear weapons. Does the US still need to operate a triad ? An effective deterrent could be maintained by concentrating on USN SSBN submarines and phasing out land based missiles and the B52/B2 fleet. And why so many nuclear bombs and warheads ? Do we really need to nuke Moscow 30 times over ? With the Brits and the French adding in another few for good measure ?

High tech items. You'd have to be an incurable optimist to think they'd come in on budget and on time. And that they'd actually work as intended. The Littoral Combat Ship is an example of things going badly, same with the Zumwalt class. Then you've got the F-35 a similar story, massive cost overruns and delays. The overruns on that project alone probably exceed the whole European annual defence budget. Design and manufacture is hopelessly inefficient, no matter the weapons system. It's often spread out over tens of states, with hundreds of suppliers, so that each congressman can say that they've got their state a bite of the cherry. So wasteful.

That's what they're ordering now. But I bet the Pentagon hasn't a clue what it's even got in inventory today, by way of ammunition, weapons and other items. So it continues on auto pilot, ordering items it doesn't need while those items in stores fall out of date and become ineffective. Accounts go unaudited for fear of upsetting suppliers & fraud and waste are rampant. And there's little penalty for fraud because some of the fraudsters are the biggest American defence contractors ... yet the orders keep on rolling in.

I don't know if you could halve the budget.

But you could sure put a dent in it and we'd still sleep soundly in our beds.