To trim the deficit, Americans favor much deeper reductions at the Pentagon than their leaders do

While politicians, insiders and experts may be divided over how much the government should spend on the nation’s defense, there’s a surprising consensus among the public about what should be done: They want to cut spending far more deeply than either the Obama administration or the Republicans.

That’s according to the results of an innovative, new, nationwide survey by three nonprofit groups, the Center for Public integrity, the Program for Public Consultation and the Stimson Center. Not only does the public want deep cuts, it wants those cuts to encompass spending in virtually every military domain — air power, sea power, ground forces, nuclear weapons, and missile defenses.

According to the survey, in which respondents were told about the size of the budget as well as shown expert arguments for and against spending cuts, two-thirds of Republicans and nine in 10 Democrats supported making immediate cuts — a position at odds with the leaderships of both political parties.

The average total cut was around $103 billion, a substantial portion of the current $562 billion base defense budget, while the majority supported cutting it at least $83 billion. These amounts both exceed a threatened cut of $55 billion at the end of this year under so-called “sequestration” legislation passed in 2011, which Pentagon officials and lawmakers alike have claimed would be devastating.

Instead of cutting the budget for schools and public services, why not cut the funding for the military? We don't need all these wars nor these war machines.

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If this were to become a significant re-election issue I expect the Pentagon would take this matter to heart and stage a terrorism false flag event or two to instill fear into the masses.

Eisenhower warned us about the military/industrial complex.

I am usually very pro a "strong national defense" for various reasons. Primarily because with a strong defense you can deter aggression. However; three things have me changing this tune.

1) We have very rapid, mobile forces that can respond to most threats very quickly. Even ground troops can be deployed much quicker then in decades past. We don't need as large or as many units as we once did, especially active duty ground forces. National Guard/Reserves could form the backbone of future forces, with even smaller active duty counter parts. If we did have to fight, the smaller active forces will have to hold the line until the Guard can be deployed. Most countries conventional forces are much smaller then they used to be. The big exception is China, but they still don't have very good power projection capabilities. Anyways, I don't know if large open battlefield type wars will be as prominent as they once where, hard to say.

2) We have gotten way to adventurous. In the 80's and 90's we used military force in pretty clear ways, with set goals and objectives. Fought, and got out. But with the "War on Terror" it's like we forgot most of the lessons of Vietnam. This sustained depolyment in countries that have little or no support for us has gotten ridiculous (even for me, a hard corp strong defense guy!). If you had told me on 9/12/01 that we would still be deployed in 2012 I would have laughed. I figured we would rout out the guilty and be done in 6 to 18 months........

3) In part because of the above, and in part for other reasons (FED) we face a national debt that soon has the potential to CRUSH our economy, and we won't have the money for the forces we have now anyways. ALL of GOVERNMENT is going to face steep cuts if we are to survive as a nation (of course that maybe the plan, but plenty of threads ont hat). "GUNs and BUTTER" are going to have to take deep cuts.
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Oddly enough, I think most people are coming around to the idea that big cuts (military and otherwise) are coming....better get used to it.