State of the US Military

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**djones520**

http://www.af.mil/News/ArticleDisplay/tabid/223/Article/656494/more-robust-us-airpower-needed-af-leaders-tell-lawmakers.aspx

WASHINGTON (AFNS) -- Air Force Vice Chief of Staff Gen. David Goldfein and other senior leaders testified before the House Armed Services Committee about readiness and the fiscal year 2017 Air Force budget request Feb. 12.

The panel, which also included Lt. Gen. John Raymond, the deputy chief of staff for operations, and Lt. Gen. John Cooper, the deputy chief of staff for logistics, engineering and force protection, testified that with today’s national security challenges, the world needs a strong American joint force. The joint force depends upon Air Force capabilities and requires airpower at the beginning, the middle and the end of every joint operation.

“Since our establishment in 1947, the Air Force remains the world’s first and most agile responder in times of crisis, contingency and conflict,” Goldfein said.

He added that the last 25 years of continuous combat operations and reductions in the total force, combined with budget instability and lower funding, have resulted in one of the smallest, oldest and least ready forces across the full spectrum of operations in Air Force history.

Goldfein also stated the Budget Control Act further degraded readiness while limiting recovery. While the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2015 provided some readiness recovery and modernization efforts, the Air Force needs permanent relief from BCA with consistent and flexible funding, more manpower and time to recover readiness.

For the past two years, instead of rebuilding readiness for future, high-end conflicts, Airmen have responded to events across the globe leading and in support of the joint force while remaining the world’s greatest Air Force. A return to sequestration would worsen the problem and delay the Air Force goal to return to full-spectrum readiness, Goldfein said

“We are too small and you have seen us trying to build back up capacity so we can do what our nation needs,” Goldfein said.

To improve mission quality, the vice chief of staff said the budget includes a modest upsizing of the total force to address a number of key areas, including critical career fields such as intelligence, cyber, maintenance, and battlefield Airmen. Aircraft maintenance career fields are approximately 4,000 maintainers short. The manpower requested will keep existing aircraft flying at home and abroad.

http://www.af.mil/News/ArticleDisplay/tabid/223/Article/622021/af-leaders-testify-before-congress-on-bomber-force-structure.aspx

WASHINGTON (AFNS) -- Military experts in Air Force long-range strike capabilities testified Sept. 29 before a House Armed Services subcommittee on the Air Force bomber force structure.

Gen. Robin Rand, the commander of Air Force Global Strike Command; Lt. Gen. Arnie Bunch, the military deputy for the office of the assistant secretary of the Air Force for acquisition; and Randy Walden, the director of the Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office, all responded to questions from the Seapower and Projection Forces subcommittee on the Air Force’s efforts to award a long-range strike bomber.

“This is a case, sir, where we need to go slow to go fast,” Bunch told lawmakers. “We’ve got a fair, deliberate, disciplined and impartial process anytime we do a competition. And we’ve been transparent and working with industry to get this done and documented so we can make that decision. It’s coming soon.”

All three leaders agreed combat commanders and the nation need a new long-range strike bomber in the bomber fleet.

“A key to our success will be our ability to modernize, sustain and recapitalize our bomber forces,” said Rand, who’s responsible for all U.S. intercontinental ballistic missile and bomber forces. “However, modernization and sustainment can only take us so far, so we look forward. And with the LRS-B, that future looks promising. The LRS-B will extend American air dominance against next generation capabilities in an anti-access environment by its long-range, significant payload and survivability.”

When it comes to affordability of the new bomber, Bunch said they aren’t just focused on developing and procuring the LRS-B, but they are focused on the entire lifecycle cost of the platform.

“It is not enough to simply acquire them, we must also be able to afford to operate and sustain them,” Bunch said. “The steps we have taken to build in margin, and open systems up front, will allow us to address the evolving threat and embrace technological advancements. The long-range strike bomber is crucial to our ability to execute the national military strategy in the future and ensure national command authorities have viable military options in the face of a technologically advanced adversary.”

With less than 160 Air Force bombers, the newest of the three bombers is more than two decades old.

http://www.cnn.com/2014/11/15/us/marine-corps-readiness/

Half of all U.S. Marine Corps units at their home bases are below the levels of required readiness, according to the new commandant of the Marine Corps.

Speaking Saturday at a bipartisan national security conference at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, Gen. Joseph Dunford said, "Fifty percent of our units that are at home station today, they are at a degraded state of readiness."

Dunford said that includes "equipment shortfalls, or personnel shortfalls, and the reason is because of the high operational tempo we have today."

The problem for the Marine Corps is that the units back home -- not already out on the front line -- are the most critical to have ready in a crisis, said the general, who took command last month.

"Units at home station are exactly the units that will respond to the unexpected. They will be the units to respond to a major contingency and those units are not at the level of readiness that we want them to be today."

Dunford said the major problem is the mandatory budget cuts as part of the so-called sequestration process.

http://www.marinecorpstimes.com/story/military/2016/04/26/fleet-peril-how-congressional-budget-cuts-are-crippling-the-marines-air-power/81974498/

The number of Marine Corps aircraft ready to fly on any given day has plummeted in the last seven years, leading to serious questions about the safety of the service's aircraft as leathernecks continue to wage war on terrorists and respond to crises around the world.

Mission-capable rates for all but one of the Marine Corps' 12 fixed-wing, rotary and tiltrotor airframes have fallen since the end of fiscal 2009, according to data obtained by Marine Corps Times via Freedom of Information Act request. While officials stress that the number of flyable aircraft fluctuates daily, the downward trends have alarmed Marine leaders and members of Congress.

Of the Marine Corps' 276 F/A-18 Hornets, only 87 are currently flyable, Marine Corps officials said on April 20. That is less than one-third of all the service's F/A-18A-D variants that can be used to strike the Islamic State group, provide close-air support or fly reconnaissance missions.

By comparison, 73 percent of F/A-18As were mission capable in fiscal 2009 along with 77 percent of the C-variant and 76 percent of F/A-18Ds.

http://www.armytimes.com/story/military/capitol-hill/2015/03/11/army-leaders-testify-budget/70174114/

The Army faces "increased risks" and readiness that has reached "historically low levels," senior Army leaders warned Wednesday as they took the fight against further budget cuts to Capitol Hill.

"We need predictability, not politics," Army Secretary John McHugh said to the Senate Appropriations Committee's subcommittee on defense. "As we face uncertainty around the world, we must have certainty here at home."

In the last three years, the Army has cut the active component by 80,000 soldiers, inactivated 13 brigade combat teams and is in the process of cutting three combat aviation brigades, said Army Chief of Staff Gen. Ray Odierno, who testified alongside McHugh.

The Army also has cut 18,000 soldiers from the Army National Guard and Army Reserve, and it is reducing its total aviation force by 800 aircraft, with almost 700 of them coming from the active force, Odierno said.

"Today, only 33 percent of our brigades are ready, when our sustained readiness levels should be closer to 70 percent," he said. "We have fewer soldiers, the majority of whom are in units that are not ready, and they are manning aging equipment at a time when the demand for Army forces is much higher than anticipated."

http://www.defensenews.com/story/defense/land/army/2016/04/07/army-chief-sounds-alarm-military-high-risk/82763640/

WASHINGTON — Army Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Milley sounded the alarm that the US Army is currently in a state of “high risk” when it comes to being ready enough to defend the nation and respond to a large conflict.

“On the 'high military risk,' to be clear, we have sufficient capacity and capability and readiness to fight counterinsurgency and counterterrorism,” Milley said at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing Thursday. “My military risk refers specifically to what I see as emerging threats and potential for great power conflict and I am specifically talking about the time it takes to execute the task ... and the cost in terms of casualties.”

Milley added he submitted a personal, classified assessment to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the defense secretary characterizing the military’s risk as high.

SASC Chairman John McCain, of Arizona, said declaring the military to be at high risk “is a strong statement” that he believed was generated from “long and hard” thinking.

The Army’s budget has shrunk in almost every aspect in recent years and the service is having to reduce its size to a total Army of 980,000 soldiers, which include all three components. Yet with the emerging and current threats in Europe, the Middle East and elsewhere, Army leaders believe the force should be as big as 1.2 million soldiers to meet the Pentagon strategy and guidance.

McCain quoted from the Army Capabilities Integration Center director Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster’s testimony given earlier this week to paint a clear picture of what high risk to readiness looks like: “When we minimize our Army, we maximize the risk to our soldiers, the risk that in a crisis they will be forced to enter a fight too few in number and without the training and equipment they need to win.”

All of this is certainly troubling. From my personal view point, I've seen the 101st Airborne go from 4 BCT's and 2 CAB's, to 3 CBT's and 1 CAB, over the last several years, yet it's deployment taskings only seem to have increased. Deployment demands in my career field have only been on the rise as well, as my unit has been sustaining near 25% deployment rates for several years on end now, yet man power isn't changing for the better. Across the board, as these stories show, we're getting stretched incredibly thin, and it seems the answer from the top is to stretch us thinner. Some folks like Frazzled will say that the answer is to simply leave the world alone, but everyone grounded in reality knows that just isn't possible. We're to globally interconnected today to just cut ourselves off.

It would be nice to see other nations step up to shoulder the burden a bit more. For example, 23 of 28 NATO nations aren't meeting goals that they've agreed to in terms of defense spending.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/nato-calls-for-rise-in-defence-spending-by-alliance-members-1434978193

**Tannhauser42**

Would it help if Congress stopped telling the military how to spend its money and also got out of the way when it comes to defense contracts and development?

**Easy E**

First we have to make sure each branch possibly down to the soldier level is means tested. Then, they should all pass a drug test before we give them any hand-outs.

Oh wait... wrong thread!

I mean, give them what ever they want. I don't want to look weak on security!

**djones520**

Easy E wrote:
First we have to make sure each branch possibly down to the soldier level is means tested. Then, they should all pass a drug test before we give them any hand-outs.

You mean like the ASVAB, and then the drug test we do first thing at MEPs?

**Ouze**

Tannhauser42 wrote:
Would it help if Congress stopped telling the military how to spend its money and also got out of the way when it comes to defense contracts and development?

If we don't sustain our military spending, how can we maintain our nearly unbroken record of not functionally winning a war since 1945?

**djones520**

Ouze wrote:
Tannhauser42 wrote:
Would it help if Congress stopped telling the military how to spend its money and also got out of the way when it comes to defense contracts and development?

If we don't sustain our military spending, how can we maintain our nearly unbroken record of not functionally winning a war since 1945?

Excuse me... Desert Storm?

**BloodyRage14**

djones520 wrote:
Easy E wrote:
First we have to make sure each branch possibly down to the soldier level is means tested. Then, they should all pass a drug test before we give them any hand-outs.

You mean like the ASVAB, and then the drug test we do first thing at MEPs?

^^^^ This is awesome

and you beat me to it cause that was exactly what I was going to say

**Kilkrazy**

UK armed forces are also looking rather sketchy and it's similar causes, too much fighting in recent years coupled with budget cuts, reduced establishment, and often questionable procurement decisions.

**djones520**

Kilkrazy wrote:
UK armed forces are also looking rather sketchy and it's similar causes, too much fighting in recent years coupled with budget cuts, reduced establishment, and often questionable procurement decisions.

UK was still one of the only handful meeting it's 2% GDP goal, even though their latest cuts dropped them right to 2%.

I was surprised to see France was below the mark. Given the issues they've been dealing with the last couple of years, plus their recent involvement in Mali, and Syria.

**Ustrello**

djones520 wrote:
Ouze wrote:
Tannhauser42 wrote:
Would it help if Congress stopped telling the military how to spend its money and also got out of the way when it comes to defense contracts and development?

If we don't sustain our military spending, how can we maintain our nearly unbroken record of not functionally winning a war since 1945?

Excuse me... Desert Storm?

Only took us 46 years

**Ouze**

djones520 wrote:
Excuse me... Desert Storm?

My mistake. It was well worth $10 billion USD to remove Saddam Hussein from power, and end the threat that Iraq posed forever.

**Ustrello**

Ouze wrote:
djones520 wrote:
Excuse me... Desert Storm?

My mistake. It was well worth $10 billion USD to remove Saddam Hussein from power, and end the threat that Iraq posed forever.

And bankrupt my generation and the one after it probably

**Ouze**

A small price to pay for peace in the region!

Anyway, the obvious answer is that the decision to not remove Saddam Hussein was a political one, not a military one. However, the military doesn't exist in a mythical vacuum, it's under the direction of civilian leadership and that's not going to change. It doesn't matter if the military is effective on paper but it can't translate that into victory because of whatever political reasons because the bottom line is still that despite many wars with many presidents from both political parties, it's still been at the end of the day an enormous drain on our resources for very, very dubious value that doesn't seem capable of executing it's core function in the real world.

I think we'd be better served by a military substantially smaller, one that would make needless foreign adventurism less workable. When your only tool is a hammer, a lot of your problems start to look like nails.

**Do_I_Not_Like_That**

Ouze wrote:
A small price to pay for peace in the region!

Anyway, the obvious answer is that the decision to not remove Saddam Hussein was a political one, not a military one. However, the military doesn't exist in a mythical vacuum, it's under the direction of civilian leadership and that's not going to change. It doesn't matter if the military is effective on paper but it can't translate that into victory because of whatever political reasons because the bottom line is still that despite many wars with many presidents from both political parties, it's still been at the end of the day an enormous drain on our resources for very, very dubious value that doesn't seem capable of executing it's core function in the real world.

I think we'd be better served by a military substantially smaller, one that would make needless foreign adventurism less workable. When your only tool is a hammer, a lot of your problems start to look like nails.

In other words, America needs to start engaging in realpolitik and see the world for what it is, not how America wants it to be...

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Kilkrazy wrote:
UK armed forces are also looking rather sketchy and it's similar causes, too much fighting in recent years coupled with budget cuts, reduced establishment, and often questionable procurement decisions.

You beat me to the punch. It's remarkable how similar these articles are compared to the stuff coming out of Britain.

But in the annals of military history, every general has never had what he wanted, has always been short on resources, and yet, militaries get by.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Tannhauser42 wrote:
Would it help if Congress stopped telling the military how to spend its money and also got out of the way when it comes to defense contracts and development?

Would it help if the UK parliament stopped telling the military how to spend its money and also got out of the way when it comes to defense contracts and development?[/

This is not unique to the USA. Our politicians and defence contractors are just as bad as yours!

**Ahtman**

I get budget instability but I don't get pretending that going from the by-and-far the worlds largest military budget to by-and-far the worlds largest military budget with slightly less is the end our ability to defend ourselves.

**Seaward**

djones520 wrote:...stuff...

You left out the most important branch, dude.

Kilkrazy wrote:UK armed forces are also looking rather sketchy and it's similar causes, too much fighting in recent years coupled with budget cuts, reduced establishment, and often questionable procurement decisions.

You guys have managed to go a bit beyond "rather sketchy" territory. I'm seriously worried you're going to decide to take the crown from the Bundeswehr.

Ustrello wrote:
Ouze wrote:
djones520 wrote:
Excuse me... Desert Storm?

My mistake. It was well worth $10 billion USD to remove Saddam Hussein from power, and end the threat that Iraq posed forever.

And bankrupt my generation and the one after it probably

That's an awesome statement. It's not awesome for the reasons you intended, but it's absolutely awesome.

**Do_I_Not_Like_That**

It would be nice to see other nations step up to shoulder the burden a bit more. For example, 23 of 28 NATO nations aren't meeting goals that they've agreed to in terms of defense spending.

Let's not forget that NATO has a wide variety of nations within the alliance. Luxembourg and Iceland, tiny countries, are not exactly going to set the world on fire if they hit or miss their 2% target, but I suppose every little helps.

IMO, the real problem is \Germany. They could and should do an awful lot more, but obviously, historical reasons makes this a hard sell to the German public.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Ahtman wrote:
I get budget instability but I don't get pretending that going from the by-and-far the worlds largest military budget to by-and-far the worlds largest military budget with slightly less is the end our ability to defend ourselves.

To a student of American history like myself, there's always budget problems in the US military. I've used this example before, but in 1905 or there about, the US military was struggling to get Congress to fund a US Army of 25,000 men!

Could you imagine that happening in this day and age?

**Seaward**

Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
Let's not forget that NATO has a wide variety of nations within the alliance.

And the vast majority do not meet their funding obligations. I'm not sure, "Well, they're doing it, too!" is really the kind of defense you want to be using.

IMO, the real problem is \Germany. They could and should do an awful lot more, but obviously, historical reasons makes this a hard sell to the German public.

The German military is worthless, sure. But they're not the real problem. The real problem is that most of NATO has decided that, if gak ever truly hits the fan, America's going to do all the military work anyway, so let's keep cutting defense spending and use those savings to buy votes in various forms! When your combined air forces can't even sustain a moderate bombing campaign against a third-world country with deliberately weak air defenses without our help, it starts to become relevant to ask what exactly you're doing for us, anyway. If the land we put our bases on is more functionally useful than your military, something's wrong.

**Kilkrazy**

The government needs to decide what it wants its armed forces to be capable of doing.

**CptJake**

For a military that is so poor, the Germans beat the snot out of the US in a 'Best Tank Platoon' type of competition:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/checkpoint/wp/2016/05/16/in-nato-tank-competition-u-s-comes-up-short-against-germany/

NATO has more problems than % GDP towards defense for the member nations. What the % spent on is probably more important, and highlights one of the main issues in how the treaty is set up. NATO as an organization needs certain capabilities (or at least wants certain capabilities). But some of those are not 'sexy' so member nations are reluctant to purchase them. Other capabilities may make no sense for an individual member nation to invest into, though the Alliance as a whole needs them. Others make a lot of sense for individual nations to invest in, and as a result the Alliance as a whole has (too much) redundancy. Some are too expensive for smaller nations to invest in so there becomes an over reliance on a single member to invest in critical capabilities.

Capability portfolio management is not a NATO strong point...

**Do_I_Not_Like_That**

Seaward wrote:
Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
Let's not forget that NATO has a wide variety of nations within the alliance.

And the vast majority do not meet their funding obligations. I'm not sure, "Well, they're doing it, too!" is really the kind of defense you want to be using.

IMO, the real problem is \Germany. They could and should do an awful lot more, but obviously, historical reasons makes this a hard sell to the German public.

The German military is worthless, sure. But they're not the real problem. The real problem is that most of NATO has decided that, if gak ever truly hits the fan, America's going to do all the military work anyway, so let's keep cutting defense spending and use those savings to buy votes in various forms! When your combined air forces can't even sustain a moderate bombing campaign against a third-world country with deliberately weak air defenses without our help, it starts to become relevant to ask what exactly you're doing for us, anyway. If the land we put our bases on is more functionally useful than your military, something's wrong.

Iceland, a country of 300,000 and Luxembourg, a nation of 500,000, are going to be more affected than the USA's 300 million people when it comes to defence spending!! You guys can afford to throw away a few billion here and there. Smaller nations can't.

**Seaward**

CptJake wrote:
For a military that is so poor, the Germans beat the snot out of the US in a 'Best Tank Platoon' type of competition:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/checkpoint/wp/2016/05/16/in-nato-tank-competition-u-s-comes-up-short-against-germany/

And the Air Force somehow lost COPE India '06.

Right around the time F-22 order cuts were on the table.

Weird.

**Do_I_Not_Like_That**

CptJake wrote:
For a military that is so poor, the Germans beat the snot out of the US in a 'Best Tank Platoon' type of competition:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/checkpoint/wp/2016/05/16/in-nato-tank-competition-u-s-comes-up-short-against-germany/

NATO has more problems than % GDP towards defense for the member nations. What the % spent on is probably more important, and highlights one of the main issues in how the treaty is set up. NATO as an organization needs certain capabilities (or at least wants certain capabilities). But some of those are not 'sexy' so member nations are reluctant to purchase them. Other capabilities may make no sense for an individual member nation to invest into, though the Alliance as a whole needs them. Others make a lot of sense for individual nations to invest in, and as a result the Alliance as a whole has (too much) redundancy. Some are too expensive for smaller nations to invest in so there becomes an over reliance on a single member to invest in critical capabilities.

Capability portfolio management is not a NATO strong point...

Geopolitics is another failing of NATO. To this day, I still have no idea what the feth NATO is doing in Afghanistan!

**CptJake**

Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:

Geopolitics is another failing of NATO. To this day, I still have no idea what the feth NATO is doing in Afghanistan!

A member nation was attacked. That was a no brainer. It allowed member nations to commit some troops as a show of solidarity. It also allowed some interoperability testing and some testing of C2 structures and mechanisms in a relatively low threat environment (compared to a war against the Rooskis).

Why did they remain so long is another question.... Some member nations saw it as a way to give certain types of forces combat experience and to increase interoperability.

**Do_I_Not_Like_That**

CptJake wrote:
Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:

Geopolitics is another failing of NATO. To this day, I still have no idea what the feth NATO is doing in Afghanistan!

A member nation was attacked. That was a no brainer. It allowed member nations to commit some troops as a show of solidarity. It also allowed some interoperability testing and some testing of C2 structures and mechanisms in a relatively low threat environment (compared to a war against the Rooskis).

Why did they remain so long is another question.... Some member nations saw it as a way to give certain types of forces combat experience and to increase interoperability.

IMO, a member nation suffered a terrible terrorist attack from a non-state actor operating from a broken state that never met the criteria of what a nation was, and that although the solidarity was to be welcomed, the response was not proportionate, or adequate, to the original incident, as terrible as it was.

But I don't think we'll ever agree on that.

**LordofHats**

Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:

In other words, America needs to start engaging in realpolitik and see the world for what it is, not how America wants it to be...

This may be one of the greatest statements about US foreign policy ever made on this board.

As to the OP, yeah. Congress tends to the screw the armed forces when it comes to budgetary requirements. Sure they'll shell out a couple million to buy you some C130s you neither asked for, nor need because those 500 jobs building the damn things are worth throwing money into the ocean, but have a real problem that needs money to fix it? Good luck with that. No one votes on the military being effective, and well run. They vote on the military having big tanks, cool jets, and a ridiculous number of aircraft carriers because rule of cool.

I don't think Congress puts much thought, or stock, into how it funds anything in the military which makes the massive amount we spend an even greater quagmire.

**BlaxicanX**

Sounds like we need to have less wars. I mean conservatives are always saying that when you're broke you need to spend less, right? "Live within your means" and all that.

Tighten that belt, spend less and spend more efficiently!

**Frazzled**

Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
CptJake wrote:
For a military that is so poor, the Germans beat the snot out of the US in a 'Best Tank Platoon' type of competition:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/checkpoint/wp/2016/05/16/in-nato-tank-competition-u-s-comes-up-short-against-germany/

NATO has more problems than % GDP towards defense for the member nations. What the % spent on is probably more important, and highlights one of the main issues in how the treaty is set up. NATO as an organization needs certain capabilities (or at least wants certain capabilities). But some of those are not 'sexy' so member nations are reluctant to purchase them. Other capabilities may make no sense for an individual member nation to invest into, though the Alliance as a whole needs them. Others make a lot of sense for individual nations to invest in, and as a result the Alliance as a whole has (too much) redundancy. Some are too expensive for smaller nations to invest in so there becomes an over reliance on a single member to invest in critical capabilities.

Capability portfolio management is not a NATO strong point...

A better question is why is NATO in Romania. The best question is why does NATO exist at this point?

Geopolitics is another failing of NATO. To this day, I still have no idea what the feth NATO is doing in Afghanistan!

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
CptJake wrote:
Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:

Geopolitics is another failing of NATO. To this day, I still have no idea what the feth NATO is doing in Afghanistan!

A member nation was attacked. That was a no brainer. It allowed member nations to commit some troops as a show of solidarity. It also allowed some interoperability testing and some testing of C2 structures and mechanisms in a relatively low threat environment (compared to a war against the Rooskis).

Why did they remain so long is another question.... Some member nations saw it as a way to give certain types of forces combat experience and to increase interoperability.

IMO, a member nation suffered a terrible terrorist attack from a non-state actor operating from a broken state that never met the criteria of what a nation was, and that although the solidarity was to be welcomed, the response was not proportionate, or adequate, to the original incident, as terrible as it was.

But I don't think we'll ever agree on that.

You are correct. A proportionate response would have been 2,700 MT in aggregate, of hydrogen bomb explosions ~10,000 feet above various points in Afghanistan.

**Lord of Deeds**

There sure is a lot of FUD being spread in those reports all seemingly coming out around budget time. My short answer would be what weapons development and deployments do you want to cancel or suspend to allow you to address the backlog of repairs and training?

Of course we have known the repair bill was coming, yet as pointed out, the pace of deployments is increasing because of a shrinking force.

As one poster already mentioned the President, Congress, along with the military leadership need to develop a clear vision of what they want the military capable of doing and budget accordingly with the minimum requirement being provide for the common defense which I interpret to mean defense of US territory and the citizens therein.

So Dakka what deployments and weapons development do you cancel or suspend and what are the negatives (if any)? Some choices/ideas;

Cease combat operations vs ISIS
Cease material and logistical support for Iraq
Cease combat operations vs Taliban and recall all troops from Afghanistan
Material and logistical support for Afghanistan
Eliminate anti-pirate patrols in Gulf of Aden
Development/deployment of F-35
Development/deployment of new air refueling tankers
Development/deployment of new MBT
Development/deployment of new littoral combat ship, Zumwalt class destoryer, Truman class carrier
Development/deployment of UAVs and drones
Reduce patrols of South China Sea to zero
Reduce carrier group deployments to no more than 3 at one time (down from 5 to 6 currently)
Close US military installations in Germany
Close US military installations in S. Korea
Close US military installations in Japan

There are probably something other suggestions, but these are the ones I could think of and I think all carry some risk to the US and to our allies and interests.

So make you best bad choice(s) Dakka

**Frazzled**

Yes = quit funding. No = keep funding.

Cease combat operations vs ISIS
-yes

Cease material and logistical support for Iraq
-yes

Cease combat operations vs Taliban and recall all troops from Afghanistan
-yes

Material and logistical support for Afghanistan
-yes

Eliminate anti-pirate patrols in Gulf of Aden
-no ARRRRRRRR.....

Development/deployment of F-35
-yes what a POS.

Development/deployment of new air refueling tankers
-no

Development/deployment of new MBT
-no

Development/deployment of new littoral combat ship, Zumwalt class destoryer, Truman class carrier
-yes, no

Development/deployment of UAVs and drones
-yes I for one welcome our new iron men overlords, but we have to get there now don't we. Fund the Future!

Reduce patrols of South China Sea to zero
-for pirates, no. To eventually get us into a naval war with China yes.

Reduce carrier group deployments to no more than 3 at one time (down from 5 to 6 currently)
-yes. Carriers are the past.

Close US military installations in Germany
-yes yes yes

Close US military installations in S. Korea
-yes yes yes. We can sell them some Minutemen before we leave.

Close US military installations in Japan
-yes yes yes