Very good points, but it was Dick Cheney as SecDef who closed 800 bases and signed off on the plan to reduce force size by 20%-25%. In fact, he bragged about this upon joining Halliburton, saying he had experience in "down-sizing". Nothing wrong with that, because we were supposed to receive the so-called "peace dividend" when the USSR collapsed. And, Congress was controlled by the GOP from ''94-2000, and in our Constitution (at least what is left after the PATRIOT Act), the Congress has the power of the purse. Yes, Clinton submitted the budgets, but Congress approved the $. Both parties have to share the blame there.
I quite agree that we should cut back on the world-spanning deployments. Let the UN do something to keep the peace, and let NATO spend some more $ on defense. Unfortunately, under W, the deployments will get worse, not better.
Let''s spend more on Air and Sea Transport, Heavy Lift Helicopters, a good Light Tank for light forces; and less on worthless boondoggles like the F-18E/F (@$80million), V-22(@$100million), SSGN''s (@1.5billion+), and Missile Defense (@$80billion and counting), and the IAV (@3million).
Your point about spending more on R&D, training, and maintenance is right on. Anyone in the DOD listening here?
|