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Ted Cruz

7 (6.5%)

Rick Santorum

16 (14.8%)

Michelle Bachmann

13 (12%)

Chris Christie

23 (21.3%)

Rand Paul

49 (45.4%)

Total Members Voted: 107

[Strife26]

I can certainly see the navy taking some downsizing. Not much, of course, because it's a lot easier to move a tank by sea rather than air. However, trying to mothball current carrier groups seems a pretty tenuous solution to me. Better to just carefully phase out one or two of them

[MonkeyHead]

IIRC, they've already held off on the construction contract for the next John F. Kennedy.

Once you have a big ship project like a carrier in the works, it's not something you just put the brakes on.

They're right, something like tuition assistance is low-hanging fruit, and it doesn't directly compromise the core mission of the military -- to kill people and break things. Long-term, it'll hamper recruiting bigtime and cause morale problems and higher force attrition but I imagine the hope is that this'll all get sorted quickly and they'll get their money back.

Longer-term, I'd expect to see them start nixing expensive new toys. Hagel was a grunt (and the first ex-military SecDef to have been enlisted instead of an officer) so I think he'll direct budget authorities in the direction of increased support services. At least that's my hope.


And with all due respect to the European contingent here, your countries don't have to be able to project power into four theaters simultaneously (Atlantic, Mediterranean, Pacific, Persian Gulf/Indian Ocean). Europe, for the most part only needs to handle one or two of those (Atlantic/Baltic and Mediterranean).

Its not too tricky to make a case for the US not really needing to project force into the Med or Persian Gulf/Indian Ocean. Pacific and Atlantic I get though.

It does seem a lot like the approach of the Royal Navy in the Napoleonic era. If there was a visible and credible military threat to the US, then the huge navy would be more than justified, like it was to protect the UK's interests against the Frecnh all those years ago. Somalian priates just dont fit that bill though.

[Mephansteras]

Well, it was directed against the USSR. Now they have it to use as a political tool where ever they need it, and it prevents anyone else from building up a serious Navy. Our allies won't bother, because why spend the money on something that's not needed, and most people we'd be worried about would need to spend way more than they can afford to build up a Navy that's even a close Second.

If you downsize half the fleet, it's suddenly much more tempting for Russia or China or whoever to start moving back into that space.

I'm not arguing that it's necessary, mind you, just pointing out the view that supports the large navy.

[Scoops Novel]

Mephansteras, i can see situations where such a capability could be useful, but could you detail a situation where the US blocking some of it's ports is genuinely useful, given how things would have escalated by then? I could see them reluctantly not wishing to escalate still further, but even so.

[Frumple]

I can certainly see the navy taking some downsizing. Not much, of course, because it's a lot easier to move a tank by sea rather than air. However, trying to mothball current carrier groups seems a pretty tenuous solution to me. Better to just carefully phase out one or two of them

Maybe just sell or not build a few of the new planes. Quick eyeball said that about three F-35s (and we're apparently planning on buying quite the crapload) would have covered the entire tuition cost last year (if they didn't include an engine or, apparently weapons. Full loadout, three would have paid the tuition aid something like three times over.).

S'actually one of the comparisons/complaints I've heard pretty often. Carriers are one thing, but planes are considerably another and somewhere we can probably skim some fat from pretty easily. Wiki thinks they're planning on cutting a bit in that area, but... maybe cut a little harder. Unless we're doing some particularly nasty shit behind the scenes (beyond what we actually are, I guess), I don't think there's much in the world with a notable airforce that's actually hostile to us or would be any time this... ever.

E: I'm not sure what it says when cutting tuition on ~200k soldiers is preferred to cutting out three or four machines, really. Seems backwards, even if it's ostensibly faster.

[RedKing]

Well, they've already pulled the Truman out of the Persian Gulf and sent it to Norfolk, to cut costs. The Nimitz is slated to be decomissioned and replaced by the new John F. Kennedy (the one that's been stalled).


Besides, we need to at least build the next three planned carriers, because CVN-80 is going to be the USS Enterprise. 

IIRC, they've already held off on the construction contract for the next John F. Kennedy.

Once you have a big ship project like a carrier in the works, it's not something you just put the brakes on.

They're right, something like tuition assistance is low-hanging fruit, and it doesn't directly compromise the core mission of the military -- to kill people and break things. Long-term, it'll hamper recruiting bigtime and cause morale problems and higher force attrition but I imagine the hope is that this'll all get sorted quickly and they'll get their money back.

Longer-term, I'd expect to see them start nixing expensive new toys. Hagel was a grunt (and the first ex-military SecDef to have been enlisted instead of an officer) so I think he'll direct budget authorities in the direction of increased support services. At least that's my hope.


And with all due respect to the European contingent here, your countries don't have to be able to project power into four theaters simultaneously (Atlantic, Mediterranean, Pacific, Persian Gulf/Indian Ocean). Europe, for the most part only needs to handle one or two of those (Atlantic/Baltic and Mediterranean).

Its not too tricky to make a case for the US not really needing to project force into the Med or Persian Gulf/Indian Ocean. Pacific and Atlantic I get though.

Considering how much fecal matter regularly impacts the rotary air circulator in the Persian Gulf and lately in North Africa? Yeah, we still need to project power there. The Indian Navy isn't up to snuff yet to handle the Indian Ocean on their own, especially with China looking to expand its naval operations into the area. And honestly, the Indian navy is *part* of why we need to maintain power projection in the Indian Ocean. We don't want India to get such an uncontested dominance in conventional forces that it leaves Pakistan with no option but to go nuclear-hot. The Pakistani Navy is a joke compared to the Indians, who eventually plan to deploy six carriers and establish legitimate power projection capacity in the Indian Ocean, Persian Gulf and South Pacific.


@Frumple: The F-35 is about the ONLY next-gen aircraft under development right now, after DoD finally put the brakes on any further F-22 Raptor development. The Raptor was an expensive boondoggle that wasted billions in R&D. We'll still get a few dozen of them because there are contracts to be fulfilled. But comparatively, the F-35/JSF is a good substitution. Yes, it's expensive. All fighter jets are.

[MonkeyHead]

Translation: "If someone is going to interfere, then we will take up that burden so nobody else gets to play..."

[RedKing]

Translation: "If someone is going to interfere, then we will take up that burden so nobody else gets to play..."

*shrug* Can't trust anyone else to safeguard our national interests. Classic IR realism. Obviously the preferred route is to make things happen so that we don't need to intervene. But when diplomacy and multilateralism fail, we'll use our pointy sticks.

I'm not necessarily a fan of our Empire (and let's face it, we're an Empire), but I fully understand why it does what it does.

[MonkeyHead]

Translation: "If someone is going to interfere, then we will take up that burden so nobody else gets to play..."

*shrug* Can't trust anyone else to safeguard our national interests. Classic IR realism. Obviously the preferred route is to make things happen so that we don't need to intervene. But when diplomacy and multilateralism fail, we'll use our pointy sticks.

I'm not necessarily a fan of our Empire (and let's face it, we're an Empire), but I fully understand why it does what it does.

Yea, same here, but to a lesser extent. You are doing nothing that the Romans, The British, hell - any imperial power - has ever done. Using the pointy sticks to stop others getting pointy sticks of thier own. Quite sensible.

[Sheb]

Hey, there is a difference between "being able to project power anywhere" and "Projecting power everywhere, all the time".

[Mephansteras]

Mephansteras, i can see situations where such a capability could be useful, but could you detail a situation where the US blocking some of it's ports is genuinely useful, given how things would have escalated by then? I could see them reluctantly not wishing to escalate still further, but even so.

Short of all-out war between China and some of our allies? Not really. But then, our capability to do so is probably what helps prevent such wars.

Of course, I'm also not a professional military strategist so I can't say I've really put all that much thought into the issue. I imagine Washington has quite a few thoughts on the matter.

[Sheb]

*cough* Nukes *cough*

You got enough nukes to deter China, the Navy is just a nice toy.

[Mephansteras]

*cough* Nukes *cough*

You got enough nukes to deter China, the Navy is just a nice toy.

I seriously doubt that China believes that the US would nuke them over invading Taiwan. Or even South Korea or Japan. The political will required to do so is immense.

Nuke are a credible threat against other Nukes and maybe an Invasion of the US itself. For anything else? Probably not. And even then, they're a last resort that no one actually wants to use. So a conventional military solution to a problem is always the first resort (you know, after diplomacy).

[RedKing]

Mephansteras is right. Nukes are a Big Game-deterrent. You don't use nukes to deter an invasion of Taiwan. You use a couple of carrier groups for that.

Hey, there is a difference between "being able to project power anywhere" and "Projecting power everywhere, all the time".

US Strategic Doctrine has long been to remain capable of fighting two full-scale wars in opposite regions of the globe simultaneously. Given that you'd need 4-5 carrier groups to fully prosecute a major war, I think our numbers are reasonable in that regard. If we were fighting, say China and Iran simultaneously, you might actually see an Atlantic Fleet with only one (or even no) carrier group. But yeah....we're running into the classic Imperial problem: to maintain a credible military response across the whole sprawl of the Empire, you have to have a bigass military. Which drains the Imperial coffers. Which weakens the military. Which prompts would-be upstarts and rivals to test that military.

The one thing we've got going for us is that we don't have the civil wars that plagued the Romans. But even the British eventually found themselves overstretched. We don't have nearly as much "colonial" territory to worry about, but it's still a long-term problem.

[Sheb]

Actually my nuke comment was in response to that guy that said the Navy protected the continental US from invasion.

Now, the US don't need to be an Empire. Much less a global one. Look at China: they're faring pretty well without owning every single seas out there. That's the sad part: the US got the costs of an Empire (Huge armies, everyone hates you) with almost none of the benefits (no colonies bringing in cash). Even when you invade a country, you don't get the spoils (look at China building mines in Afghanistan).