Five-hundred Billion dollars, that does not include the Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Each branch of the military receives almost the same amount, this year the Air Force gets a little more, probably due to the purchase of the new Fighter Jet the Raptor F-22. The Navy is scheduled to build One Nuclear Powered Aircraft Carrier, why? They have appox. 10 -12 in service now, isn't that sufficent?

The problem is just that, nobody is asking any questions. Not one Senator or Congressmen on the House or Senate Budget committees, raised as much as an eyebrow. They were formed in 1974 for just that purpose. Perhaps they were too busy passing the amendment condemning the MoveOn Org. ad, questioning General Petraeus's patriotism, the Republicans led that charge.

The Democrats also had amendments on the floor, all with ways to bringing some of our Troops home now. None even made it to a vote, all were blocked by Republican stubbornness. The Democrats were willing to work out a compromise, the Republicans would have none of that. The Democrats can campaign in 2008 to have more Democratic Senators, to have the needed 60 votes to pass important and substantive Bills.

Neither side can take a bow for the work accomplished this year. Meaningful legislation was split along party lines and died either in the Senate or House. If it was slanted toward the Democrats the Republicans killed it, if the other way around, the Democrats killed it. Perhaps with a new president we can have some unity when it is needed and the next Defense Budget will get some questioning from either committee, formed to question, where the money will be going.

sadly, you hit the nail on the head.

How many cars have you had over your lifetime? Why did you replace them? Carriers have an expected service life of 40 to 50 years, it may surprise you that some of those carriers are there (USS Kitty Hawk).... The Navy is buying a new carrier because for one, it's usually one of the first questions any President asks when a significant event occurrs, "Where's the nearest carrier?", and two...to prevent a situation from occurring when all 10-12 carriers need replaced at the same time.

You may want to familiarize yourself with the flexibility that 90,000 tons of diplomacy and 4.5 acres of sovereign US territory can provide. Usually it's only the Air Force that poses such questions. They have asked the same question since they came to be 50 years ago...and have yet to convince anyone that their idea is a good one.

whatever it is, it isn't diplomacy.

Your confusion is teling, though -- it's just what paralyzes the Bush regime. Like you, they think that diplomacy and bullying are the same thing. Without overwhelming military force and demonstrable willingness to use it, diplomacy fails to get you what you want every time, and isn't that what it's *for?*

We have a huge military because we have a president who's a moron and a state department full of hacks and amateurs. ahmadinejad just came to NYC and put on his patented wacko show. Everybody got to yell at the bad man with the beard. But at the end of the day, he's a lot smarter and tougher than what we've got.

And that's why you think we need another carrier group --because it's never just the carrier, it's always the whole GROUP that goes with it; the carrier ENTOURAGE, as it were. Sorta like Bush. Also like him, they always come in late and over budget.

Kaplan was writing about what could be called the institutional budget, stuff that has been there since before W. registered to vote. But than the question becomes, ‘how did it get this way?’ And more frighteningly, ‘are there any unqualified good answers?’


Look at our allies and our budgets together, and they seem to fit like a key in a lock. This should be, because the American defense budget grew through the Cold War as our allies shrank. At the height of the Cold War, Europe’s militaries could not have made a credible deterrent to the Soviet Union. It does not seem to be stretch to say that the reason the US military budget is so large is because it is the budget not just for defense of one country, but for a whole group of them. The US footing so much of the bill is the key that allowed many of our allies to slash their military budgets. Many European countries have beautiful systems, but they don't defend themselves.

And there is the dilemma – for all there talk about their dislike of US power, do you think any sane European politician wants US troops to go home? Do they want to face their voters, and say ‘we are cutting the benefit levels of our public health service and spending the money on the military’? Or maybe, ‘your taxes are going to go up, and every euro is going to go to defense’? Oh, they’ll demand it – but in the same way moderate Republicans demand an end to abortion: it pleases the base, and they’re pretty sure it will never happen.

So is there a really good answer? I’m all for canceling some of the un-necessary programs, and the tens of billions saved would do a lot of good. But the fact remains - some of the best social programs in the world are in countries were we foot a lot of the bill to defend them. But will we want to continue paying this as our schools, roads, and hospitals rot? Of course, we could just refuse to renew Bush’s tax cuts, and withdraw from Iraq. But the big questions still remains – defense will always be a big expense, that someone will have to pay.

We should cut the "defense" budget to about 10-20% of what it is now over the next 10 years, phasing back our forces until the term "defense" is no longer a joke, or needs be put into quotation marks when cited.

For too long we've let the military run this country...

For three paragraphs, you didn't really argue much of a point. Care to make one? We have a military that is a helluva lot smaller than it was 15 years ago. And every few decades we some fools with ideas such as yours that seem to think a large military is a pointless endeavour.

I didn't say that we needed to build an entire battle group at the same time we build a new carrier. Know what kind of force projection a carrier and her battle group can project? Do you even know what a battle group consists of? Have you ever been on a ship or much less seen one up close? Know what the differences are between conventional and nuclear powered carriers are? Any idea how old the only conventional carrier is and in what condition it is in? It needs to be replaced.

The confusion isn't mine. I'm quite familiar with what a carrier can do.

At the peak of the cold war we were defending Europe from a possible invasion by the Warsaw Pact nations. And what happened to the Warsaw Pact?

Who is the enemy now? From whom do we have to defend the "old Europe?" Whom are we defending NOW? And it has to be asked, whom are we occupying, whom are we threatening, whom are we pooressing, becasue that's what Empires do.

The "institutional budget" at DOD reflects past issues that are no longer part of the picture. Pretending that the situation of the cold war is eternally carved in stone, and it's just a matter of who pays, is just pretending, nothing more.

Take a look at history and see how good your idea is. The military fits more into the constitutional duties of the fed than any friggin social security and welfare program does.

for "pooressing" please read "oppressing." My typing gets worse every day.