Nice chart.

Post #3,642 by Ashton 8/2/01 4:37:52 PM Reply	Nice chart. Even if a USNA grad can't spel mandatory ;-) And yes, the trend for "spending it in advance" is as evident as the downward trend of 'defense discretionary'. I guess one next needs to examine that rising "pre-spent" amount for the Real military overall %-GDP - no? So then.. it's about keeping soldiers out of harm's way - let the costs rise as they may: OSHA safety standards for the armed forces. Risk-free wars, courtesy of keen new and e$pecially effective remote-robots. Of course, when the next er 'police action' or mini-war looks to perk up a flailing or just plain boring admin's image: it will become so much Easier -- with all the boys staying at home and using their remotes. No grieving parents to underscore what 'war' might mean. Less incentive to avoid.. Progress, perhaps? It's such a fertile ground for reading social and political meaning into - I suspect that the actual annual military expense shall remain diffused across a lot of ledgers - next too. No politico would want an actual referendum with full disclosure. Anyway - nice chart. Can Brilliant Pebbles and 'Nuke from Orbit' be far away? - all unmanned too. Really cheap that way. A.
Post #3,658 by bepatient 8/2/01 7:53:08 PM Reply	Well... ..it seems taht you are advocating a position that is neither safe nor prudent. One that says, we, as the advanced leader of the "free world" should unilaterally disarm ourselves because it is the only humane thing to do. Why spend on defense when there is nothing to defend against seems to be your question...even though were involved in one conflict I linked to and are likely to end up involved in the other. But we don't need a well equipped, well-trained armed force because it may make war more palatable. Not to the enemy facing those forces. We are spending less. almost 50% less than the highest point (6.6 to 3.9) We've cut good programs to make these reductions. We face serious readiness problems because we are spending so much less. Yet because you see no "clear and present danger"...you still seem to advocate spending little or nothing. Methinks we may not see an agreement reached between us on this finer political point. Um...er...well... I have no choice! [link\|mailto:bepatient@aol.com\|BePatient]
Post #3,702 by Ashton 8/3/01 5:16:48 AM Reply	These points are of course, debatable. Simply they aren't (debated) much - or in a manner which (more than putatively) seeks the input of citizens re Quo vadis? - since the dissolution of the USSR. The rhetoric remains cold-warish and even the cliches 'hawk / dove' appear to be just resting for a spell. "More military spending" is deemed by one cliche-side as simply: the unarguably patriotic Thing to do. Undoubtedly the reverse is: let's disarm (I don't recall mentioning that straw dog?). I submit that, before 'we' can assign some %-GNP or any other manifestly arbitrary indicator of OK-patriotic-spending - there needs first to be a public, massively debated and reviewed and then debated some more: "sense of purpose". An overt, explicit replacement for the vestiges of M.A.D.. I know of no such - even "mock-plebiscite". There's a major qualitative change in our position vis-a-vis the entire world, and we are simply drifting with the hot air of a now deceased "permanent emergency state" -- which most of us alive today, took to be "the normal state for homo-saps". It wasn't 'normal' however it was our average behavior, then. Now is different! (Unless we keep saying, it isn't.) I submit there is nothing like 'a national consensus' on: WTF we ought to be doing - next, at home or in the world. Our One Party with Two Right Wings and a skeleton 'middle' is demonstrating neither 'direction' nor method. The ABM diversion, I submit - proves how 'tactical' is our group-think: how utterly devoid of anything like a long-term strategy for the US next, military or otherwise. In this context - I think "%-GNP" is about as much Red-Herring as it is unimaginitive. It is cart-before-horse. You spend what you must after FIRST having plan, strategy and some sense of the citizenry - or it's just random waste pork. Again. IMO. (And out there STILL: are all those thousands of nukes we all duped ourselves into overbuilding, knowing we never could use a fraction of them! except in a final M.A.D. unthinkable suicide.) Want Ad? Terra looking for kindergarten teacher. Apply UN - Geneva or NY, Earth. A.
Post #3,666 by boxley 8/2/01 8:42:43 PM Reply	what price victory or defeat? as a percentage of GNP is one way to look at it. I dont look at it that way. To get caught in the position we were in during 1940 would be bad. The really bad thing I think is lack of training rounds. It takes a lot of rounds to make a could shooter and simulators arnt the same. Do we have the capability to mount desert storm in under two years? My understanding is that we don t. Our ammo stocks in smart weapons is low and manufacturing more is not an option as the companies have retooled. It aint gonna get any better anytime soon and the people who dont like us or we are in their way know this. Scary shyte comming down the pike and I am afraid it might be my boys in a few years. I wonder if they could take my tired carcass instead. At least I got practice at getting anhilated. thanx, bill Our bureaucracy and our laws have turned the world into a clean, safe work camp. We are raising a nation of slaves. Chuck Palahniuk

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