Why is the US spending 598 billion dollars in defense?

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_Markk
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Re: Why is the US spending 598 billion dollars in defense?

Post by _Markk »

Some Schmo wrote:
Markk wrote:Obama, like Trump have access to what the threats are to us...actually I believe your point is correct, Nuclear weapon are our only way to detour rouge countries who past presidents let them get these weapons.

When you say rouge countries, do you mean communist? I've heard of red countries, but rouge?

A rouge country is any country that goes rouge. In today’s news it is NK, and Iran specifically.

Are your going to address Obama’s signing of the trillion dollar nuke upgrade...I think he did the right thing...do you, or should DJT sign a executive order to stop the program?
Don't take life so seriously in that " sooner or later we are just old men in funny clothes" "Tom 'T-Bone' Wolk"
_Doctor Steuss
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Re: Why is the US spending 598 billion dollars in defense?

Post by _Doctor Steuss »

I’m all for the military spending oodles of money. They need to protect themselves from us arming ourselves to protect ourselves from them.

Don’t tread on me, bro.
"Some people never go crazy. What truly horrible lives they must lead." ~Charles Bukowski
_Kevin Graham
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Re: Why is the US spending 598 billion dollars in defense?

Post by _Kevin Graham »

Markk wrote:A rouge country is any country that goes rouge. In today’s news it is North Korea, and Iran specifically.

Are your going to address Obama’s signing of the trillion dollar nuke upgrade...I think he did the right thing...do you, or should DJT sign a executive order to stop the program?


He's mocking you for misspelling rogue as rouge. Iran didn't "go rogue." Iran is just another convenient boogeyman for the new republican administration. Every Republican administrations has to have one. In reality Iran is a victim of American terrorism. You just don't know or care about any of that. You also don't understand that we're the reason these countries want nuclear weapons to begin with. N. Korea only initiated a nuclear weapons program after MacArthur threatened to nuke the region. They want nukes for the same reasons we claim we want to keep nukes. "Just in case" we get attacked.

What Obama did was sign a bill that implements new technology to our outdated systems that were becoming a hazard. It was a safety measure that had to happen at some point. It wasn't about buying more weapons or more nukes.
_Doctor CamNC4Me
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Re: Why is the US spending 598 billion dollars in defense?

Post by _Doctor CamNC4Me »

Markk wrote:
Some Schmo wrote:When you say rouge countries, do you mean communist? I've heard of red countries, but rouge?

A rouge country is any country that goes rouge. In today’s news it is North Korea, and Iran specifically.

Are your going to address Obama’s signing of the trillion dollar nuke upgrade...I think he did the right thing...do you, or should DJT sign a executive order to stop the program?


I love that you didn't pick up on that.

- Doc
In the face of madness, rationality has no power - Xiao Wang, US historiographer, 2287 AD.

Every record...falsified, every book rewritten...every statue...has been renamed or torn down, every date...altered...the process is continuing...minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Ideology is always right.
_cinepro
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Re: Why is the US spending 598 billion dollars in defense?

Post by _cinepro »

DoubtingThomas wrote:The US is spending 598 billion dollars for nothing?


If that's an honest question, you can find your answer here:

http://www.businessinsider.com/how-the- ... ons-2015-8

I think one of the big problems when it comes to military spending is that it is a huge source of employment and "stimulus" to the economy.

If you take out the "war" aspects of the program, it is really an example of what could be the liberal ideal for government support, job training, health care and so on for lower income and middle class families.

Ultimately, it's a massive welfare and jobs program that Republicans seem to really like.
_Kevin Graham
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Re: Why is the US spending 598 billion dollars in defense?

Post by _Kevin Graham »

$1.4 trillion just for one plane. That doesn't even fly reliably.

The F-35 Is a $1.4 Trillion Dollar National Disaster


The F-35 still has a long way to go before it will be ready for combat. That was the parting message of Dr. Michael Gilmore, the now-retired Director of Operational Test and Evaluation, in his last annual report.

The Joint Strike Fighter Program has already consumed more than $100 billion and nearly 25 years. Just to finish the basic development phase will require at least an extra $1 billion and two more years. Even with this massive investment of time and money, Dr. Gilmore told Congress, the Pentagon, and the public, “the operational suitability of all variants continues to be less than desired by the Services."

Dr. Gilmore detailed a range of remaining and sometimes worsening problems with the program, including hundreds of critical performance deficiencies and maintenance problems. He also raised serious questions about whether the Air Force’s F-35A can succeed in either air-to-air or air-to-ground missions, whether the Marine Corps’ F-35B can conduct even rudimentary close air support, and whether the Navy’s F-35C is suitable to operate from aircraft carriers.


He found, in fact, that “if used in combat, the F-35 aircraft will need support to locate and avoid modern threat ground radars, acquire targets, and engage formations of enemy fighter aircraft due to unresolved performance deficiencies and limited weapons carriage availability.”

In a public statement, the F-35 Joint Program Office attempted to dismiss the Gilmore report by asserting, “All of the issues are well-known to the JPO, the U.S. services, our international partners, and our industry.”

JPO’s acknowledgement of the numerous issues are fine as far as it goes, but there’s no indication that the Office has any plan—including cost and schedule re-estimates—to fix those currently known problems without cutting corners. Nor, apparently, do they have a plan to cope with and fund the fixes for the myriad unknown problems that will be uncovered during the upcoming, much more rigorous, developmental and operational tests of the next four years. Such a plan is essential, and should be driven by the pace at which problems are actually solved rather than by unrealistic pre-existing schedules.

What will it take to fix the numerous problems identified by Dr. Gilmore, and how do we best move forward with the most expensive weapon program in history, a program that has been unable to live up to its own very modest promises?

The F-35 is being sold to the American people based in no small part on its mission systems, the vast array of sophisticated electronics on board the jet. A quick perusal of any of the hagiographic articles about the F-35 will find that they nearly always point to its capabilities to gather massive amounts of information. This information is supposed to come through its onboard sensors and the data links to outside networked sources, and then be merged by the F-35’s computer systems to identify and display for the pilot the specific threat, target, and accompanying force picture (i.e. “situational awareness”). This process is designed to allow the pilot to dominate the battlespace. Based on the actual test performance of these systems during developmental testing, however, it appears the electronics actually interfere with the pilot’s ability to survive and prevail.

Overall, problems with the F-35’s sensors, computers, and software, including creating false targets and reporting inaccurate locations, have been severe enough that test teams at Edwards Air Force Base have rated them “red,” meaning they are unable to perform the combat tasks expected of them.


But like subs said, we spend billions to work on a cure for cancer that doesn't exist, so all of this wasteful spending on the military is justified.
_DoubtingThomas
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Re: Why is the US spending 598 billion dollars in defense?

Post by _DoubtingThomas »

subgenius wrote: A bullet proof vest wont stop a bullet to the head, so why bother wearing the vest?


A bullet proof vest would be useful in a gun battle, but military tanks, machine guns, helicopters, rocket launchers, and most of our equipment is useless in a ICMB war. We are no longer living in the early 20th century subgenius.
_DoubtingThomas
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Re: Why is the US spending 598 billion dollars in defense?

Post by _DoubtingThomas »

cinepro wrote:
Ultimately, it's a massive welfare and jobs program that Republicans seem to really like.


It makes sense, but couldn't the government use at least half of it in other important projects?
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