I don’t have any evidence…Just an experience. When my son decided to enlist in the military, he spoke with the Army, Navy and Marines before settling on the Marines. All three services told him that he had to graduate from a high school (not an alternative school, and no GED) before he could enlist. This was January of 2005. As of January, 2006, we were still being told the same thing. So I find it hard to believe that the military is changing its mind about things like high school diplomas and age limits.

By drc on 09.14.06 17:17

Well, now your email makes a little more sense. I only saw your comment over at Argghhh! when I wrote to you Jack. I thought I was being helpful by warning that the subject was immense with little easy answers. I thought I was getting to you before you wrote anything. Sorry. I was really trying to save you from going off half cocked on the subject and attracting all the boo birds. Damn. I get the harshness now, but if you knew I hadn’t read your post or Alterman and was trying to have your back would you have said the same things?

But here’s some stuff I can speak to with supporting materials.
“The National Guard is “in an even more dire situation than the active Army but both have the same symptoms; I just have a higher fever.â€?”
The system is designed to work this way somewhat in that it requires the Reserve Component to be activated when we go to war. And has been that way for over 20 years: Laird Total Force Policy and the Abrams Doctrine(http://www.stormingmedia.us/98/9863/A986324.html, http://www.iowanationalguard.com/Museum/IA_History/Total_Force_Policy.htm). The system is designed to force the Guard and Reserves to fight. The system is working, on the process level, as it is supposed to.

But the rest of it? Why is the Army sick?

Again, I tell you looking at it in vertical thinking frame of mind leads to slack jawed conclusions.

To see why this was bound to happen you have to look at this in a more horizontal, across time, fashion. At this point you’re proll’y thinking I’m putting the blame on Clinton. Nope. You see the same type of reduction in spending across the last 40 years. You get what you pay for. Paying for your military increases by inflation, at least, just like everything else.

We kept cutting and cutting the funding without cutting our commitments (Kosovo, Somalia, Korea, etc). Something was bound to break. But of course, when they were in charge, everyone claimed it was still capable of handling two major conflicts at that spending level. Looks like everyone lied, from Cheney when he was SecDef up thru 2002 when the first Bush 2 budget went thru. I say that because it was his first budget with which he could handle any shortcomings or other problems with. The Cato group claims he flubbed. You can think what you want. I provide evidence covering a decade.

Here’s in part what happened.
“He also asserted that he would resist further budget cuts, retain the two regional conflicts strategy, and support spending increases for advanced weapons, even if it necessitated further cuts in military personnel.� (http://www.defenselink.mil/specials/secdef_histories/bios/cohen.htm)

“The Army was reduced by 44 percent (from 18 active divisions to 10), the Navy by 44 percent(from 566 battle force ships to 317), and the Air Force by 50 percent(from 25 active fighter wings to 12.5). “(http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=1301. Download the pdf pg 2)

“In a speech at the commencement of the US Naval Academy in May 2001, Bush seemed to indicate a willingness to reduce the size of the military (that is, shrink force structure) and cut heavy weapons in order to develop technologies that would make a future force smaller, lighter and more agile:�(pg 5)

“The Clinton Administration has presented its defense budget request for fiscal years 1998 through 2002. While the amount requested for defense is $19 billion higher in budget authority than sought last year, it is still inadequate to fund the current defense policy, which was established after the Pentagon’s now-discredited 1993 Bottom-Up Review. President Clinton’s new budget falls about $105 billion short of fully funding the forces that this Administration’s review identified as necessary to defend American security and freedom.â€? (http://www.heritage.org/Research/NationalSecurity/EM467.cfm)

“According to Rice, the Bush administration “was able to reduce defense spending somewhat at the end of the Cold War,” but the Clinton administration “witlessly accelerated and deepened these cuts.” Actually, in the Bush administration’s four years, defense spending fell by 18 percent — more than 4 percent each year. In the Clinton administration’s seven years, defense spending has fallen by slightly less than 10 percent, which is slightly more than 1 percent each year.â€? (http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20000301faresponse35/lawrence-korb/money-for-nothing-a-penny-saved-not-a-penny-earned-in-the-u-s-military.html)

If you care to look you can see the US doing the same thing when we didn’t think we were going to go to war again. The demobilization after WW1, leaving the US with the 15th ranked military in the world in the interwar period, requiring a major build up for WW2. The demobilization after WW2 leading to major problems during the initial stages of Korea. Defense policy revolving around nuclear weapons because it is so much cheaper than fielding conventional forces leading to a down size between Korea and Vietnam is also a sign of the problem that’s obvious when you look. We don’t want to spend on defense, I know, I know, in dollars we spend more than any of the next 10 combined, but when you purchase price parity comparisons we really only spend the same as everyone else. Example: the Suhkoi SU-30MKI sells for $35 million per copy, but the Eurofighter Typhoon costs $85 million for about the same plane(numbers from Proceedings, Sept 2006, vol. 132/9/1243(http://www.usni.org/proceedings/procurrenttoc.htm) they’re slow putting up the issues. Subscription required).
For our own stuff:
“The 1979 unit flyaway cost of an F-16 was $10.2 million–call it $10 million; in 2004 dollars this was $27.6 million. One estimate for the F-15, as of 1972, was a $15 million unit cost–a number close to others vouchsafed me, so for a bar-napkin we will use it. This would be $41.4 million in 2004 (the F-15’s cost inflator is much higher than the F-16 number due to the great 1970s inflation). An F-15 today actually runs close to $60 million (like the Raptor, it had new missions added, driving the cost up faster than inflation alone would have done), and is more than twice as expensive to maintain as is the Raptor. (My F-15 cost number rounds up from $58.4 million, calculated by adjusting for inflation a non-MSM newspaper’s $35 million figure for the F-15 unit cost in 1986, the year the Raptor program began.)
(http://wohlstetter.typepad.com/letterfromthecapitol/2005/10/raptor_rapture.html)

Problem is that we never expect to go to war, never spend as if we intend to go to war, and then piss and moan about it. Like I’ve said afore, supporting the troops is something that starts half a decade or more before they even on the battlefield.

I just wanted you to look before you sided with Alterman for short term partisan finger pointing (leaving yourself open for some jagoff or pro to flay you) or making some other egregious mistake that someone could come up and smack you upside the head for, Jack. Jeez. I know I seem hostile half the time, but I’m really not.

Physicists. ;)

By ry on 09.16.06 04:39