US military budget

The Future Military: Your Budget Strategy - Interactive Feature - NYTimes.com

I found cutting the military budget in a way I found satisfactory surprisingly easy to get to the $450 billion goal, but surprisingly difficult to do much more. It's certainly an interesting exercise, as this sort of exercise by the NYT always is.

The plurality of the cuts I chose came from a 15% cut in the size of the military and an accompanying 20% cut in the civilian workforce. In the modern day and age, wars won't be won by sheer manpower. Technology will play too big a role in the next great power coalition war. And, should we ever find ourselves in a true tussle with, say, China, we'll no doubt feel forced to reinstate the draft anyway. Actually, I would like to see us reduce the number of career soldiers, if you will, by even more. But in exchange I'd like to see a form of conscription a la Israel introduced. Conscientious objectors could do the Peace Corps instead, and everyone else does, say, three years in the military. It'd cost more, but it'd be worth it. The option I chose on the NYT interactive feature is the next best to that, I figure.

The other two big chunks of the spending I chose through the NYT interactive feature were One: reduce increases in salaries and reduce benefits, Two: reduce the amount of money spent on bases located in the US for things that the communities around the bases can provide (such as schooling).

As much as what I chose to cut I felt what I chose not to even touch was important. I didn't select a single option in the" weapons" or the "nuclear, missile" sections. Technology is important, especially nowadays. The next war will likely have its outcome determined by technological advantage. That wasn't true in WW2 to the full extent it will be in WW3. And I'm convinced there will be a WW3, the only question is when. I see no reason to believe that great power coalition wars came to a halt. We just haven't had one in awhile. There was a century-long gap between the Napoleonic Wars and WW1, so the time between the end of WW2 and now isn't so very special. There will be another, and we must be prepared for it. Technological superiority is the key.

President Obama and his defense department under Secretary Panetta put out a Defense Strategic Guidance that's well worth a read. Unfortunately, it's too vague to make for good analysis material. In that regard, it'll be better as a supplement to their budget they'll put out in the coming weeks. But it lays out what the administration thinks of as the priorities in the coming years and decades for the US as viewed through the lens of out military and national security. I'll reserve judgment on what was written in the guidance until the budget proposal comes out.