No I don't agree that the US military is any where near what Russia was in the 1990s. For one the political climate was totally different where in Russia's case you had the break up of the USSR happening. Plus economically Russia was a totally case, in that it was starting to the journey from a very centrally controlled communist economy to a western style "free market" economy.
However the US does have very substantial economic problems and it's budget deficit is getting beyond a joke. I am not being facetious in saying that, just realistic because at some stage the US is going to have to bite the bullet big time in order to deal to this huge large deficit. IMHO the US military needs to have a very thorough house cleaning in a budget and fiscal sense. For one they need to start accounting for every cent spent so they need to have an asset based accounting system.
Like t68 I would think a 10% budget cut would be on the cards at a bare minimum. IMHO a 20% one over a 5 - 10 year period would be better with far greater accountability for every cent. There needs to be a clean out of bureaucrats and arse warmers and a far greater distance between the arms manufactures and the purchasers. But that won't happen because too many people like politicians, aides on Capital Hill, companies, and consultants etc have to many noses in the trough.
There appears to be a lot of fat in the US military. They need to become lean & mean. I also think they have to re-evaluate what their mission is and what they realistically can and can't do with what they can field. I would like to see them take less of the load in NATO with the Europeans taking complete responsibility for NATO and the US only having a proportionate share along with the rest of the members.
I would agree with most of what you said, however a 10-20% cut is too much and wont happen over night. A 5% cut is more likely.
Yes there is fat and waste in the defense department, but its not the only government agency thats full of waste, every one including the DoD, medicare, medicaid, and social security needs to be trimmed.
And when I say trim the DoD I don't mean cutting muscle and bone such as troops, weapons programs such as planes, ships, tanks and other equipment, I'm talking about cutting the bloated bureaucracy, the oversized 700,000 civilian work force employed by the DoD, too many contractors and subcontractors, the $6000 toilet seats and hammers assembled in 20 different states and all that useless crap of the like which does nothing to defend America and actually sucks money away from programs that the military really does need and want.
So lets not cut the number of aircraft carriers, lets not cut land based missiles and next generation bombers, or F-35 fighter jets, or ballistic missile submarines, or the ability to fight two wars or the 2.3 million active and national guard/reserve troops that protect America. Lets actually cut the actual waste and fat and not the muscle and bone of the Defense Department.
Also America's NATO European allies need to pick up their share of their own defense, America can pull out some of its troops in Europe but redeploy them to other areas around the globe where they are better needed.
And military health care and retirement costs....oh yeah that too needs a good long hard look at too. They needs to control its health care and personnel costs ASAP, which this along with the waste and fat should be dealt with before they ever think about force structure and capability cuts.
They need a lean, mean but yet still robust military. One where they can have both strong fiscal discipline in the DoD but still have the worlds best damn military that is robust and lean and mean. This is possible and it can be done if they do it right with good priorities and a good sound strategy.
Even if defense budgets still continue to grow, efficiency should always be important. That no matter how large the defense budget gets, every dollar and every cent is used for defending the US. So the American tax payers get their bang for their buck with no money wasted. However they should have done this in 2001 but instead they got lazy because their was endless money coming in and the Pentagon felt like it did not need to be efficient that they could always reach out for more money and not give a damn how much is wasted. That lazy and dangerous attitude in the Pentagon needs to stop if the Pentagon wants to maintain the best military in the world in the future. And I think they are finally starting to realize this.
