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Politics : Sharks in the Septic Tank -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Dayuhan who wrote (1524)	1/18/2001 8:10:13 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 82486

Comparison of the current US force, and the level of expenditure it currently receives, suggests that our current level of defense readiness and defense spending is more than adequate to achieve these purposes Comparison of the current US force and level of expenditure to what? Presumably you mean to the force and expenditure of possible opponents. Expenditure levels of possible opponents aren't really an issue to me. What force would be needed to quickly overwhelm a possible threat is. The level of force needed to quickly overwhelm an enemy is higher then the force needed to probably beat them. The measured cost will be higher still because many possible enemy countries are less open (showing their defense budgets less), and because their costs are born more by the people drafted then by the tax payer at large. Also the possibility for more then one simultanous conflict has to be considered. That is not to say that we should always base out military budget on what would be needed to overwhelm all posible enemies simultanously and quickly. That would be too expensive you have to consider costs as well as the benefits. However that would be the level that I would consider all further spending to be wasteful. Another important question is whether the money we are spending is being well and wisely spent. Always an important question. Not just in terms of fiscal responsbility but also in terms of military prepardness. If a weopon system doesn't work well, money spent on it could be a waste. It could be worse then just a waste because it could cause soldiers to die when their weapons don't work, and it could also cause other useful, well designed and important systems to be canceled because the country was upset at spending money without seeing any positive return. Does anybody really believe that we are getting full value for our defense dollars? Probably some one does. I do not. We don't get full value for our non defense dollars either. Is waste somehow less wasteful in the defense budget? No. Tim