Thursday, December 16, 2010

Think Defense Spending Can't Be Reduced?

Roeser is no pacifist. But he's not an idiot.

The highest expenditures overseas comes not from wars but the gooey decisions to “nation-build.” The Iraq War’s costs have been estimated at possibly $3 trillion. Nation-building amounts to 80% of that cost with the actual combat cost 20%. 6. Ever since the demise of the Taftian view this country has pursued the policy of “whatever it takes” to support the Pentagon under the impression that we can’t spend too much for defense.

Wrong.

I remind you that this lack of budget oversight has resulted in the Navy having more flag admirals than ships—315 admirals, 264 ships. Moreover while the military has fewer than 3 million personnel in active and reserve status, the command structure equals what it was in World War II with almost 15 million personnel.

That from a post which advocates a Robert Taft-ian outlook on national security.

Plenty of good ideas--and budget cuts.

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