Suck It Up, Proles

http://breakingdefense.com/2015/09/grim-world-may-help-ease-grim-army-budget/



Grim World May Help Ease Grim Army Budget
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr. on September 11, 2015 at 12:11 PM

WASHINGTON: Alice in Wonderland‘s White Queen could believe in “six impossible things before breakfast.” The Army may not be that nimble but its leaked budget plan for 2017-2021 (first reported by Inside Defense) does make a whole string of assumptions:
* Budget Control Act cuts won’t happen, despite the lack of encouraging signs of a sequestration deal.
* Cuts to Guard helicopters and personnel benefits will happen and deliver savings, despite both initiatives being politically painful for Capital Hill.
* Overseas Contingency Operations funds will continue to carry $6 billion to $7 billion of “enduring activities” that the base budget can’t absorb.

(For the cherry on top, the plan mentions the Army could, like, really use a round of base closures, although it doesn’t count on that happening because it won’t).

Even under these optimistic assumptions, the Army budget will be outpaced by inflation, losing $2 billion in real dollars over the five years. As the document says, “the Army will have perpetual capacity shortfalls.”

Worse, those shortfalls are measured against the 2012 Defense Strategic Guidance, which made a lot of its own optimistic assumptions — peace in Iraq, for example, and peace in Europe — that “no longer hold true.” Demand for Army forces is up in the Pacific, Middle East, and Europe. But the Army won’t have enough troops trained and ready for high-intensity “decisive action” combat (say, with Russia) until at least 2022.

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America's Forever War continues.

And while it does, we keep spending ridiculous amounts on weapons.

- $14 billion dollars for an unfinished aircraft carrier.
- $600 grand Joint Light Tactical Vehicles to replace $250 grand Hummers.
- A new heavy bomber (our last one cost $3 billion dollars a pop.)
- $5.6 billion dollar destroyers. One of these bad boys costs more than what Nimitz-class aircraft carriers usta cost.

And that just the tip of the iceberg.