Quote from AAAintheBeltway:
I yield to no one on this site in defending conservative principles. That is why I agree with Ron Paul and Pat Buchanan that our current defense posture is idiotic and unsustainable. Of course we can cut enormous amounts from defense. We already spend more than the rest of the world combined.
The key to cutting spending is (1), get out of the money pit that is Afghanistan, (2) close the hundreds of bases we still have left over from WW II all over the world, (3) start focusing on what we actually need in terms of hardware, not what will send a lot of money to some congressman's state.
Taking up point (3), I am quite sure it would be nice for the Marines to have this new amphib assault vehicle. Two questions though, can we afford it and do we really need it? Answers are clearly no. Do we really see a lot of beach landings in our future? And like a lot of pentagon gold-plated hardware, this boat will be so unbelievably expensive, losing one would be a disaster. Amphid assaults are a WW II tactic, and they were dubious even then. You didn't see the generals hitting the beach first, did you? Watch the opening scenes from Saving Private Ryan if you wonder why.
We face a radically different threat now than we did even in the Cold War years. The idea that we can project sea power into the South China Sea is dubious at best. Most likely we would lose all our carriers within the first hour of war. Japan and South Korea are big, rich countries with large populations. If they face threats, they are perfectly capable of dealing with them.
We also have proven rather conclusively that we are ill-equipped both in terms of strategy and in being hamstrung by political correctness from actually invading and taking over countries. As a modern country guided by world opinion, we simply are not prepared to do what is necessary. We will have to leave those tasks to local surrogates.
