TRUMP PREPARING TO FIGHT PAST WARS
“You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you.” — Leon Trotsky
I support a strong military, but a military that’s strength is logical and fitting.
Military threats to the US, actually the very nature of war, have changed dramatically since the first Gulf War. It was the last time traditional military strength and tactics were applied, and probably the last time they will ever be necessary.
DT’s plans to boost military strength are out of touch with necessity. There will never again be a need for massive amounts of light infantry and armor. Indeed, light infantry, the core of battle up to 1991, barely exists in the current US Army. Mechanized infantry has replaced it. Even that is of dubious value in the new world of unconventional warfare.
Upgrading weapons and training are what needs to be continually done to keep our military efficient and feared, not massive buildups of people and existing weapons. Yet that’s exactly what DT wants. He has clearly watched too many WWII movies.
DT’s “great military buildup” is unnecessary, untenably expensive (50–100 billion more dollars per year) and probably impossible to institute. Consider just a few points here.
WE CAN’T AFFORD IT! Where will congress possibly find $100 BILLION A YEAR? Only by cutting other programs, probably popular programs like Social Security and Medicare. While Republican ideologues would love to do that, they understand the backlash it will provoke. New taxes? Impossible in a Republican controlled congress. It will be just print or borrow money and will increase inflation and the national debt. Not good.
DT wants to add nearly 200,000 new bodies to the military, primarily to the Army. Aside from the immense cost of this, WHERE WILL THEY COME FROM? How do you get 200,000 Millennials to put down their video games, leave Mommy’s basement, and volunteer for the pleasure of drill instructors and military discipline. It is impossible to even imagine. Bring back the Draft? Political suicide. Won’t happen.
DT wants to add 77 ships to the Navy. Making, crewing and arming ships is slow and expensive. DT seems to think he can wave his pen and make these ships appear. He can’t. Even if this plan is ordered, it will take years for the ships to come on-line. Advances in anti-ship weaponry have made even super carriers impossible to defend, and all ships can now be instantly destroyed by an array of enhanced new missiles. THE DAY OF HUGE NAVIES IS OVER.
What is really needed is, as I said, is for weapons and training to be continuously upgraded. That has to happen. Any new spending should go to missiles, aircraft, cyber-warfare assets, and special forces. This will never be cheap, but neither will it be insanely expensive.
DT wants us to bankrupt ourselves to pay for a military prepared to fight the kind of wars that will never happen again. Once again he shows how out of touch with reality he really is.
