Barney Frank and Ron Paul have organized a group in Congress to cut US Pentagon budget a modest $1T over next 10 years. A total yearly military budget of $500B.
This is actually a bigger cut than it appears as Frank/Paul's study group baselines military budget at $583B vs. the actual 2010 military spending of $975B which includes Iraqistan war and "supplemental" spending bills.
This is the kind of new thinking US needs if it is going to survive and repair the damage of 30 years of Reaganomics of which a key failure was pointless military spending to pay off military contractor financial contributors to GOP.
The overview for Frank/Paul proposal is here at Huffington Post. The PDF of the Frank/Paul proposal is here.
Areas where it could go much further.
- Permanent basing of 35,000 US troops in Europe. What the heck for? Is the $90B per year Russian military going to attack the $230B per year EU/NATO military?
- Permanent basing of 65,000 US troops in Asia. China ($90B per year military) is one threat but Korea, Taiwan and Japan, the potential targets of Chinese military attack, spend a combined $85B. Two are island nations which requires a 5:1 superiority ratio for invasion. With US support in a crisis, there is no justification for basing fleets and army divisions in Asia and it only causes China to ramp up its defense spending in response. Korea is nuclear and crazy but this is a problem for all of Asia including China more than US. South Korea spends $30B on military, more than the entire GDP of North Korea.
All US troops stationed in US provides a saving of 100,000 US military personnel and no base maintenance, a savings of another $100B per year.
Nuclear arsenal to 1,000 sounds reasonable. I'd argue with the mix. Frank and Paul suggestion 160 Minutemen land based and 7 Poseidon missile subs. Subs are expensive to build and maintain and man. We have 20 B2 Stealth Bombers which could carry 20 long range stealth cruise missiles. Bombers are much less costly to maintain and have other military uses and provide much more flexibility and do not have the communication/control issues that submarines do.
Frank/Paul call for 1.3 million US soldiers. Hard to see what threat justifies such big force since US is backup in Europe and Asia to local forces. Russian invasion of Europe? No. China invasion of Japan or Korea? Japan is nuclear power so that's not going to happen. Korea. US and Japan support but if China invades Korea US land forces are pointless. Middle East oil cutoff. Iran invading Saudi or Iraq? US eliminating oil imports renders that meaningless for US and Iran. Asia and Europe would be most affected and we could offer to help them militarily.
Doesn't seem to be any reason other than US general employment and promotion opportunities for such a huge force.
But Frank and Paul have started the debate with real numbers. Along with Grayson, we are finally seeing some rational question of out of control US military budget.