Military Spending To Continue Decline, Defense Secretary Says

I'm concerned about this. I don't personally think the Cold War is starting back up, so I'll agree that a lot of advanced tech is unjustifiably expensive. But while I don't particularly mind Lockheed-Martin losing some funding, realize that when the DoD trims the budget, soldiers, sailors, and airmen can pay the price. It's the reason why many combat troops in Iraq were lacking proper body armor, and the reason why pay is relatively low across the board. I may personally feel the pinch - the Navy has cut back on budgetary allocation for educational programs, which means each unit can offer only one NROTC scholarship a year to someone joining after the start of college. I know that there are higher priorities than that for our defense spending, but I'd prefer to see weapons developers losing a bit of money first - I feel like guys like me need it a bit more.

I think this is a good thing. It's about time our soldiers actually start getting the money they need to fight a war that is happening now, as opposed to developing tech for wars yet to happen

Well I'm glad that Gates knows what China will have in 20 years -- me, I'm not so sure.

Did he forget that we've been fighting a long war, in a far away location. Also, there has been a huge emphasis on systems to minimize injuries and casualties to US troops.

And he better be funding the JSF. Many of our existing aircraft are approaching the end of their service lives.

Maybe some of this stuff is good, but this speech rings of politics.

BTW, what happens to all of the fancy DARPA projects?

I think History will bear out that our guys had faulty equipment due to mis-management by our execs (read Bush Cabinet), and simple corruption (Haliburton). Very similar to what happened at the 2nd world war.

@Your_Mom_Says

like this would not have happened under the previous administration

@Your_Mom_Says

like this would not have happened under the previous administration

@Blackhawk003: I think it is possible to cut spending and reallocate remaining funds to priorities that will assist our soldiers, Sailors, airmen, and Marines. The key is to determine where they are having the most difficulty and to plan accordingly. Frankly, we are doing pretty well in the air; while replacing our antiquated KC-135 tanker fleet is a clear priority, and buying new fighter aircraft to replace those nearing the end of their service life, I am not sure that we necessarily need any clean-sheet designs. Our existing F-15s, F-16s, and F/A-18s are designed to allow for avionics and computer system upgrades that can keep the designs viable for years to come considering our current air adversaries.

The real priorities are land and sea warfare. At sea, however, again, many of our existing ships are also designed for scalability with the Enterprise and Nimitz-class carriers and the Arleigh Burke-class destroyers particular standouts. On land, however, troop transport, body armor, and personal armaments are in serious need of upgrade. The MRAP was an excellent step forward, but better body armor remains an issue, and the M-16 rifle is starting to get long in the tooth as a rifle design.

We also need to continue improvements to battlefield communications networking; logistics, especially forward delivery of supplies; and, frankly, base pay, combat incentives, training, and benefits for troops.

Not for nothing, but these companies may just go and sell their wares to other countries if their budgets get too tight.
And 10 years is not a long time...China has made large leaps in technology and mass production. We shouldnt underestimate them or their ability.

Still not the point. Fighter planes may as well be horse and cannon today. People fight and scout on the ground like it's the seventeenth century, and then you launch a cruise missile. It turns out that war is incredibly simple that way.

It's sad, because the cool science of war has invariably been in the aircraft. I mean, hell, look at the Skunkworks projects - nothing short of modern myth. I don't think there's anything more incredible than a machine that doesn't even fit together properly until you get it up to supersonic speeds and temperatures.

But, dammit, just keep the funding and pump it into NASA, where we don't waste that beautiful R&D money on killing people in the first place. = )

Oh you dont need fighter planes and cool things like that. Okay well i guess the battle of britain never actually happened and neither did the 8th air force in 1944 or the airwar in operation desert storm...Next thing you'll tell me again that we dont need cannons on our fighter planes.

People keep telling me the U.S peaked in 1969 and its been downhill ever since. Now if China doesnt have it then we shouldnt have it hehe. Pull out from afganistan and iraq soon, save all that money spent on blackwater and all those defence contractors in the field (who are happy to keep this war going) and modernise the fleet of vehicles and planes and get some college kids back in the army.

Otherwise by the time you need people to make those vehicles for you theyve forgotten how - or given up that line of work - and you end up with crap thats only marginally better than what you already have. May as well go to arizona and unwrap some F105s or something.

For years I worked at The Aberdeen Proving Grounds developing and improving weapons systems. Any time we came up with a new rifle for example to replace the M-16, it was shot down, because some politician in Washington wanted to promote his/her agenda by pushing some expensive piece of crap into production and hence canceling the more effective and proven weapon system.

Case in point, that flying turd called the Osprey. It has claimed 34 lives in flight and continues to be a burden because it is not mission capable.

Our troops on the ground need lighter gear, new body armor, more reliable and longer range rifles, new vehicles and new methods of non-lethal force to be able to capture terrorist suspects. The last thing we need right now is another freaking aircraft carrier or another jet costing billions of dollars. The only troops getting all of the goodies are SpecOps which is totally not fair.

I hope Gates does what he says.