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The US Military on the cheap. How would you do it?

Jredbaron96 said:
We had plenty of justification for intervention, because the Serbians were quite comfortable committing mass ethnic cleansing. It was a perfectly justifiable reason for intervening.
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That was certainly Clinton's narrative. Too bad it was yet another deliberately lie. As I previously posted NATO killed more Kosovar civilians than the Serbs. So it could not have been anything close to "genocide" or ethnic cleansing by the Serbs. Unless you are claiming NATO is equally guilty of committing war crimes.

Jredbaron96 said:
We had plenty of reasons to be involved in Ukraine, namely to support democracy, prevent the spread of Russian influence in Eastern Europe, and to uphold the security of the continent.
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We have absolutely no reason to be involved in the Ukraine. US doesn't exist to support democracy around the world, and Russia will always have more influence in eastern Europe than the US. "Security" is merely an illusion to make the self-deluded "feel" safe.
 
Oozlefinch said:
Oh no, it very much is! This should give you an idea how real this is:

Military Involuntary Separation Pay Charts

See. it really does not matter what you believe. Especially since you claim that you are not familiar with military enlistment (as well as separation). Maybe next time you will do a little digging before doubting.

And the programs above really only scratch the surface, there are even more.

But no, the military can not just cut you loose and discharge you early without cause. The servicemember and the Government are in a legal contract after all. Now you can be cut loose earlier than that with cause. This includes medical disability, family hardship, failure to adapt, or outright misconduct and criminal behavior. And depending on what caused that separation, there may be a separation pay issued.

You may be thinking of draftees, who entered the service under very different circumstances. During times on conscription, the term of service is actually a much more vague "duration plus six months". That means that the military can hold all individuals for up to six months after the conflict has ended, there is no actual set time period for the enlistment. It may be 1 year, it may be 8 years.
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The first thing I read in the link you provided was the following: "To be eligible, a military member must have six or more years of active duty, and less than 20 years," which kind of throws a ton of water on a large portion of your claim. The page also has a reference to discharges during a downsizing of the military, which indicates that the military CAN in fact discharge people at will. So you'll have to forgive me if I no longer take your word for the rest of your claims. Do you have a citation for you claim that the military cannot discharge members at-will?
 
In order to begin cuts of such a drastic nature, the first thing to happen is to change the political mission of the military. No more military actions without sufficient partners. No more police actions. In short...no more conflicts that involve us taking land in a campaign and then spending the next few decades policing it.

Conventional warfare is actually not that expensive compared to the costs of a prolonged occupation. We could, with the proper partners, be the heavy for an invasion, knock out the conventional forces and then let the partners deal with occupation and policing the area. The biggest problem here is, of course, there is no profit for the military industry complex.
 
Tlrmln said:
The first thing I read in the link you provided was the following: "To be eligible, a military member must have six or more years of active duty, and less than 20 years," which kind of throws a ton of water on a large portion of your claim. The page also has a reference to discharges during a downsizing of the military, which indicates that the military CAN in fact discharge people at will. So you'll have to forgive me if I no longer take your word for the rest of your claims. Do you have a citation for you claim that the military cannot discharge members at-will?
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Last time I checked there is indeed a contract between the service member and the government. At least for enlisted personnel.

I ran into this when I reenlisted with an option to stay at my duty station for two years after reenlistment. The Marines tried to move me one year into my contract and I took it to our legal officer. He called Washington and effectively said if they broke the contract then I had the option of walking out a civilian, with my bonus intact. CMC then relented.

As to the time in service thing. An initial enlistment is usually between four and six years. After the six year point they have committed to a second tour. The attrition rate is from 50-70% for first termers..
 
Glitch said:
Too bad it was yet another deliberately lie.
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Yeah, except it wasn't. The Serbian death count during the 1990s numbered in the hundreds of thousands.



"Security" is merely an illusion to make the self-deluded "feel" safe.
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Careful, don't want to cut yourself on that edge.
 
Tlrmln said:
The first thing I read in the link you provided was the following: "To be eligible, a military member must have six or more years of active duty, and less than 20 years," which kind of throws a ton of water on a large portion of your claim. The page also has a reference to discharges during a downsizing of the military, which indicates that the military CAN in fact discharge people at will. So you'll have to forgive me if I no longer take your word for the rest of your claims. Do you have a citation for you claim that the military cannot discharge members at-will?
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And what you have completely missed is that these individuals were not even discharged!

With the exception of those separated for medical reasons, all of those were individuals who had already completed their term of service, and were denied enlisting for another term.

None of them were just discharged because they needed to cut numbers.

Sorry, you failed again.

When it comes time to downsize, the military does not go around discharging people. There is no need to do that, they simply retain less in service and recruit less and let attrition reduce the numbers naturally.

Sorry, you can not prove a negative. It is you that has to come up with a citation that says that they can discharge people at will.

So come on bubba, that should be easy to do, right? You are the one making that claim, it is up to you to validate that claim.
 
Fledermaus said:
Last time I checked there is indeed a contract between the service member and the government. At least for enlisted personnel.

I ran into this when I reenlisted with an option to stay at my duty station for two years after reenlistment. The Marines tried to move me one year into my contract and I took it to our legal officer. He called Washington and effectively said if they broke the contract then I had the option of walking out a civilian, with my bonus intact. CMC then relented.

As to the time in service thing. An initial enlistment is usually between four and six years. After the six year point they have committed to a second tour. The attrition rate is from 50-70% for first termers..
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And in more recent years, they have often been changing how people serve, so a great many nowadays actually serve more than 6 years on active duty.

For a lot of more specialized training, the military requires 6 year initial entry contracts. Things like computers, electronics, RADAR maintenance, and a lot of others you just can not get with a 3-4 year contract, you need to serve for 6 years. And on top of that, they are no longer counting the time individuals serve in their basic training and AIT as part of that time! The "6 year clock" does not start until after their training is complete.

That means that when they finish, they actually have closer to 6.5 years or more in.

I know a lot of people that were shocked at this change in the 2010s. They had not read their contracts carefully enough, and simply were not aware that the term of contract was actually for their full active service, training was not included. So guys going in August 2007 were finding out that their discharges were not in August 2013, but in February 2014.

So you still have the point that an individual has to choose to not stay in to get those payments. This is why when I was counseling younger soldiers coming towards the end of their enlistment, I always told them to indicate that they were intending to stay in the military. This way if they got caught in a RIF, they would get a check on the way out the door.
 
Much of the expense borne by the US military is due to being the world's policeman. We have bases in Germany to protect them from Russia. We have bases in Korea to protect them from North Korea and China. We have bases all over the Middle East to ensure stability and oil flow to our allies. We have bases in Africa to combat terrorists groups. In fact the US has about 800 bases in 80 different countries. There are also an estimated 138,000 military personnel and contractors based on these bases.

In my opinion, Germany, Japan, Korea and many of these other countries no longer need our direct protection. I realize that not all these bases can be closed but many could be. We could also sell or commercially develop many of the assets associated with these bases.
 
BahamaBob said:
Much of the expense borne by the US military is due to being the world's policeman. We have bases in Germany to protect them from Russia. We have bases in Korea to protect them from North Korea and China. We have bases all over the Middle East to ensure stability and oil flow to our allies. We have bases in Africa to combat terrorists groups. In fact the US has about 800 bases in 80 different countries. There are also an estimated 138,000 military personnel and contractors based on these bases.

In my opinion, Germany, Japan, Korea and many of these other countries no longer need our direct protection. I realize that not all these bases can be closed but many could be. We could also sell or commercially develop many of the assets associated with these bases.
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We were not in Germany, Japan, and Korea to protect them. We were in Germany, Japan, and Korea to protect others from these known aggressors. Russia only became the enemy after they became a nuclear power. We already had those military bases established in Germany and Japan by then, so it clearly wasn't to protect them from the USSR.

I do agree that the US is over-stretched. We've been reducing our military presence in Europe and elsewhere since the 1980s, but it needs to happen at a faster pace. I'm also not opposed to moving the Marines from Okinawa to Guam, for example, in order to get them out of Japan. I also think our mission in South Korea is largely symbolic today. South Korea has an excellent military, quite capable of handling North Korea if they had outside logistical support. So there is no reason for the US to remain in South Korea.

According to the DOD's own website, there are 1.3 million US troops deployed in 160 different countries, on all 7 continents, in 4,800 "defense sites." Most of this has to do with the US trying desperately to maintain its hegemony, which it has been steadily losing to China since the 1990s. Giving up foreign military bases now might seem like weakness.
 
Glitch said:
We were not in Germany, Japan, and Korea to protect them. We were in Germany, Japan, and Korea to protect others from these known aggressors. Russia only became the enemy after they became a nuclear power. We already had those military bases established in Germany and Japan by then, so it clearly wasn't to protect them from the USSR.

I do agree that the US is over-stretched. We've been reducing our military presence in Europe and elsewhere since the 1980s, but it needs to happen at a faster pace. I'm also not opposed to moving the Marines from Okinawa to Guam, for example, in order to get them out of Japan. I also think our mission in South Korea is largely symbolic today. South Korea has an excellent military, quite capable of handling North Korea if they had outside logistical support. So there is no reason for the US to remain in South Korea.

According to the DOD's own website, there are 1.3 million US troops deployed in 160 different countries, on all 7 continents, in 4,800 "defense sites." Most of this has to do with the US trying desperately to maintain its hegemony, which it has been steadily losing to China since the 1990s. Giving up foreign military bases now might seem like weakness.
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I think your facts are confused. First of all we have treaties with Germany and Japan. The occupation of these countries has been over for decades. We stayed to make it known that a strike against any of these countries is a strike against the US. Russia was an enemy long before they obtained nukes. The Berlin conflict is evidence of this. South Korea has never been an aggressor. They have always been our ally. You are right they are more than capable of defending themselves. I said as much in my prior post. The US has four times as many troops in Korea as Afghanistan. I would hardly call that symbolic. I call that a huge expense.

As far as having 1.3 million troops deployed at foreign bases, that is way off base. The US has a "total" of 1.3 million personnel. Most of which are stationed in the US.

My position remains the same. Before the US can cut military spending, they need to stop being the world's policeman.
 
BahamaBob said:
I think your facts are confused. First of all we have treaties with Germany and Japan.
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Of course, that was part of their unconditional surrender. It isn't as if we gave them a choice. We were going to establish military bases in their country, whether they liked it or not.

BahamaBob said:
The occupation of these countries has been over for decades. We stayed to make it known that a strike against any of these countries is a strike against the US.
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We stayed to protect other nations from these aggressors, and Korea was an aggressor before their was a South Korea.

BahamaBob said:
The US has four times as many troops in Korea as Afghanistan. I would hardly call that symbolic. I call that a huge expense.
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Symbolic in the sense that they are not needed and serve no useful purpose.

BahamaBob said:
As far as having 1.3 million troops deployed at foreign bases, that is way off base.
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Actually, the US military consists of 2.15 million military service members, and 732,079 civilians. I've cited my source - the Department of Defense. How about you citing yours that says the DOD is "way off base."
 
Glitch said:
Of course, that was part of their unconditional surrender. It isn't as if we gave them a choice. We were going to establish military bases in their country, whether they liked it or not.

We stayed to protect other nations from these aggressors, and Korea was an aggressor before their was a South Korea.

Symbolic in the sense that they are not needed and serve no useful purpose.

Actually, the US military consists of 2.15 million military service members, and 732,079 civilians. I've cited my source - the Department of Defense. How about you citing yours that says the DOD is "way off base."
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Hmm, what nations were we protecting from two countries with no military, no economies, and starving people?
List all the countries invaded by the aggressive Koreans in the last century.

News flash, our presence in all three of these countries is symbolic. Symbolic of our commitment to their protection.

I'll post my source.
Total active duty personnel for the five armed service were approximately 472,000 for the Army, 319,000 for the Navy, 319,000 for the Air Force, 184,000 for the Marine Corps and 41,000 for the Coast Guard.

Military Active-Duty Personnel, Civilians by State
 
Glitch said:
We stayed to protect other nations from these aggressors, and Korea was an aggressor before their was a South Korea.
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Actually, it was not.

Prior to there being a South Korea, it was a part of the Japanese Empire, having been forcefully annexed and their country abolished in 1910.

Prior to that, for over a thousand years it had been a poppet empire of the Chinese. And invaded and occupied many times over those centuries. By the Mongols, the Chinese, even the Japanese.

So when exactly during all of this time were they the aggressor nation? During the Gojoseon Period, prior to being conquered by the Han Dynasty in 108 BCE?
 
Oozlefinch said:
Actually, it was not.

Prior to there being a South Korea, it was a part of the Japanese Empire, having been forcefully annexed and their country abolished in 1910.

Prior to that, for over a thousand years it had been a poppet empire of the Chinese. And invaded and occupied many times over those centuries. By the Mongols, the Chinese, even the Japanese.

So when exactly during all of this time were they the aggressor nation? During the Gojoseon Period, prior to being conquered by the Han Dynasty in 108 BCE?
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In June 1950 the newly created North Korea attacked the US. That is exactly when they became the aggressor nation. Funny how you managed to miss that piece of recent history.
 
BahamaBob said:
Hmm, what nations were we protecting from two countries with no military, no economies, and starving people?
List all the countries invaded by the aggressive Koreans in the last century.

News flash, our presence in all three of these countries is symbolic. Symbolic of our commitment to their protection.

I'll post my source.
Total active duty personnel for the five armed service were approximately 472,000 for the Army, 319,000 for the Navy, 319,000 for the Air Force, 184,000 for the Marine Corps and 41,000 for the Coast Guard.

Military Active-Duty Personnel, Civilians by State
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There are a couple of problems with your source. First, the Coast Guard is not part of the military. They fall under the Department of Homeland Security, not the Department of Defense. Second, they failed to include the National Guard, which IS part of the Department of Defense and hence part of the military.

Why would you rely on a faulty third-party source, when you can access the information directly from the Department of Defense?
 
BahamaBob said:
Hmm, what nations were we protecting from two countries with no military, no economies, and starving people?
List all the countries invaded by the aggressive Koreans in the last century.

News flash, our presence in all three of these countries is symbolic. Symbolic of our commitment to their protection.
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I would say it is much more than simply symbolic.

One of the ways the US took it's biggest hit was in the aftermath of the Vietnam War. In 1973 the US completely left the country, even though we continued to say we honored out Mutual-Defense Treaty with them, and would protect them if North Vietnam was to turn hostile again.

And 2 years later in 1975 North Vietnam once again invaded, and the US simply sat back and did nothing. This caused a lot of nations that we had similar agreements with to start to question our resolve. Among them was Taiwan and South Korea. Taiwan became even more nervous when in 1979 we lifted our recognition of them and instead shifted formal national recognition to the PRC.

And even though we ended our Mutual-Defense Treaty with Taiwan in 1980, the US has insisted that we will "unofficially" protect the island if it comes under attack. Hence at almost all times there is at least one US Naval vessel on or close to the island.

No, our troops also remain because it is the only way those nations can be sure that we will honor our treaties, and treat "an attack upon them as an attack upon ourselves". If we removed most or all of our troops from South Korea, what is to stop us form simply ignoring them if North Korea attacks again? After all, we did nothing to help South Vietnam, so why should they expect our help in a future conflict unless we were "personally involved"?

It has taken decades for the US to rebuild the trust of many of their allies. Incidents like the Tanker War and the Liberation of Kuwait went a long ways to rebuild those trusts, but many are still unsure and need the presence of our own forces to be sure we will honor treaties.
 
Glitch said:
In June 1950 the newly created North Korea attacked the US. That is exactly when they became the aggressor nation. Funny how you managed to miss that piece of recent history.
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They attacked South Korea.

And you clearly stated that Korea was an aggressor before there was a South Korea.

And since the South Korean Government was created in 1948, what North Vietnam did in 1950 has not a thing to do with your claim at all. After all, you insisted that they were an aggressor prior to their being a South Korea. That means prior to 1948.

After 1948, Korea was 2 countries, North and South. And you can not blame the actions of one upon the other.
 
Oozlefinch said:
I would say it is much more than simply symbolic.

One of the ways the US took it's biggest hit was in the aftermath of the Vietnam War. In 1973 the US completely left the country, even though we continued to say we honored out Mutual-Defense Treaty with them, and would protect them if North Vietnam was to turn hostile again.

And 2 years later in 1975 North Vietnam once again invaded, and the US simply sat back and did nothing. This caused a lot of nations that we had similar agreements with to start to question our resolve. Among them was Taiwan and South Korea. Taiwan became even more nervous when in 1979 we lifted our recognition of them and instead shifted formal national recognition to the PRC.

And even though we ended our Mutual-Defense Treaty with Taiwan in 1980, the US has insisted that we will "unofficially" protect the island if it comes under attack. Hence at almost all times there is at least one US Naval vessel on or close to the island.

No, our troops also remain because it is the only way those nations can be sure that we will honor our treaties, and treat "an attack upon them as an attack upon ourselves". If we removed most or all of our troops from South Korea, what is to stop us form simply ignoring them if North Korea attacks again? After all, we did nothing to help South Vietnam, so why should they expect our help in a future conflict unless we were "personally involved"?

It has taken decades for the US to rebuild the trust of many of their allies. Incidents like the Tanker War and the Liberation of Kuwait went a long ways to rebuild those trusts, but many are still unsure and need the presence of our own forces to be sure we will honor treaties.
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Your history is really screwed up. The US did not leave Vietnam until April 30, 1975, also known as "The Fall of Saigon." I should know, I was on active duty in the Marine Corps at that time.
 
Glitch said:
Your history is really screwed up. The US did not leave Vietnam until April 30, 1975, also known as "The Fall of Saigon." I should know, I was on active duty in the Marine Corps at that time.
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Then I suggest you go back and look at the US involvement in the war once again.

We agreed to the Paris Peace Accords in 1973, and that is the year the last of our combat troops left South Vietnam.

My history is rather clear, yours is the one that is skewed.
 
Oozlefinch said:
I would say it is much more than simply symbolic.

One of the ways the US took it's biggest hit was in the aftermath of the Vietnam War. In 1973 the US completely left the country, even though we continued to say we honored out Mutual-Defense Treaty with them, and would protect them if North Vietnam was to turn hostile again.

And 2 years later in 1975 North Vietnam once again invaded, and the US simply sat back and did nothing. This caused a lot of nations that we had similar agreements with to start to question our resolve. Among them was Taiwan and South Korea. Taiwan became even more nervous when in 1979 we lifted our recognition of them and instead shifted formal national recognition to the PRC.

And even though we ended our Mutual-Defense Treaty with Taiwan in 1980, the US has insisted that we will "unofficially" protect the island if it comes under attack. Hence at almost all times there is at least one US Naval vessel on or close to the island.

No, our troops also remain because it is the only way those nations can be sure that we will honor our treaties, and treat "an attack upon them as an attack upon ourselves". If we removed most or all of our troops from South Korea, what is to stop us form simply ignoring them if North Korea attacks again? After all, we did nothing to help South Vietnam, so why should they expect our help in a future conflict unless we were "personally involved"?

It has taken decades for the US to rebuild the trust of many of their allies. Incidents like the Tanker War and the Liberation of Kuwait went a long ways to rebuild those trusts, but many are still unsure and need the presence of our own forces to be sure we will honor treaties.
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While you are correct, it is still symbolic. The number of troops in these countries without reinforcement could not deter a major attack. So they are symbolic of our commitment.

I also disagree with your Vietnam assessment. The lack of commitment did not lie with the US. As someone who was there, I can tell you the lack of commitment was with the South Vietnamese. I personally watched hundreds of ARVN soldiers throw down their weapons, strip off their uniforms and run at the first sight of a fight. Going back in there in 75 would have accomplished nothing but more dead Americans.
 
BahamaBob said:
I also disagree with your Vietnam assessment. The lack of commitment did not lie with the US. As someone who was there, I can tell you the lack of commitment was with the South Vietnamese. I personally watched hundreds of ARVN soldiers throw down their weapons, strip off their uniforms and run at the first sight of a fight. Going back in there in 75 would have accomplished nothing but more dead Americans.
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I am talking nothing about commitment, or the dedication of the SVN forces. The fact is that the war did end in 1973, and we agreed at that time that we would continue our Mutual-Defense Treaty with them.

A treaty that we did not honor when 1975 came around.

The Paris Peace Accords, (Vietnamese: Hiệp định Paris về Việt Nam) officially titled the Agreement on Ending the War and Restoring Peace in Viet Nam (Hiệp định về chấm dứt chiến tranh, lập lại hòa bình ở Việt Nam), was a peace treaty signed on January 27, 1973, to establish peace in Vietnam and end the Vietnam War. The treaty included the governments of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam), the Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnam), and the United States, as well as the Provisional Revolutionary Government (PRG) that represented indigenous South Vietnamese revolutionaries. US ground forces up to that point had been sidelined with deteriorating morale and gradually withdrawn to coastal regions, not partaking in offensive operations or much direct combat for the preceding two-year period. The Paris Agreement Treaty would in effect remove all remaining US Forces, including air and naval forces in exchange for Hanoi's POWs.
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Paris Peace Accords - Wikipedia

The Marines on MSG duty at the Embassy were not combat troops.

I am making no comments on if sending forces in during the North Vietnam offensive in 1975 would have helped save the country, or not. I am not even trying to touch that subject. But the fact of the matter can not be denied, a lot of our allies in 1975 started to take us much less seriously. We had turned our backs on one ally we had such an agreement with, what is to say we would not do it again?

I am speaking not of politics, but of Realpolitik.

Also, it is not simply "symbolic" if we have thousands of our forces in a nation that is attacked. In most nations today our forces are very closely interwoven with that of the host nation. We most of the time share the bases, both land, air bases, and naval bases. So an attack upon the host nation becomes unavoidably an attack upon our own forces.

And while most Americans would not give a damn if say Iran launched a huge rocket attack on Doha or the UAE, they would care if during such an attack hundreds if not thousands of US servicemembers were killed as well.
 
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Oozlefinch said:
Then I suggest you go back and look at the US involvement in the war once again.

We agreed to the Paris Peace Accords in 1973, and that is the year the last of our combat troops left South Vietnam.

My history is rather clear, yours is the one that is skewed.
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We agreed to the Paris Peace Accords in 1973, but did not pull all US troops out of Vietnam until April 30, 1975. I don't even know why you are disputing this, it is well documented. Both Congress and the Department of Defense use April 30, 1975 to mark the official end of the Vietnam War. By the way, Nixon began pulling US troops out of Vietnam by 1972, before the treaty was signed. Nixon was elected because he had promised to end the Vietnam War.
 
BahamaBob said:
News flash, our presence in all three of these countries is symbolic. Symbolic of our commitment to their protection.
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Of the three, I've only been stationed in Korea, but I wouldn't call our presence symbolic, at least not completely.

In Korea, as far as the Army goes, we are (at least when I was there, 2015-2016) integrated into the planning and preparation for the resumption of hostilities. I was authorized to wear a "Combined Division" patch precisely because 2ID had a South Korean Mechanized Infantry Brigade attached to us. In the event of fighting breaking out again, all of 2ID was supposed to fall in behind the ROK Army III Corps as they bum rushed the DMZ, performing rear security, providing fire support, and picking up the pieces as they burned their way through North Korean defenses and units.

It was an actual planned combat operation, not just symbolism.
 
Glitch said:
We agreed to the Paris Peace Accords in 1973, but did not pull all US troops out of Vietnam until April 30, 1975. I don't even know why you are disputing this, it is well documented. Both Congress and the Department of Defense use April 30, 1975 to mark the official end of the Vietnam War. By the way, Nixon began pulling US troops out of Vietnam by 1972, before the treaty was signed. Nixon was elected because he had promised to end the Vietnam War.
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What was troop strength in South Vietnam in 1975?
 
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