{"id":2904,"date":"2014-02-27T14:47:27","date_gmt":"2014-02-27T20:47:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/?p=2904"},"modified":"2014-02-27T14:47:27","modified_gmt":"2014-02-27T20:47:27","slug":"are-republicans-being-hypocritical-over-military-budget-cuts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/are-republicans-being-hypocritical-over-military-budget-cuts\/","title":{"rendered":"Are Republicans being hypocritical over military budget cuts?"},"content":{"rendered":"

by\u00a0Matt Naham<\/a><\/cite>, Rare
\nclick here for original article<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

After Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel announced significant\u00a0military budget cuts\u00a0<\/a>on\u00a0Monday, many conservatives reacted with alarm. Some saw these reductions as the Obama administration hurting the military or even as an invitation for America\u2019s enemies to threaten.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s what the cuts will do<\/a>: Subtract 80,000 foot soldiers maximum and 8,000 Marines, but add on 4,000 special operations troops for tactical warfare and 900 Marines for U.S. Embassy security purposes; cancel the Army\u2019s Ground Combat Vehicle Program;\u00a0save\u00a0$3.5 billion by\u00a0retiring the A-10 \u2013a 40-year old, Cold War tank destroying aircraft \u2014 and replace it with the F-35 by 2020;\u00a0retiring the 50 year-old, human operated U-2 surveillance plane for the unmanned Global Hawk; and reduce operating status for roughly half of the Navy cruiser fleet (11 total cruisers) for modernization purposes.<\/p>\n

According to the\u00a0<\/a>New York Times<\/a>,\u00a0<\/em>the cuts should leave the U.S. with a military that will \u201cbe agile. It will be capable. It will be modern. It will be trained\u201d and one \u201ccapable of defeating any adversary, but too small for protracted foreign occupations.\u201d<\/p>\n

In other words, the military will maintain its ability to defend the home-front and execute quick strikes abroad, but will be incapable of, say, occupying Iraq and Afghanistan at the same time.\u00a0This perhaps shows, more than anything else, that the U.S. has recognized the changing landscape of warfare and the futility of long-term occupation.<\/p>\n

\"defense_spending_by_country_2010-570x288
\n<\/a>Fiscal conservatives should be pleased. Many are not.<\/p>\n

Rep.\u00a0Paul Ryan<\/a>\u00a0(R-Wisc.)\u00a0finds the cuts \u201cdisappointing,\u201d Senator\u00a0Marco Rubio<\/a>\u00a0(R-Fla.)\u00a0thinks our foreign interests and allies will now be threatened, former Congressman\u00a0Allen West<\/a>\u00a0believes this effectively \u201cdecimates\u201d the military, former Vice President Dick Cheney\u00a0is calling<\/a>\u00a0the cuts \u201cabsolutely dangerous,\u201d and Senator\u00a0John McCain<\/a>\u00a0(R-Ariz.)\u00a0sees this as a \u201cserious mistake.\u201d<\/p>\n

Entitlements are by far the greatest contributor to our debt and annual deficit, but what is second? National defense.<\/p>\n

Matthew Feeney of Reason notes<\/a>\u00a0that of the the top 20 military spenders in 2013, the U.S. was responsible for 44 percent of $1.316 trillion dollars spent.\u00a0Additionally, even with the proposed reductions implemented, \u201cthe U.S. Army will still be one of the largest in the world, and U.S. military spending will still be much larger than\u00a0any other country\u2019s<\/a>,\u201d sats\u00a0Feeney.<\/a>\u00a0America will still have a military\u00a0larger than the next ten countries combined.<\/a><\/p>\n

The amount of troops we may cut from the Army at the most, 80,000, is almost as many as the\u00a0British Army aim to have\u00a0in total<\/em>\u00a0by 2020<\/a>.\u00a0All told, this non-catastrophic reform\u00a0would save<\/a>\u00a0the U.S.\u00a0$75 billion over the next two years.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by\u00a0Matt Naham, Rare click here for original article After Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel announced significant\u00a0military budget cuts\u00a0on\u00a0Monday, many conservatives reacted with alarm. Some saw these reductions as the Obama administration hurting the military or even as an invitation for America\u2019s enemies to threaten. Here\u2019s what the cuts will do: Subtract 80,000 foot soldiers maximum and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2905,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2904","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/shutdownceiling-thumb-640xauto-9373.jpg?fit=351%2C458&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2904","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2904"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2904\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2906,"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2904\/revisions\/2906"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2905"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2904"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2904"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2904"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}