Reply #48: you are thinking too simplistically [View All]

[bossy22]

threats can't be catagorized to those that can only cause direct physical harm to the continental U.S.; they must include economic, political, and moral realm. A pacific arms race won't threaten the U.S. directly (since our military power is so overwhelming) but it can cause a great deal of economic problems. A pacific arms race would cause the region to be very volatile- a region where the majority of our sea-borne trade goes through. So now we have U.S. and international merchant ships travelling through potential hot spots. A large reduction in foward deployed force structure in the pacific would tip the balance in favor of china in that area (area being the asian pacific- from chinese shores up to and including japan but probably no further). This would scare the crap out of japan and almost overnight you would see them throw out their 1% rule (that the won't spend more than 1% of their GDP on their military) and start a massive build up campaign (there already rumors that japan is looking into fielding an Aircraft carrier due to chinese agression- remember back in 2008 they launched their first vessel since the second world war thats primary purpose was to carry aircraft- a helicopter carrier)

There are areas where we can cut- especially in the realms of the army (why we need such a large army when the possibility of fighting a land war to protect ourselves is so low), but what i fear is that such a cut will be dealt accross the board to all services without thinking about strategic consequences. Navies are not instruments of war- they are instruments of peace. Navies are our true world police forces and i stand by the statement that the world benefits from a dominant U.S. navy- one that can deliver not only hard power- but soft power that is equally as strong.