The DOD can't plan it's spending based on your optimism, though. It has to be prepared to fight, and like it or not, most experts agree that unconventional warfare is going to be common, if not dominant, in the coming decades. So it behooves the DOD to improve it's capabilities for that type of warfare. Besides, like I said, history shows that people rarely see wars coming even a few years in advance. Saying that you don't think we'll have any more conflicts in a while is all very good, but the reality is that neither you nor anybody else knows what kind of shit we may be involved in 2015 or 2020 or 2025. Again, we can't plan based on your optimism.Originally Posted by Mr. E
Besides, all that aside, the fact is that we are currently involved in a counterinsurgency war in Afghanistan, and it's not going to be over for a few more years even in the best-case scenario, and winning the war we're actually fighting right now is the #1 priority. So it's hardly unreasonable for the Pentagon to put more money into the programs that will help us win that war, especially since some our problems in that war have stemmed directly from our lack of the things that these programs provide. Especially if even after putting more money towards those programs, we are still also putting PLENTY of money towards conventional warfare programs, in case China wants to throw down in twenty years or whatever.
EDIT: In terms of cuts to programs like DDG-1000 and the F-22, it's not about "We don't need conventional warfare capabilities any more so we're not buying any more jet fighters or warships"; it's about "These programs are incredibly expensive and don't provide benefits commensurate to their costs".
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