I realize it is probably too much to expect any rational action from Congress, but it strikes me that they would make a lot of people very happy if they would stop all the military/defense activities outside the United States boundaries. OK, keep the embassy protection and, perhaps, Diego Garcia, but do away with or massively downgrade all the rest.
I suspect the starting point is for the Congress to listen to the people they represent, something Congress does not like to do, as it may interfere with their own agendas. Over the recent past, the people have shown themselves to be against the wars, feel that defense spending is not only too much, but less desirable than spending for infrastructure upgrading, that justifying the German operation as a support base for the Libyan adventure (also disapproved of) is improper at best, and there is much more in the same vein.
In addition, the Defense Department itself has noted that the nature of armed conflict has changed significantly. Large battles with massive forces and armed equipment, last seen in the Gulf War, will not be repeated and the new strategies will require less manpower and far different support equipment. Future actions will depend far more on “smarts and technologies” than brute force.
Perhaps more importantly, the people feel that both the Iraqis and the Afghans are not doing what the people feel they should to help themselves and that the thousands of lives and many, many thousands of wounded have performed magnificently, but in a cause that has always been doubtful at best.
The cost of maintaining overseas forces is tremendous; we have hundreds of locations in dozens of countries. The expense of the Iraqi and Afghan campaigns gets some publicity, but we would probably be astounded at the cost of keeping more than 100,000 people (and their support) overseas principally in Germany and Japan.
The savings in costs resulting from bringing our people home should make the “reduce the spending” folks very happy. The families of troops in Iraq and Afghanistan will be very happy with their people home and no longer threatened with death and injury. Demand should increase simply because more people would be buying in America, not in foreign countries, and so on. The savings in petroleum-based fuels will be significant. And it should make all those who really don”t want to be “occupied” very happy as well.
However, when all of this is done, our country needs to do a better job than after WWII in assuring those “called up” people (Reserve and National Guard) can return to the jobs they held prior to being summoned to active service.
Guthrie “Guff” Worth
Lakeport
