Trump wants to make a historic hike in defense spending.

Historic compared to ~what~? Larger than the increases during WWII? Korea? Vietnam? Iraq/Afghanistan? Or Reagan’s buildup? Or just BS @AFP

— lawhawk (@lawhawk) February 27, 2017

Historic how? Trump loves to talk in superlatives and empty platitudes, but laws and budgets require precise language.

So, what is this historic increase he’s calling for? Larger than the hikes in spending during WWII? Korea? Vietnam? Afghanistan/Iraq? Or Reagan’s defense push in the early 1980s?

Reality is that the US defense budget has been between 3-5% of GDP since the 1990s. Where is that additional spending going to go? You can almost bet it wont go for higher wages to the service members. That’s one of the reasons that the Pentagon has pushed for more automation on ships, more technology across all the branches, because people are expensive - training, logistics, etc. So that a new Ford class carrier can do as much as a Nimitz class with a fraction of the manpower. It’s estimated that the Ford class can have a 25% improvement over the Nimitz class in sortie rate, with 25% fewer personnel. Doing more with less - but that costs more in tech.

The new Zumwalt destroyer costs $1 billion, but has fewer people on board.

Everywhere you look, equipment costs keep rising, but the manpower behind them are being reduced because of costs.

So, what is Trump going to buy? More F-35s? Or pushing the F-18 on to the branches that don’t want them? Demanding that the Army buy more tanks it doesn’t need? Artillery it can’t use?

These are the brass tacks that he doesn’t care about.

But gutting the EPA? That’s a GOP wet dream - and even if you eliminate the agency entirely, it’d barely buy a single Ford class carrier - $8.2 billion versus $10+ billion for a Ford class carrier. Zumwalt destroyers are running about a billion a copy. B-2 bombers? Those are $2 billion.

Get rid of NEA? That’s $146 million in the most recent year. That doesn’t even buy you a single F-35.

Everywhere you look, the GOP is getting out the knives to slash and burn the safety net, which further burdens those who can’t afford them to build up a military that already is more than sufficient for our purposes - the ability to fight two wars simultaneously, not counting our nuclear option.

But even more basic than this is that our enemies/rivals aren’t going to fight us strength against strength. They know asymmetrical warfare works. That’s how a guy with an IED can blow up key American assets for a fraction of the cost of a single bombing sortie (not even the aircraft, just the cost to fly the mission).