Al Jezeera: Obama has announced a restructuring of the military and the refocusing of forces towards the Southeast Asia. What are the Obama Administration's interests in this new region and do you think that a cutback in military spending will spark our domestic economy?
To be honest, I don't pay a lot of attention to topics like this, but this was an interesting article. I think that decreasing in our number of ground troops would be a bad idea as McKeon said. He said, "...the reduction would put us 'back on a pre-9/11 footing,'" which is a very hopeful but dangerous idea. Many of us want life to go back to the way it was before the attack of 9/11, but it simply can't happen now that the world knows what other countries are capable of. I think the reduction of the army would also not help our domestic economy either. More people means more jobs needed and more houses needed, and there just aren't those opportunities. Maybe in the long run, the cuts made to the military will add up and help the growth of the economy, but in short term it will not do any good.
ReplyDeleteThis article is truly something that brought a smile to my face with the talk of building up other countries, like South Asia, and getting out of Iraq. My true thoughts on the matter are that we must vacate Iraq as quickly as possible due to them leeching onto our funds, soldiers, and time. I disagree with Samantha, and McKeon (the person from the article that she quoted) when they both think that taking out ground soldiers is a bad idea> I believe that we as a nation and as a government have put to much into Iraq, and that we have given them enough to eliminate us as a target for another 9/11. Yes, I know that there are radical people in the world and in Iraq that would think otherwise, but this is an opinionated blog response. On the matter of the Administration's interests, i agree when, in the article, they state "The Marines, currently more than 200,000 strong, will be hit much less hard, as they are likely to be assigned to naval task forces whose importance will increase as a result of the administration's strategic "pivot" from the Greater Middle East towards the Asia-Pacific region that was dramatised by Obama's November swing through the region." This is a perfect example of how we now, due to the decisions of Obama and respective members of government, are "swinging" over to different countries in the Southeastern part of Asia. This move is something of importance because it means that our efforts are now being move from Iraq, to other, more-needy, countries. The Marines, are simply the beginning of the switch from the stand still in Iraq, to the new heaven in Asia. If we, as the government, would partake in a military spending cutback, I believe that it would spark an economical incline. I believe this to be true, only if the cutback money would then be put towards increasing the amounts of jobs, or generally raising the economy. ANother possibilities in having the cutback money simply be invested, and there to try to balance out and break down the trillions of dollars in debt that our country has fallen into. These are my views on this article and on the questions that were ever so brilliantly proposed.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Samantha
ReplyDeleteObama is making is budget cuts and the victims are the military. Obama is implementing a new defense strategy. This strategy is basically placing more energy on the “armed forces that are agile, flexible and ready for the full range of contingencies and threats”. This means that the ground forces are being liquidated for the more agile forces. There are roughly 570,000 soldiers and the budget cuts will have this decline down to 490,000. Obama is also suggesting the cuts in the us nuclear forces should be made as well as abandoning the post cold war front. In order to have the cuts actually work the us will have to rely on their allies more than they do now.
Sean Mitchell:
ReplyDeleteI think that the cutback on the military spending will not spark our domestic economy because the cut back is only 4% less than the previous five year average. In order to spark our domestic economy we would have to cut back more than 450 billion dollars over the next ten years in our military spending. Our deficit is currently around a trillion dollars. If we were to cut back, we would have to focus on just one war, not two. But, no one can come to an agreement. There needs to be agreements within the military and the bipartisan congress.