Do Nuclear Super Powers Need Airforces, Army, Navy?

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~bblotus Jan 16, 2013

I was reading an article on Wired about how a 800 million dollar Navy ship turned out to be failure due to technical issues. Same thing with our new jet engine that was supposed to be a big deal.

Maybe I'm missing something important but as far as I can see a Nuclear capable country only has 2 possible enemies: other nuclear superpowers, and terrorists.

Do we really need all this stuff. If we don't have it will Russia plan a land invasion against us? With military spending that is 12x all our allies combined, I wonder how the US "defense" budget pulls in the money so easily, when all other aspects of American economy is coming under scrutiny.

Military funding to the economy is like what religion is to controversial statements. An instant free pass.

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~CrunchBandicoot Jan 17, 2013 Hobbyist General Artist

Shit,

blocked me so he could get the last word. Typical coward: [link]

~gvcspecks Jan 17, 2013

Do you need to ask stupid questions? Don't forget how many people it employs.
How did Bin Laden get killed? By nukes or armed forces? who rescues hostages? Nukes or armed forces? who provides support to allied nations? Nukes or armed forces? Who can be used to help in natural disasters? Nukes or armed forces? Also who combats the 2nd enemy terrorists?

*JackMolotov3 Jan 17, 2013 Hobbyist Photographer

nuclear weapons don't have anything to do with other arms.

no country is going to use them, so without armies, navies, and airforces, you cannot respond proportionally to small scale attacks. No nation

You have a gross misunderstanding on how armed conflict works, and a gross misunderstanding of the cold war, and its history.

Most of the military in reality is theorhetical power, to be used in combination with diplomacy and parlance. What diplomatic feats can we achieve because of the perception of our military. Not just against as a threat, but also as an incentive to be allies.

You also have to think long term. Russia and China probably won't threaten a land invasion against us. If we didn't have an Army at all, they might consider it, or it might come up repeatedly in unrelated negotions and diplomacy.

I agree, our military budget is too big. We are stuck on outdated ideas like an oversized navy, and we pay far far far too much for research and development that goes nowhere to politically connected firms.

Ironicly this decreases our actual capability to sustain a war, because the military consumes more resources for less direct benefit. It used to be the other way around. US military effeciency combined with economic might won us WWII, because the nazis had big, expensive, unreplacable machinery.

When Americans lost equipment, they just got more. The biggest thing we can do to boost our military is boost civilian industrial production of industries that in times of war can effectively make war materials, and make more efficient goods.

This doesn't fit in with the needs of congressmen than sponsor the "pro-military" politicians.

~maddmatt Jan 17, 2013

I would venture it is with air superiority that makes a nation a superpower.

*JackMolotov3 Jan 17, 2013 Hobbyist Photographer

its slightly more complicated than that, but I think you get the picture.

you also need naval superiority.

symetric warfare capabilities, make a nation a power among its peers. Its not always what wins modern war.

~maddmatt Jan 17, 2013

I completely agree. Anyone who has played any roshambo-based game understands a strength is subject to weakness.

~Shidaku Jan 17, 2013

Of course, we like to punch you a few times in the face before we kick you in the nuts and set your pubes on fire.

~Jeremyti Jan 16, 2013 Professional Photographer

</i>Do Nuclear Super Powers Need Airforces, Army, Navy</i>

Nope. Lets just nuke the world.

Or, y'know, you could use your brain for a fraction of a second and answer your own idiotic question.

~Ironhold Jan 16, 2013

The original "Starship Troopers" novel actually talks about the matter.

When a recruit asks his drill sergeant why hand-to-hand instruction is still needed in a day of "push-button" warfare, the drill sergeant notes that dropping a nuke on any and every dissident group is like taking an axe to an unruly child: you've demonstrated that you have all the power in the situation, but at the same time, you've just destroyed anything and everything that might potentially have been saved.

Instead, nukes are a last resort for when all other methods of successfully ending a conflict have failed.

Additionally, the drill sergeant openly questioned the recruit's fitness to serve in the military if he was indeed that ready to just drop the bomb on everyone.

~TheRedSnifit Jan 17, 2013

Reminds me of how in Starcraft the Confederacy launches a thousand "Apocalypse-class" nukes at a planet to supress a terrorist group

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Do Nuclear Super Powers Need Airforces, Army, Navy?

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