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?

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 We are stuck on outdated ideas like an oversized navy, and we pay far far far too much for research and development that goes nowhere to politically connected firms.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

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

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.

</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.

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.

Ugly fact.

1) The researchers who develop those weapons of war are middle class jobs. Short of directly hiring them to do the jobs for the same pay as government employees, you need them to retain jobs paying 75 to 100k a year so to tax them to pay for the minimum wage jobs and the welfare state that keeps our economy on life support.


2) The technology which is developed in developing the weapons of war is used in civilian applications.

Yes, because you still need to occupy the land you just nuked.

Keep in mind you will not be able to completely stop an enemy nation with nukes. For example, most countries will have hardened positions that no nuke will reach. You will need troops to round up the survivors. That, and most wars in history (and likely the future) are due to resource grabs. Using nukes is the last resort -- if you can use normal troops, you would.

Yes nuclear superpowers need conventional forces. They don't need them the size of the US forces unless they wish to be world policemen. The US budget is too large, not other nations too small, because they are destermined to spread their military presence all round the world rather than acting for their own security.

Nukes are a deterrent. They're not meant to be used. When they are, it's only for instituting armageddon. There's no point putting all your eggs in one nuclear basket.

I'm not condoning the US's military spending, though. I think it's fuckin' obscene and merely a blight on the US people. But, having these forces is useful. I can say so from being Australian; our military provides a lot of humanitarian relief. Yeah, they do more than kill. All that equipment and all those humans, when mobilised, can really be a godsend to areas ravaged by disaster.

As powerful as nuclear weapons are, there is very little you can do with them.

There is only one super power: the United States.

There are nuclear powers, Russia, China, England, France, Israel, India, Pakistan, and North Korea but their ability to project power varies.

Also, many people who question the United States military budget make the constant mistake of looking at weapons systems only. "Jets this, boats that..."
They do not look at the logistical operations or understand their importance.
Overlooking training, maintenance, upkeep, food in soldier's tummies, fuel and ammo, plus whatever else, it all adds up. Being a versatile global power is expensive.

Could the budget be reduced? Yes. Could it be cut in half? No. Not unless you want to give up a lot of the US' global reach and reduce readiness for all situations.

Do next gen technologies need to be pushed into service hard and fast? Probably not.
But they do need to be a part of the continual advancement of military capability.

Remember, the military is not looking at today or next year, the military plans for decades in advance.
So while today we're dealing with low level local conflicts and highly mobile terror cells that doesn't mean the military is going to shut down everything else and only deal with two current issues. If you're reactive you're too slow and out of luck, if you're proactive you have flexibility and time as assets.