I’ve read some about Boyd. The “only” thing about his ideas that is radical is the “revolutionary” notion that you start with requirements and THEN move on to force structures, appropriations, contracts, and purchase orders.

A rational defense policy would start by determining our national objectives, identifying risks, calculating cost/benefit ratios, and then deciding what kind of military would best meet the stated requrements. Only then would we look at buying hardware, setting manning levels, keeping or closing bases, and maintaining any given set of units and commands.

It never works this way in America. So runaway defense budgets are inevitable.

Cost containment and cost/benefit analysis only make sense in the context of requirements, of finite problems and determinate solutions. Purposeless spending can’t be contained because there is nothing to judge it against. And we can’t set sensible requirements while we are plugging away at a senseless, pointless pair of wars.

Stopping the wars is the key.

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

Got a gun? You are in the militia.

EU, collectively, spends a mere $300 billion for roughly 7 to 11 million in uniform

7 to 11 million in uniform? Were did you get that number?

Active troops are around 2 million.
Add maybe 150% reserves and you get 5 million.

“The technology revolution has transformed organizations across the private sector, but not ours, not fully, not yet. We are, as they say, tangled in our anchor chain. Our financial systems are decades old. According to some estimates, we cannot track $2.3 trillion in transactions. We cannot share information from floor to floor in this building because it’s stored on dozens of technological systems that are inaccessible or incompatible.”
- Remarks as Delivered by Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, The Pentagon, Monday, September 10, 2001

You wonder why the world sees the US as a bully, as a war lover, as an empire builder? Wonder no more. gwb stated back before he became prez that one thing a US prez has to do is start a small war that can be easily won. He was talking about Iraq.

Why do you think thyat the rest of the world hates and fears us? Not only because we have the most tecnological military or the biggest or the most war toys. It is because we are always so eagar to use it. Dem or rethug it does not matter. We built the biggest military in the world for WWII. Then we quickly got rid of it, only to have Korea come up and bite us on the ass 5 years later. Ever since then we have become the most militaristic country in the world, while at the same time we profess that we love peace. We are militaristic and we got tons of war toys that our leaders, since we got rid of the draft, love to play with. After all, only idiots volunteer for the military. The smart guys, the sons of wealth and power, since we dumped the draft we don’t have to care about starting a war. Sure, all of you out there profess to care for the people in military service. Right. Pull the other one. The only thing is that you all feel a little guilt because your sons/daughters don’t have to join. Otherwise you all don’t give a s**t about the military. Really. The rethugs don’t care about the loss of life or the disabled due to wounds, they do care about multimillion $$ weapons systems being built in their districts. Dems are exactly the same. Vets are just a demographic that the pols want to stay on the right side of. Hey, I have spent the last 40 years in and out of VA hospitals, I know how much the US cares about “the troops” The answer. Not very much. The only way to really put a stop to the militazation of the US is to reinstate the draft. With zero exemptions, both men and women when they turn 18 must serve at least 2 years in the military. Only when it becomes “your” kid, and when the kids of wealth and power have to join in will the wars of choice stop. The only way. Vietnam came to an end because the parents of the dead stood up and voted to end it. The kids who protested accomplished nothing. It stopped when the children of wealth and power were put in danger, when the parents of all the small towns had to go to funerals, that is why it stopped.
Now, all the guilt is showing, all the praise for the troops. But that praise means nothing. It took a Dem several years to get a new GI bill passed, the rethugs fought it-but they are always for the troops, no?-the current disability payments from the VA are a joke. But no one tries to raise them. A soldier who spends 20 years and retires can not collect VA disability payments alongside his pension, why? The VA hospital system is not quite as pathetic as it was 15 years ago, but it still is piss poor as VA docs tend to overmedicate rather than attempt to discover the real cause
Here in San Antonio we have a state of the art Rehab center along with apts for family members. The VA did not pay for it. The people of San Antonio, Texas raised the money to build and staff it. The VA should have paid. A C-leg costs $65K. The VA-read the US govt-resisted giving them to Iraq vets until people in the hospitals forced the question.
Most of the time over the last 40 years I have had the impression-along with a very large majority of Vets-that the american people just wished we would all go away. Or die. I go to funerals every day. Most have only family members. Meanwhile, the local Cemetery at Fort Sam Houston, keeps getting bigger and bigger. And unless it is shoved right in your face, you all ignore us. 25,000 + wounded so far. 10 years ago we would have had not 4,000 dead but closer to 20,000 dead. We see the survivors here daily. no legs, 1 arm, burns over most of the body. Young people. These are the results of our military madness. And yet it continues, you say cut the military budget by 2/3. Riiiight. The military industrial complex has a stranglehold on the US. This will continue IMHO until the children of the rich and powerful have as good a chance to die as the poor kids with no other choice do. Only then will things change. Lets have a total draft. Boys and girls. Zero exemptions. No way out. Then and only then will things change. Until then, the poor whites and minorities will continue to bear the burden that those children with money and power will distain. And yes, even now, with all the patriotic fervor in the US, most still look down on soldiers or turn away when a maimed vet walks by. Do you? Try and be truthful. What do you really think of our soldiers? Of their sacrifice? Of their families sacrifice? Really.

As for America’s Defense Meltdown, I’ve been spreading the word about it on every comment thread where it’s appropriate. Chapter 7, an evisceration of the air power dogma of the preeminence of strategic bombing by USAF Col. Robert Dilger (Ret.) and Pierre Sprey, is worth the price of the book all by itself.

The contributors to the book are all either retired career officers, retired DoD civil servants, or former staffers of committees or defense-focused Congress critters on the Hill.