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Starting with the missile defense shield. Terrorists are not going to fire ballistic missiles at us, and if a country did, we still have MAD which has deterred such nonsense for 50+ years. Plus it doesn't work.
We can scale down our nuclear deterrent to something that fits the needs of facing down China or North Korea... something like 5 boomer subs and a few ICBMs are all that is really needed.
We should proceed with the JAST (Joint srike fighter) but we don't have to rush it into production or orders hundreds of them. OTOH, we should spend more on UAVs, both for intelligence and for tactical capability. They are cheap and effective tools. Smart weapons are good, but we definitely should rethink our use of DU shells and ammo. And there is a whole long list of new vehicles the army wants that we may not really need.
OTOH, we should increase the number of special forces, and equip our folks with the latest body armor and personal weapons and communications. One of the ongoing revolutions is that local commanders are getting much better ground intel and the "fog of war" is being lifted from the battlefield... and we need to increase that.
Still, I think we could come up with $50 B/yr in savings AND put 40,000 more troops in the regular army as President Kerry has called for.
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