United States of America

[Quintus Fabius]

Sie versuchen es tatsächlich, sie tasten die Heilige Kuh der USA an, den Wehretat !

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-...dget-cuts/

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has ordered senior leaders at the Pentagon and throughout the U.S. military to develop plans for cutting 8 percent from the defense budget in each of the next five years, according to a memo obtained by The Washington Post and officials familiar with the matter — a striking proposal certain to face internal resistance and strident bipartisan opposition in Congress.

Das wäre nun im Vergleich zu dem absurden DOGE Spektakel tatsächlich signifikante Summe / ein erheblicher Effekt.

Hegseth ordered the proposed cuts to be drawn up by Monday, according to the memo, which is dated Tuesday and includes a list of 17 categories that the Trump administration wants exempted. Among them: operations at the southern U.S. border, modernization of nuclear weapons and missile defense, and acquisition of submarines, one-way attack drones and other munitions.

Vielen Leuten ist glaube ich die Skalierung hier nicht klar:

The Pentagon budget for 2025 is about $850 billion, with broad consensus on Capitol Hill that extensive spending is necessary to deter threats posed by China and Russia, in particular. If adopted in full, the cuts would include tens of billions of dollars in each of the next five years.

The proposed cuts, if adopted, would mark the largest effort to rein in Pentagon spending since 2013, when congressionally mandated budget reductions known as sequestration took effect. Those cuts were perceived as a crisis in the Pentagon at the time and grew increasingly unpopular with Republicans and Democrats alike as their effects on the military’s ability to train and be ready for war became clear.

Among the 17 categories that may not be affected are operations to combat transnational criminal organizations in the Western Hemisphere, the Pentagon’s audit, and the “collaborative combat aircraft” program, which seeks to pair unmanned aircraft with those that still carry pilots. The building of “executable” warships is a priority, the memo says, though it does not specify what kind of vessels the administration favors. Hegseth’s directive also prioritizes military construction projects in the Pacific.

On Wall Street, stocks for Palantir, Lockheed Martin, and several other major defense contractors tumbled after The Post published news about Hegseth’s directive.

Die etwaig politisch-strategischen Folgen ?!

https://www.theatlantic.com/internationa...ce=bluesky