Why the world still needs nuclear weapons

[starcraft]

mrstickball said:

starcraft said:

FaRmLaNd said:

Absolutely correct. America doesn't need to spend the amount of money it does to defend itself. Hell Australia is pretty much untouchable by everyone outside of some of our allies (USA, Britain) and we have next to no people in a comparable landmass.

I've often thought about America's standing nuclear and conventional arsenals.  You'd have to think that with say, two or three less carrier fleets, you'd be able to project the same or similar amount of power you currently do relative to the rest of the world.  And I couldn't see that having any effect on your home defense.

But you would save tens, even hundreds of billions a year.

The US still needs the carriers.

What the US doesn't need is to have soldiers in 156 countries around the world. 156 countries. Do we really need to be Team America: World Police? No. Not by a long shot. Of those 156 countries, we have 255,000 soldiers overseas. Each of those 255,000 soldiers cost money. Not just to America, but the money is also likely being spent overseas too - if you have a US soldier in Germany, there is a high likelihood that he will spend some of his money there, providing for their economy, not ours.

If we got out of Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as removed all troops from every foreign country sans Korea and Japan (but reduced forces there, and re-negotiated a treaty with Japan allowing them to have a more robust military), we could save tens or even hundreds of billions of dollars a year - far more than nixing a carrier, which I believe we need as we do need a mobile army. We just don't need an army that is in well over half of the nations worldwide.

That's actually over two thirds of nations I believe.  I agree entirely with your first (main) paragraph.  The USA does not need to be in a large number of the countries it is in, and as such could save enormously here.

But when last I checked (which I admit was a while ago) the USA had eleven carriers in service, ten of which were Nimitz class.  Nimitz is by far the most advanced carrier in service anywhere, and the nearest rival nation to the USA is Britain, with three carriers that are generally seen as second rate.  They are in the process of replacing them with two much more advanced carriers, but I still doubt they'll be more advanced than Nimitz, and certainly not better than the Ford carrier you've started building. 

So to recap, you have eleven of the very best carriers, and most of the active carriers in the world are directly in the hands of your allies Britain and France.  Even with the potential for Russia and China to launch their own carriers (you'd have too think two each at MOST and unlikely to be as advanced as the USA's) sometime this decade, eleven is just ridiculous.

And you have to remember much of what some of these carrier fleets are doing now is supporting your troops overseas.  If they aren't overseas, why do you need eleven carriers and supporting fleets?