Well, the military has been cutting its spending for some time now, aside from Iraq. Each service receives different amounts of money, and the AF has been literally laying off people since 2005. I almost got laid off because I was about to get out and a notice came down basically saying, "Well, since you're getting out anyway, we're gonna speed it up for you and put you out 6 months ahead of time". I panicked and fought that shit because I wanted to finish my tour of duty in Italy and get out because I had plans for the last 6 months for myself. Fortunately, the AF personnel system is fucked, so my name got lost in the system and I finished my TOD.
About a year or so ago, I heard they had been doing even more drastic measures...they were RIFTing officers just as they had done after Desert Storm. My old boss took a big fat check from the government and opted to get out. In my last year in the military, they SHUT DOWN Basic Training for about three months because they were cutting spending and numbers in the AF.
From a military standpoint, cutting spending was never a problem for us; it was the whole "do more with less" that we had been doing since the end of Bush/beginning of Clinton that we were sick of. We had half the people and were doing twice the work and that still continues today. Just because a Republican is in the White House doesn't mean the military is going to be better off. I remember Clinton and how many people despised him in the military because he cut many military programs and stuff, but since Bush has been in office we haven't seen any improvement...if anything it has been worse.
Point in all of this is that just because a candidate is a Republican doesn't necessarily mean he's going to improve the quality of life and funding for R&D and employment of the military. Most of it depends on foreign policy. We honestly didn't mind going to Kuwait for 4 months every year, even though it kinda sucked during Clinton's reign. But when you have a bad foreign policy combined with the most powerful military in the world, it can spell disaster. Most of this "military spending" everyone's talking about is related to things like housing, pay raises, and R&D. It's not like we didn't have any radars when we deployed downrange or anything. If you cut military spending, we'll still have the F-22, there will still be funding for the JSF, the missile shield will still be in place, we'll still have forces all over the world, etc. Cutting military spending isn't going to close any bases or anything...it will just be more of "do more with less". I for one don't want military spending cut; I would rather see a healthy foreign policy because if you have that, you don't need to raise the pay of military members or build tons of new houses. People will be happy with what they have if you just let them have it and not send them downrange for 6 months to a year at a time.
