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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Azpatriot, post: 1266234, member: 32979&quot;]In 1975 our military was at it&#039;s lowest point since before WW2, the drain of Vietnam in both material and men left a hollow shell of a military. The cold war was hardly over by the 1975...politically it was quiet...no Cuban crisis or anything but it was hardly over. When Regan took office and during his presidency (please go view the video he produced called &quot;a bear in the wood&quot; American military expenditures went thru the roof.</p><p><br /></p><p>The 600 ship navy (of which I was a part of from 1982-1989) and all the military saw the replacement of roughly 75% of the aged equipment that the military used during the Vietnam war. This time (1980-1988) you added a dozen new aircraft carriers...a new fleet of cruisers, destroyers, frigates and submarine force. This is when the Abrams tank, B-1 Bomber, F-18&#039;s, F-117A (stealths) and about 80% of the equipment we fight with even today was born.</p><p><br /></p><p>Figures in Billions</p><p><br /></p><p>1974: 299</p><p>1975: 293</p><p>1976: 283</p><p>1977: 286</p><p>1978: 286</p><p>1979: 279</p><p><br /></p><p>1980: 303</p><p>1981: 317</p><p>1982: 339</p><p>1983: 366</p><p>1984: 381</p><p>1985: 405</p><p>1986: 426</p><p>1987: 427</p><p>1988: 426</p><p><br /></p><p>2006:535</p><p>2007:527</p><p>2008:494</p><p>2009:494</p><p>2010: Not yet released</p><p>2011: Not yet released</p><p><br /></p><p>* None of these numbers are adjusted for inflation.</p><p><br /></p><p>Now this is not counting covert ops/aid packages and all the other crap that get&#039;s hidden from us...these number are appropriated for the 4 services and a portion of the Coast Guard and National Guard units. <b>For my part I figure we probably spend an extra Trillion or 2 over the last decade in these wars in Afghanistan and Iraq</b>&nbsp; doubtful we will ever know. All that being said to say the cold war was over in 1975 is not correct, as I can testify that at the time our only concern during the 1980&#039;s was how to counter the Russian threat, at least that is what I spent 8 years doing.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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