President Trump Says Hundreds of Millions Saved with Downsizing of US-ROK Military Exercises
I doubt we will ever know, but it would interesting to see how much money is in fact saved with the changes to the joint exercise schedule?:
U.S. President Donald Trump said Sunday that he doesn’t want military exercises between the U.S. and South Korea because they are expensive and unhelpful for diplomacy with North Korea.
Yonhap
Trump made the remark on Twitter a day after the allies announced an end to two major combined exercises — Key Resolve and Foal Eagle.
“The reason I do not want military drills with South Korea is to save hundreds of millions of dollars for the U.S. for which we are not reimbursed,” Trump tweeted. “That was my position long before I became President. Also, reducing tensions with North Korea at this time is a good thing!”
You can read more at the link.
The 2x B-52s cost $145K/hour to fly (2x B-1Bs are only slightly less expensive, around $123K/hour)*. I don’t know how many hours it takes from Guam to Korea and back; but not including them alone might be a bit of spare change…
* According to Business Insider (https://www.businessinsider.com/air-force-plane-cost-per-flight-hour-chart-2016-3)
Look how cheap the Raptor is!
I wonder what dead soldiers are worth? It was $200,000 about 20 years ago….
Doc, consider the costs of VA college and healthcare benefits.
Seriously though, I doubt there will be any need for the US to intervene on Dokdo.
Moon is unlikely to resist commie style reunification. And the norks are too wormy to invade.
So, who here knows what the KC-135Q does?
And the follow-on question: Why does Air Mobility Command (AMC) still have two in the inventory?
[queue up the Jeopardy music]
Refuels the SR-71 and because you never know if the SR-71 will fly again…(or maybe never know when it will stop flying…. 😉 )
I agree with President Trump. Being a Tank Commander at Camp Casey I know well the training needed to get a Tank Crew trained up to proficiency. I saw it in my peers much too often. Back in the day it was pretty simple, 1st 4 months get trained up to working as a crew, next month mid-tour leave was coming..power down.., after mid-tour “My Replacement will be here soon.”..power down some more, So bottom line a Tank Crew was never really trained to proficiency standard. Now, we got stateside crews rotated through, they are up to speed already and just need introduced to Korea. The BS exercises were just for Staff pukes to practice and give Contractors a big paycheck. Not necessary, what a waste.
Yes, they refueled SR-71s. The remaining Q models are the first selected as displays at air shows because on the outside they look like any other KC-135.
Also, the KC-135 has four missions: aerial refueling, airlift (cargo), passenger transport, and medivac. So the Q model still performs the last three. This is the answer you hear working in AMC.
It is rumored NASA still maintains two SR-71s and that is the real reason two of the Qs are kept around.
“It is rumored NASA still maintains two SR-71s”
That could only be true if they had some use for generating global warming alarmism propaganda.
NASA is only marginally in the aeronautics and space business these days.