Let’s Abolish West Point: Military Academies Serve No One, Squander Millions of Tax Dollars

[xchrom]

http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/lets-abolish-west-point-military-academies-serve-no-one-squander-millions-tax

Many pundits have suggested that the Republicans’ midterm gains were fueled by discontent not merely with the president or with the (improving) state of the economy, but with government in general and the need to fund its programs with taxes. Indeed, the Republican Party of recent decades, inspired by Ronald Reagan’s exhortation to “starve the [government] beast,” has been anti-tax and anti-government. Government programs, as many of their thinkers note, primarily exist to perpetuate their own existence. At the very least, they have to justify that existence.

In the spirit of hands across the aisle, I’d like to suggest that the first thing the new Republican majority devote itself to is not, say, the repeal of the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare), but to converting the four hugely expensive and underproductive U.S. service academies (Navy, Army, Air Force and Coast Guard) — taxpayer-funded undergraduate institutions whose products all become officers in the military — to more modest and functional schools for short-term military training programs, as the British have repurposed Sandhurst.

Training is something the military does—education, certainly, is not. Indeed, undergraduate education of officers has already largely been outsourced, since most new officers come from the much cheaper Reserve Officer Training Corps programs at civilian universities (at one-quarter the cost of the academies), or from the several months of Officer Training Corps (one-eighth the cost) that follows either an enlisted career, or college. By all standards, these officers are just as good as those who come from the service academies, which now produce under 20 percent of U.S. officers.

The service academies once had a purpose: when they were founded in the 19th century (the Air Force split off from Army after World War II), college was classics and religion for gentlemen, so it made sense to have technical training institutes for people who would be in charge of increasingly technical warfare. All the service academies have now to justify their cost and their pretensions, it seems, is their once-illustrious history, and the club of “tradition,” which they wield mercilessly against students who dare question why things are as they are.

[CK_John]

1. Destroying symbols to turn into shopping malls is stupid. This idea is like a 4yr throwing

blocks under the bed so nobody else can play with them.

[Trillo]

2. That was one of my childhood dreams.

To go to one of those academies. It ended up being a broken dream, long before I even became an adult. Anyway, I know a lot of others have the same dream, and some actually realize it. I would never want to take those dreams away from folks.

These are public schools are they not. You write to your congress person to get an appointment to go. The plebe stuff is a bit over the top. Maybe they just need to be a little more liberal and a bit less stiff to "tradition."

[RationalMan]

3. I would be reluctant to advocate on the abolition of the service academies.....

without more information. Obviously there is a strong military tradition in this country and the military and it's proponents would fight any attempt to shrink or eliminate them.

But I would want to see some independent analysis of the value the academies bring, their relative costs against what the alternative would be. While I believe we have a military that is at least twice the size it needs to be and that the U.S. needs to pull back and let our allies around the world pick up more of the heavy lifting then military action is needed, I still want us to maintain a robust capability to protect the country and our strategic interests.

It might well be that the leadership training function of the academies could be done at a lower cost in another environment. The question is what other value the academies bring to the nation at large. I simply lack enough information to draw a conclusion one way or another.

[lancer78]

4. What about the fifth service academy

The Merchant Marine Academy in Kings Point NY?

[MohRokTah]

5. My opposition to such an idiotic move would be fierce. eom

[msanthrope]

6. So would mine. I dated too many mids in Annapolis to not have an appreciation for

what the service academies can provide.