Trump’s defense plan makes no sense at all

Donald Trump wishes to end sequestration and use the funds released to purchase more submarines, ships and troops, which would reverse the strategy our nation has followed since the mid-1960s to rely on our technology advantage rather than massed conventional weaponry for our security.

For example, the Office of Personnel Management states that over the past half-century we have reduced our personnel in military uniform from 2.84 million to 1.46 million, the Naval History and Heritage Command says we reduced our active ships from around 900 to 271 today, and the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies says we went from about 15,000 to approximately 6,500 aircraft and intercontinental ballistic missiles.

Why would anyone want to regress to the mind-set we had when immersing ourselves in Korea and Vietnam, and by ne- cessity, spent lavishly and sacrificed many of our most promising and heroic citizens on wars we could not win? Then it was Iraq and Afghanistan, followed by al- Qaeda — and today it’s ISIL. Who knows what the enemy will morph into in the future. Let’s continue to rely on our advanced weaponry, recognize that the Middle East has been at war for 2,000 years and not get immersed in that quagmire. We need to trust our technology rather than boots on the ground and more submarines and ships, like Trump wants to do. Jim Kudlinski, Ph.D. Overland Park, Kan.