re: Budget Cuts Leave 101st Airborne Crippled

Airborne units aren't used the same way they were back then and were never a quick reaction force. I'm fine with the 101st not being able to mobilize and deploy at a moment's notice.

The article you linked about Navy strike fighters is more of an indicative to the problems going on right now. Lots of units don't have sufficient aircraft to rotate to maintain combat ready status. It's far worse for the reserve units who are still flying legacy hornets. Luckily the 35s are coming and every new batch gets a little quicker. When the 35s come on-line they can hand off the Rhinos to reserve status.

I don't know specifics on Army and Marines combat readiness but I know that the army keeps a lot of their reserve assets ready and the Marines have good readiness with their Marine Expeditionary Units.

I think it's a far cry from the combat readiness of the Cold War across the board for our military but that type of readiness isn't necessary in today's current climate. No military in the world besides NK and SK have their fingers on the trigger at any time. With such vast surveillance worldwide, the intelligence community would be able to give leadership sufficient time to mobilize and deploy forces in anticipation of the outbreak of combat.