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Gutting the Military
Topic Started: Apr 8 2009, 08:09 AM (655 Views)
George K
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Finally
Obama and Gates Gut the Military

The secretary's new budget will leave us weaker to pay for the president's domestic programs.

By THOMAS DONNELLY and GARY SCHMITT

On Monday, Defense Secretary Robert Gates announced a significant reordering of U.S. defense programs. His recommendations should not go unchallenged.

In the 1990s, defense cuts helped pay for increased domestic spending, and that is true today. Though Mr. Gates said that his decisions were "almost exclusively influenced by factors other than simply finding a way to balance the books," the broad list of program reductions and terminations suggest otherwise. In fact, he tacitly acknowledged as much by saying the budget plan represented "one of those rare chances to match virtue to necessity" -- the "necessity" of course being the administration's decision to reorder the government's spending priorities.

However, warfare is not a human activity that directly awards virtue. Nor is it a perfectly calculable endeavor that permits a delicate "balancing" of risk. More often it rewards those who arrive on the battlefield "the fustest with the mostest," as Civil War Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest once put it. If Mr. Gates has his way, U.S. forces will find it increasingly hard to meet the Forrest standard. Consider a few of the details of the Gates proposals:

- The termination of the F-22 Raptor program at just 187 aircraft inevitably will call U.S. air supremacy -- the salient feature, since World War II, of the American way of war -- into question.

The need for these sophisticated, stealthy, radar-evading planes is already apparent. During Russia's invasion of Georgia, U.S. commanders wanted to fly unmanned surveillance aircraft over the region, and requested that F-22s sanitize the skies so that the slow-moving drones would be protected from Russian fighters or air defenses. When the F-22s were not made available, likely for fear of provoking Moscow, the reconnaissance flights were cancelled.

As the air-defense and air-combat capabilities of other nations, most notably China, increase, the demand for F-22s would likewise rise. And the Air Force will have to manage this small fleet of Raptors over 30 years. Compare that number with the 660 F-15s flying today, but which are literally falling apart at the seams from age and use. The F-22 is not merely a replacement for the F-15; it also performs the functions of electronic warfare and other support aircraft. Meanwhile, Mr. Gates is further postponing the already decades-long search for a replacement for the existing handful of B-2 bombers.

- The U.S. Navy will continue to shrink below the fleet size of 313 ships it set only a few years ago. Although Mr. Gates has rightly decided to end the massive and expensive DDG-1000 Zumwalt destroyer program, there will be additional reductions to the surface fleet. The number of aircraft carriers will drop eventually to 10. The next generation of cruisers will be delayed, and support-ship projects stretched out. Older Arleigh Burke destroyers will be upgraded and modernized, but at less-than-needed rates.

The good news is that Mr. Gates will not to reduce the purchases of the Littoral Combat Ship, which can be configured for missions from antipiracy to antisubmarine warfare. But neither will he buy more than the 55 planned for by the previous Bush administration. And the size and structure of the submarine fleet was studiously not mentioned. The Navy's plan to begin at last to procure two attack submarines per year -- absolutely vital considering the pace at which China is deploying new, quieter subs -- is uncertain, at best.

- Mr. Gates has promised to "restructure" the Army's Future Combat Systems (FCS) program, arguing that the lessons of Iraq and Afghanistan have called into question the need for new ground combat vehicles. The secretary noted that the Army's modernization plan does not take into account the $25 billion investment in the giant Mine Resistant Ambush-Protected (MRAP) vehicles. But it's hard to think of a more specialized and less versatile vehicle.

The MRAP was ideal for dealing with the proliferation of IEDs (improvised explosive devices) in Iraq. But the FCS vehicle -- with a lightweight yet better-protected chassis, greater fuel efficiency and superior off-road capacity -- is far more flexible and useful for irregular warfare. Further, the ability to form battlefield "networks" will make FCS units more effective than the sum of their individual parts. Delaying modernization means that future generations of soldiers will conduct mounted operations in the M1 tanks and Bradley fighting vehicles designed in the 1970s. Finally, Mr. Gates capped the size of the U.S. ground force, ignoring all evidence that it is too small to handle current and future major contingencies.

- The proposed cuts in space and missile defense programs reflect a retreat in emerging environments that are increasingly critical in modern warfare. The termination of the Airborne Laser and Transformational Satellite programs is especially discouraging.

The Airborne Laser is the most promising form of defense against ballistic missiles in the "boost phase," the moments immediately after launch when the missiles are most vulnerable. This project was also the military's first operational foray into directed energy, which will be as revolutionary in the future as "stealth" technology has been in recent decades. The Transformational Satellite program employs laser technology for communications purposes, providing not only enhanced bandwidth -- essential to fulfill the value of all kinds of information networks -- but increased security.

Mr. Gates justifies these cuts as a matter of "hard choices" and "budget discipline," saying that "[E]very defense dollar spent to over-insure against a remote or diminishing risk . . . is a dollar not available to take care of our people, reset the force, win the wars we are in." But this calculus is true only because the Obama administration has chosen to cut defense, while increasing domestic entitlements and debt so dramatically.

The budget cuts Mr. Gates is recommending are not a temporary measure to get us over a fiscal bump in the road. Rather, they are the opening bid in what, if the Obama administration has its way, will be a future U.S. military that is smaller and packs less wallop. But what is true for the wars we're in -- that numbers matter -- is also true for the wars that we aren't yet in, or that we simply wish to deter.
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Mark
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HOLY CARP!!!
Good to see actually.
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Horace
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HOLY CARP!!!
Quote:
 
The secretary's new budget will leave us weaker to pay for the president's domestic programs.


In fairness, this is probably a trade-off most americans are ok with.
As a good person, I implore you to do as I, a good person, do. Be good. Do NOT be bad. If you see bad, end bad. End it in yourself, and end it in others. By any means necessary, the good must conquer the bad. Good people know this. Do you know this? Are you good?
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Mark
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HOLY CARP!!!
Not really.

I think the domestic spending has to be way more seriously cut than military budgets, but it's good to see budget cutting wherever it may be.
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Frank_W
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Hrmmm.... As the Iraq war winds down, the budget can also shrink a bit, providing the troops in Afghanistan have the equipment and training that they need.

When they shrink the Defense budget, it means that there is less money to send soldiers to advanced schools. Airborne, Special Forces, advanced AIT, Leadership Development, Air Assault, Expert Field Medical Badge, Expert Infantry Badge, etc., and that's just for the Army.

When the budget is squeezed, the military starts looking to downsize. This isn't what we need, right now. Especially with recruitment numbers being down, more troops being needed, and the skills of troops with greater seniority being of a great importance in training environments, as well as theaters of combat.
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Larry
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Mmmmmmm, pie!
When democrats are in charge you can always count on three things - spending will go up, taxes will go up, and our military will be cut back.

This time we're getting to see what happens when a Marxist is in the White House, with a Fascist democrat party in control of congress.

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John D'Oh
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MAMIL
At this point it's not really clear to me what they're doing. They're spending slightly more (about 4%) money than last year, although some high-profile (and massively expensive) projects like the F22 are getting canned. Does the US really need the F22? Should the defence budget increase by 10% every year to stay flat?

Rumsfeld was criticised by some, and lauded by others, for attempting to re-define the way the war of the future should be fought. Some people said he was trying to do it on the cheap, whereas others said it was time to replace large numbers of troops with smaller, better trained groups. Are Obama and Gates attempting the same type of thing?
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JBryan
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The Defense budget is increased 4% but only after rolling in all the things (Iraq war funding e.g.) that were off budget before so the budget is really being decreased by 8 billion. This when we are being told that the military must expand to meet future requirements.
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Kincaid
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HOLY CARP!!!
Obama's action is typical. I wonder how he will spin it when, down the road, the SHTF and we are powerless. Maybe he won't even have to spin it - most people are unaware (me included) on our capabilities so we don't really know what can be done in any given situation. I think more than anything we'll regret stopping the F-22 and the missle defense stuff.
Kincaid - disgusted Republican Partisan since 2006.
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Red Rice
HOLY CARP!!!
Kincaid
Apr 8 2009, 10:08 AM
I think more than anything we'll regret stopping the F-22 and the missle defense stuff.
I'm not so sure. I think we're all agreed the greatest threat to US security (aside from our messed-up economy) is a briefcase nuke in the hands of a terrorist or in a ship container. The F-22 and missile defense wouldn't be much good against that, but I'm hoping the Defense Dept. is working on it.
Civilisation, I vaguely realized then - and subsequent observation has confirmed the view - could not progress that way. It must have a greater guiding principle to survive. To treat it as a carcase off which each man tears as much as he can for himself, is to stand convicted a brute, fit for nothing better than a jungle existence, which is a death-struggle, leading nowhither. I did not believe that was the human destiny, for Man individually was sane and reasonable, only collectively a fool.

I hope the gunner of that Hun two-seater shot him clean, bullet to heart, and that his plane, on fire, fell like a meteor through the sky he loved. Since he had to end, I hope he ended so. But, oh, the waste! The loss!

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Mark
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HOLY CARP!!!
Once again, people are looking at an increase in spending and calling it a cut. :rolleyes2:
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Frank_W
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What increase?
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Mark
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HOLY CARP!!!
4% defense spending increase.

How is that a cut?
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Frank_W
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JBryan said it best:

Quote:
 
The Defense budget is increased 4% but only after rolling in all the things (Iraq war funding e.g.) that were off budget before so the budget is really being decreased by 8 billion. This when we are being told that the military must expand to meet future requirements.
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Mark
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HOLY CARP!!!
So Iraq is not defense spending?

Pulleeeze!
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Frank_W
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Okay, Mark. You obviously know all there is to know. :shrug: I don't even know why I bother getting into these discussions.
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Mark
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HOLY CARP!!!
Seriously Frank, Iraq is not defense spending? WTF is it then?
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George K
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Mark is right - Iraq SHOULD be part of the defense budget. But the Bush administration funded it through ad hoc appropriations. With the addition of Iraq costs to the budget (as JB points out), there is an "increase" but only if you look at defense spending as a total.
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Frank_W
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Mark
Apr 8 2009, 12:52 PM
Seriously Frank, Iraq is not defense spending? WTF is it then?
I never said it wasn't, Mark. Please blow a gasket in some other direction.
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Mark
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HOLY CARP!!!
Not blowing a gasket Frank.

Just wanting people to realize what a fraud our government has become.

We are not increasing as much as we want so we call it a cut.

What a bunch of BS.
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1hp
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Fulla-Carp

Quote:
 
I think we're all agreed the greatest threat to US security (aside from our messed-up economy) is a briefcase nuke in the hands of a terrorist or in a ship container.


Nukes, yes......but I don't believe in briefcase nukes. The shielding alone would render it larger, otherwise people would get sick rather quickly. The critical mass for uranium 233 is 15kg, or a sphere 11cm in diameter. 235 is 52kg. There are other materials, but I don't see anything with a diameter of less than 10cm. Spheres have the minimal critical mass, so any other shape is going to be larger and heavier. Also, lower grade material requires more of it to attain critical mass (20% 235 requires 400kg). Then you need a way to rapidly join the sub critical pieces - shaped charges were the old method.

Also, nukes are not like ipods - they need constant maintenance.

Dirty bombs are another thing entirely - that's what worries me.
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1hp
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Fulla-Carp

As far as defense spending and the cost of the Iraq war - I've always wondered how they calculate this. If you have a military with 500,000 soldiers in it, you have to pay the soldiers regardless of whether you send them to Iraq, or not. Is this pay included in the cost of the Iraq war?

Or another way to put it, if we stop fighting and bring everything home tonight, do all the costs quoted for the Iraq war stop as well, and spending goes to zero?

Does the war cost include the cost of medical for injured persons after they have left Iraq?
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George K
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Finally
Gotta pay for busted up equipment, transportation and housing costs. What's the (dollar) cost of treating (POOMA) 25K casualties?
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"Now look here, you Baltic gas passer... "
- Mik, 6/14/08


Nothing is as effective as homeopathy.

I'd rather listen to an hour of Abba than an hour of The Beatles.
- Klaus, 4/29/18
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JBryan
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I am the grey one
Mark
Apr 8 2009, 01:01 PM
Not blowing a gasket Frank.

Just wanting people to realize what a fraud our government has become.

We are not increasing as much as we want so we call it a cut.

What a bunch of BS.
You are getting this wrong, Mark. Of course the Iraq war is defense spending but the only way you get an increase is by adding it into the defense budget where it wasn't before. In other words, we are cutting as much as we want only by calling it an increase.
"Any man who would make an X rated movie should be forced to take his daughter to see it". - John Wayne


There is a line we cross when we go from "I will believe it when I see it" to "I will see it when I believe it".


Henry II: I marvel at you after all these years. Still like a democratic drawbridge: going down for everybody.

Eleanor: At my age there's not much traffic anymore.

From The Lion in Winter.
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Frank_W
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So if I'm understanding this correctly: It would be like being a store owner and raising prices 20% and then holding a 15% sale.
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Me: "Man, that's a lot of lampshades!"
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