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Neither the DEM's nor the GOP are interested in increasing our defense readiness nor are they genuinely earnest in such. Empty promises nothing more. To them it's trading partner buddies and back room deals. If Europe becomes a supplier of our military aircraft Hip Hip Yeppie they shout.

I mean what sense does it make for a nation to be self sufficient or self reliant in providing for and manufacturing it's own defense needs? It's far better to OUTSOURCE to a nation far far away who can use them contracts for diplomatic Blackmail and extortion from the producing nation to dictate our foreign policy./sarcasm

We need some planners in DC and I don't mean the status quo bunch who on both sides have been in a race to see who can shut down our national defense the quickest. We are indeed in a downturn and all we have is pie in the sky promises that neglecting upkeep on systems today will fund the equipment of the next decade. And let's not forget our most favorite nation trading partner China.

Isn't 17 years of downsizing quite enough? Don't blame it all on the Dems and don't give the GOP from 1989-present atta boy's either. Both parties are guilty in this. The number one responsibility of government is to provide for the common defense of this nation.

The Bush Administration claims that rather than expand, or even maintain, existing military force levels, funds are being allocated to develop a new generation of weapons that could enter production by the end of the decade. Even if true, the world is moving too fast to indulge in such a strategic pause. The 1990s were a relatively calm decade in the aftermath of the Cold War and could have been used for this kind of modernization and transformation. Instead, the decade was wasted in a "procurement holiday" that saw military force levels drop and the industrial base that sustains them shrink dramatically. Hundreds of thousands of skilled production workers, engineers and managers left the industry, and the opportunities to attract a new generation into the field were limited. In addition, hundreds of American defense subcontractors and high-tech companies were bought up by foreign firms, who moved their research and technology offshore. Another wasted decade would be hard for the industry to endure.

Funny they don't mention which administration this "procurement holiday" most took place under. FWIW, we called it being Clinton-sized, when we were laid off from our Arsenal of Democracy positions.

But as the author's indicate, the Bush years have been pretty lean in the force modernization and procurement arena as well. They also canceled important *Army* weapons systems, which would have been very handy, such as the Crusader SP Artillery and the Comanche helicopter. They did continue the under armored Stryker program. The Mobile Gun System version is said to no longer flip over when the 105mm (Abrams tank uses 120 mm) gun is fired to the side, but I remain skeptical about that.

This is the first time in my lifetime of sixty years that a Republican administration has continued the downsizing of a democratic one.

As I have said before I strongly believe it is the Globalists mentality that is driving this downsizing of our military past the point of no return.

We may have reached that point already.

I think it is a deliberate act on their part to force our country unto the global community.

They are putting us in the position where we have to belong to the Global community because we will no longer be able to act independently on our own to protect ourselves.

Sure we can level the world with our nuclear weapons as can Russia but like them we won't have the conventional forces to take Cuba or Mexico as Iraq has shown anyone who wants to look including and especially our enemies.

When I served you would have never seen the number of national guard troops in front line combat as you have seen or soldiers having to make two or three tours against a nothing country with a nothing military like Iraq.

The guard in my service time would have been moved up to the bases to replace and supply logistic support for the regular full time troops as needed.

We do not have the conventional forces nor sound military equipment,weapons,and supplies we need to fight the conventional battles we face now and in the future.

Nuclear weapons where never meant for first use but only as a deterrent and as a last desperate action when all hope is lost and this is as it has to be. We had better be able to dominate them on the conventional battlefield as well and that takes numbers in properly equipped troops,tanks planes ships with good depth on the bench as well as modern high technology.

No matter what else, to dominate, defeat and control an enemy on his ground you have to a uniform with a good soldier in it looking him in the eye ready to put a bullet in his head for him to get the proper message.

That hasn't changed. You don't win battles or wars by trying to talk to people who want you as a slave or dead or by letting them dictate the terms of battle.

You don't keep sending an army after small groups of terrorists, to fight fading shadows. You hold those goverments of the countries they are in responsible.

They can either control the people in their borders or answer for the consquences.

The only way to win over their minds or hearts is to put a bullet in enough of their hearts and minds so those that are left will want to change.

WSJ.com OpinionJournal

REVIEW & OUTLOOK
Our Small Defense Budget
This is no way to fund a war.

Friday, October 20, 2006 12:01 a.m.

Congress recently passed a record defense-spending bill for 2007, and critics lost no time adding it to their list of woes caused by the Iraq war. The real story is more interesting: to wit, how relatively little the U.S. now spends on national security, notwithstanding a war on terror and especially compared with previous periods of global conflict.

It's true that overall defense outlays for fiscal year 2007 are on track to surpass--in dollars adjusted for inflation--defense spending at the height of the Vietnam War. It's also true that defense spending has already increased by some 40% since 2001, when President Bush came to office. War opponents cite such figures to suggest that the Iraq campaign is too great a burden, and is sucking up funds better spent on domestic programs.

Less talked about is that the $528 billion spent on national defense in fiscal 2006, which ended on September 30, equaled only 4% of U.S. gross domestic product. Historically, that level is far more in line with peacetime military spending. Many Americans might be surprised to learn that current U.S. defense spending isn't all that much above the 3% share of GDP that prevailed from 1999-2001 and was a postwar World War II low.

The top chart nearby tracks defense spending as a share of the economy since 1940, when it was 1.7% before the mass mobilization of World War II. It reached a postwar high of 14.2% in 1953 during the Korean War, 9.5% in 1968 at the height of Vietnam, and 6.2% in 1986 at the peak of the Reagan re-armament that showed the Soviets they couldn't win the Cold War. Defense spending then took an especially rapid plunge from 4.8% in 1992, falling to 3% by the end of the 1990s. Some of this "peace dividend" was warranted after the Berlin Wall fell, but letting the security budget fall so far is also one of the ways in which the Clinton era was a holiday from global history.

This huge defense drawdown is also the real story behind President Clinton's ballyhooed deficit reduction. The GOP Congress gets some credit for slowing the rate of growth in domestic spending in the mid-1990s. But nearly all of the decline in government spending in the Clinton years came from defense. Only toward the end of the 1990s did the GOP Congress begin to agitate for modest defense increases, which Mr. Clinton accommodated in return for more spending on his own domestic priorities.

Sooner or later this trend had to stop, and it did with the jolt of September 11. President Bush needed to find more resources to fight the war on terror, and he has done so by increasing defense spending by a full percentage-point of GDP over his six years in office. More than half of the fiscal 2006 budget deficit of 1.9% of GDP can thus be attributed solely to this rebuilding of American defenses after the Clinton drawdown.

Today's relatively modest defense buildup is also apparent if you look at defense spending as a share of all federal outlays. (See lower chart.) Nearly half (46%) of all tax dollars went to national security during Vietnam, and 28.1% as recently as 1987. But spending for the war on terror, including Iraq and Afghanistan, has only lifted defense to 19.8% of all federal spending today. We have less to spend on guns because we are spending so much more than we once did on the rest of government, especially health care.

In retrospect, Mr. Bush missed a historic opportunity after 9/11 to ask government to spend less on non-essential programs so it could spend more on security. Instead, overall federal spending grew by nearly 50% in Mr. Bush's first five years, as he allowed Congress to spend more on just about everything. At least Mr. Bush avoided the trap of asking for a tax increase, which would have slowed the economic growth that we have seen throw off record amounts of revenue in the past two years, and thus fund spending on both guns and butter (or, too often, pork).

The larger point is that America remains a long way from a state of "imperial overstretch," as critics of an assertive foreign policy like to put it. U.S. defense spending remains at modest levels, probably too modest given the threats we face and the overseas deployments by our servicemen and women. In addition to hot wars in the Middle East and against terrorism everywhere, the U.S. must maintain its air and sealift capacity to deploy to other regions if needed. Weapons built during the Reagan era must be upgraded or replaced, and the Pentagon will also have to invest in new technologies to deter any future enemies. And all of these priorities must compete with the ever-larger share of the defense budget consumed by health care and salaries for the volunteer force.

Our own judgment is that the U.S. is going to have to increase defense spending to meet these challenges, and that the time to begin such a debate is now.