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.
I agree. Left to their own devices, the lighter-leaner-more lethal crowd will downsize and outsource our military till well have one division equiped with one tank, one aircraft, and one battleship.
The problem is this current generation of bureacrats think in the digital age where production base is not important because we can build it overseas, depots are not needed because we can rely on the private sector and just in time inventories approach to logistics, and technology which increases the fire power of the soldier three folds means you can reduce the infantry squad by two thirds. The principles of war have not changed. Numbers count, stockpiling is important, manufacturing base is important and producing huge numbers of simple but effective weapons are needed during wartime. You do not need a very fancy aircraft carrier to provide a floating airbase against Iraqi insurgents, nor a CGX and DDX surface combatant. Just build losts of what we currently have.
Bump. Agreed. I think Hawkins framed it best when he asked this rhetorical question:
If the political will does not exist in a Republican administration, with majority control of both houses of Congress, at a time when American military forces are engaged in combat operations on multiple fronts in nearly every part of the world, when will it exist?
I had heard we had fallen down to 286 ships. But the new revised current total is in fact... only 281 ships in our fleet.
(Thomas L. Friedman)(Thomas P.J. Barnett)The world is flat! There has never been a war between two countries that have the Golden Arches! Future wars will be between we, the "core," and the few rogues and non-state actors in the outlands!(/Thomas L. Friedman)(/Thomas P.J. Barnett)