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Sequestration Will Hollow Out Force Fast, Dempsey Says
Defense Dot Gov ^ | 17 Jan 13 | By Jim Garamone

Posted on 01/20/2013 10:16:54 AM PST by SkyPilot

ABOARD A MILITARY AIRCRAFT, Jan. 17, 2013 – The across-the-board spending cuts that would result if a “sequestration” mechanism in budget law kicks in March 1 will hollow out U.S. military forces faster than most Americans imagine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said today.

Army Gen. Martin E. Dempsey said during a recent news briefing that if sequestration happens, the American military “will be less prepared in months and unprepared in a year.”

During an interview today on his return trip from NATO meetings in Brussels, the general said the cuts would quickly bring about a new type of hollow force.

The chairman stressed that deployed and deploying service members will be exempted from the effects of a sequester. The United States will not send any service member overseas without the best preparation, equipment and supplies possible, he said.

This actually covers a great many people. Service members in Afghanistan, Kosovo and Kuwait, aboard ships at sea, and flying and supporting deployed aircraft “will continue to have our unwavering support,” Dempsey said. “We have a moral obligation to make sure that they are ready and the next [unit] to deploy is ready.”

If sequestration is triggered March 1 -- six months into fiscal 2013 -- the department will have only six months to absorb those cuts, the chairman noted. So, if the deployed force is ready, and the next force to deploy is getting ready, “there’s not going to be any operations and training money left for the rest of the force,” he said.

(Excerpt) Read more at defense.gov ...


TOPICS: Extended News; Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: budget; defense; entitlements; sequestration
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I am so disgusted by the Republicans. At least we know the Democrats are Marxists. Where is the GOP leadership on this?

According to the Weekly Standard, the GOP secretly agreed last year to gut the military in previous negotiations with Obama and the Democrats in Congress.

As Bob Woodward recounted in his book on the debt-ceiling negotiations of 2011, The Price of Politics, Krone traveled with Reid to the White House that summer during the intense debate over extending the debt limit. In the Oval Office, Reid began explaining the outline of a $2.7 trillion debt limit extension before turning it over to Krone to explain the details. Reid’s plan included another round of defense cuts that John Boehner and Mitch McConnell had “secretly pledged to honor.”

I have finally lost complete faith with the Republican party.

1 posted on 01/20/2013 10:16:59 AM PST by SkyPilot
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To: SkyPilot

I see this, and I think back on what we ate in the field back in 1969, or what our sons and daughters are eating in Afghanistan today, even if it’s ‘ready-to-everything’. They don’t even give you the damned cigarettes any more.

It makes me sick to see this bullshit.


2 posted on 01/20/2013 10:21:59 AM PST by Gaffer
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To: SkyPilot

Conservatives need to get it. The republican party is just set dressing for the marxist progressives and has been such since George Bush. They enable the statist not oppose them in trade for a few crumbs for their themselves and their friends.


3 posted on 01/20/2013 10:22:02 AM PST by Breto (Stranger in a strange land... where did America go?)
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To: SkyPilot

Where is the GOP leadership on this?
********
There is no GOP leadership. They are just the other side of the same coin and they are content with keeping their jobs. There was real leadership in the Tea Party but the GOP-e won out and stifled them.

As far defense cuts are concerned, if we stop the expensive and unproductive nation building we can save a lot right there. We have spent a fortune on contracts doing this and what benefits do we derive?


4 posted on 01/20/2013 10:25:35 AM PST by Starboard
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To: SkyPilot

Sorry, but the DoD is loaded with fat and wastes money with the best of them. They need to get their haircut like everyone else. (Other agencies need limbs removed or to be extinguished totally, but the DoD can do with a significant haircut.)

We’re broke. We can’t afford this crap anymore. Get out of Afghanistan, get out of Europe, get out of Japan. Bring our people home, and let the rest of the world start paying their share of the load.


5 posted on 01/20/2013 10:30:15 AM PST by bigdaddy45
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To: SkyPilot

So a $500Bn budget “hollows out” the DoD? BS.

It would help if Conservatives didn’t lie to protect their special interests, of which the military budget is just one.

EVERYTHING needs to be cut. But just because one thing isn’t cut that deserves to be cut doesn’t mean we need to lie about everything else. Then again this is the la-la land of lying Democrats and lying Republicans.

We’re so screwed.


6 posted on 01/20/2013 10:38:04 AM PST by RFEngineer
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To: bigdaddy45

I have no problem getting out of paying for the defense of other countries and pumping U.S. dollars into their economies. But bring our people home to what, rampant unemployment? This is exactly what the democrats want, to throw the country into turmoil and dissent so they can ride to the rescue by removing and curtailing our liberties. They will tell us the only way to get back on track will be to give the government absolute control of our lives!


7 posted on 01/20/2013 10:43:43 AM PST by Mastador1 (I'll take a bad dog over a good politician any day!)
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To: SkyPilot

Can we de-fund AF-1???


8 posted on 01/20/2013 11:02:25 AM PST by Foolsgold (L I B Lacking in Brains)
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To: bigdaddy45
Sorry, but the DoD is loaded with fat and wastes money with the best of them. They need to get their haircut like everyone else. (Other agencies need limbs removed or to be extinguished totally, but the DoD can do with a significant haircut.)

How much of a haircut have they had already? Shouldn't our defense, one of the constitutional primary roles of the federal government, be based on a risk/threat assessment and the protection of our strategic national interests?

National Defense Spending Would Plummet Under Obama's Budget

President Obama's lean defense strategy would create a hollow force and exacerbate today's readiness crisis. Decreases in funding for the core defense program mean losing capabilities that are crucial for the military to fulfill its constitutional duty to provide for the common defense.

PERCENTAGE OF GDP

Since President Obama took office, more than 50 major weapons programs at a value of more than $300 billion were cut or delayed. On top of this, the Administration told the military to cut almost $600 billion more over the next 15 years. And that’s before any cuts under the Budget Control Act take place.

Defense Budget is Being Cut: By Any Way You Look at It

9 posted on 01/20/2013 11:02:42 AM PST by kabar
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To: kabar

Be honest. Shouldn’t $500Bn be more than enough?

Seriously.


10 posted on 01/20/2013 11:05:57 AM PST by RFEngineer
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To: SkyPilot
According to the Weekly Standard, the GOP secretly agreed last year to gut the military in previous negotiations with Obama and the Democrats in Congress.

This being the case anyway, it is now even more imperative that the sequestration cuts are allowed to take effect. We know the military will be gutted bhack to 2007 funding levels, so let the rats welfare / vote buying scheme take a hit, too.

11 posted on 01/20/2013 11:06:48 AM PST by Lancey Howard
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To: RFEngineer
So a $500Bn budget “hollows out” the DoD? BS.

What Sequestration Really Means

Sequestration Will Drastically Shrink the Military and Harm National Security

Secretary Panetta calculated that sequestration represents a reduction of nearly 20 percent in DOD funding over the next ten years. According to Secretary Panetta’s November 14 letter to Senators McCain and Graham, reductions at this level would mean:

 The smallest ground force since before World War II

 The smallest Navy since before World War I

 The smallest tactical fighter force in the history of the Air Force

 The smallest civilian workforce in the history of the Defense Department

Panetta continued in that letter to warn that sequestration would effectively eradicate an entire generation of military modernization, potentially including:

 Termination of the Joint Strike Fighter and next generation bomber

 Delay of the next generation ballistic missile submarine and cuts to our existing sub fleet

 Cancellation of the littoral combat ship

 Elimination of all modernization of ground combat vehicles and Army helicopters

Despite over 350 base closings in five rounds of BRAC, sequestration could lead to another round of closures. Reductions under sequestration would put our military and national security at risk.

Panetta’s own analysis affirms sequestration would :

 Undermine our ability to meet our national security objectives

 Generate significant operational risks and delay response time to crises, conflicts, and disasters

 Severely limit our ability to be forward deployed

 Severely reduce force training and threaten overall operational readiness

12 posted on 01/20/2013 11:12:06 AM PST by kabar
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To: SkyPilot

At our current point in history a large standing Army might not be a good thing.


13 posted on 01/20/2013 11:15:53 AM PST by central_va ( I won't be reconstructed and I do not give a damn.)
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To: kabar

Isn’t $500Bn enough?

Systems can be as expensive as you want them, as with most DoD programs they are mismanaged and too expensive. Even so, isn’t $500Bn enough? Don’t tell me the systems affected, we’re talking about 1/2 a Trillion dollars here, each and every year, and you are seriously making a pitch that we are somehow vulnerable and need more?

$500Bn!!!!!


14 posted on 01/20/2013 11:21:51 AM PST by RFEngineer
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To: kabar

the LCS (littoral combat ship) is an overpriced not very boondoggel with poor survivability. in fact most modern ships copuld not take the punishment ww2 us destroyers took.
the infantry GCV (ground combat vehicle) is a joke and looks like somethiing out of the nazi panzer design center in ‘45 and even lees effective.

as always training will be cut because the perfumed princes of the pentagon don’t make any money from it as opposed to their fancy overpriced weapons systems and post retirement consulting fees. notice they didn’t list cutting all flag officers by 60% which would be a good start.


15 posted on 01/20/2013 11:22:08 AM PST by bravo whiskey (“People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people.”)
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To: RFEngineer
Be honest. Shouldn’t $500Bn be more than enough? Seriously.

More than enough for what? When you start looking at how DOD spends its money, you can see how the choices will be very difficult. Personnel costs are more than a quarter. Then you have training and operations costs. And there is the long term procurement of major weapons systems to maintain the technological edge in the future. Once you start making major personnel cuts, it becomes very difficult to reconstitute the force. DOD has made a major investment in training. And if we fail to modernize our force, we will pay the price in the future.

Obama has already made major cuts in our military. Another $50 billion a year for a decade will hollow out the force. I believe our military leaders. And where will those savings go? To keep funding the welfare state including Obamacare.

We are having the classical fight of Guns vs Butter that occurs in declining powers and civilizations. Butter always wins because it has more constituents. Look what has happened in Europe. They are spending 1% or less on defense. They have lost the power to project power and defend their interests. The French can't even send its troops to Mali without our logistical support.

16 posted on 01/20/2013 11:26:24 AM PST by kabar
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To: bigdaddy45

“Sorry, but the DoD is loaded with fat and wastes money with the best of them. They need to get their haircut like everyone else. (Other agencies need limbs removed or to be extinguished totally, but the DoD can do with a significant haircut.)

We’re broke. We can’t afford this crap anymore. Get out of Afghanistan, get out of Europe, get out of Japan. Bring our people home, and let the rest of the world start paying their share of the load.”

I totally agree with you. And we don’t need $8,000 hammers.


17 posted on 01/20/2013 11:27:36 AM PST by Wisconsinlady (The 2nd amendment is NOT about hunting-but protection from a tyrannical govt)
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To: kabar

If we did not design our ships and planes to fight enemies who have Star Trek technologies which none of our closest potential adversaries have, we probably can afford more ships and planes. If we stop being a policeman in the world and try to use our superpower status in the world to remake the world into the US by force we probably would not be broke and can afford more planes and ships. The Cold War ended under Bush41 and the US had a chance for period of peace and recontruction. Instead we went about criticizing countries over human rights and interfere in civil wars that were none of our business. In the end it took many years to break the Soviet and Chinese alliance, but we manage to bring those two countries together in an alliance against us. Bush41 sort of understood that, Clinton neglected it and let DoD run strategy of everyone can be an enemy, Bush42 let the neocons make more enemies and at the same time bankrupt the US. Economic implosion, weariness of foreign wars lead to the election of Obama and reelection of Obama.


18 posted on 01/20/2013 11:28:38 AM PST by Fee
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To: kabar

Isn’t $500Bn enough to secure the defense of the nation, and even to fund some extra-constitutional excursions?

If not, why not?


19 posted on 01/20/2013 11:28:46 AM PST by RFEngineer
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To: kabar

We need to stop sending manufacturing to Asia.

Now.

Re-industrialize the USA.


20 posted on 01/20/2013 11:29:43 AM PST by Cringing Negativism Network
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