Free Republic

"Combat Effectiveness" Being Degraded by Obama's Military Policies By evaluating an overwhelming amount of evidence that has been building for 6 ½ years, the obvious conclusion personnel with extensive military experience will come to, is that Obama’s military policies have been degrading the finest US military fighting force in history. Over the last 6 ½ years, the US Armed Forces has been hollowed out by Obama, his Social Experiment On Diversity has severely fractured unit cohesiveness, his “Politically Correct Policies” have negatively affected unit morale, and the “Combat Effectiveness” of the US military is being degraded. Tip of the spear...

The attack in San Bernardino on Wednesday was a terrible tragedy. Nobody can say that we should not be doing all in our power to bring about real solutions that prevent this kind of event from ever happening again. Sadly, the debate over those solutions has turned poisonous. The New York Daily News wasted no time attacking those who dared pray for the victims: Far-left online dumpster Mother Jones rushed to their defense after the backlash, declaring such a brilliant headline to be "pitch perfect".Other gun-control supporters piled on: Thoughts and prayers aren't enough—we must act to protect families...

President Theodore Roosevelt in 1907, at the dawn of what would be called the “American Century,” sent the Great White Fleet on a 14-month-long world cruise, Consisting of four naval squadron including four battleships each accompanied by their escorts, it was a signal that America had arrived as a world power and was going to be a player. By sending five warships into Alaskan territorial waters while President Obama visited the 49th state to eat bear-killed salmon, rename Mt. McKinley, and warn of non-existent climate change,, China has made a similar statement that it intends this to be the Chinese...

The U.S. came within seconds of launching a nuclear strike on Russia ,unleashing WW3 during the coldest period of the Cold War, according to secret documents revealed by a historian. Washington and Russia came extremely close to a massive nuclear war because of a faulty 46-cent component that caused a computer glitch, according to the documents. The secret documents were revealed and detailed in a book by American author Eric Schlosser titled Command and Control: Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of Safety. The documents include over 1,000 accidents with nuclear weapons that occurred due to the negligence...

It does not bode well that an Obama administration that assures us that the nuclear deal with Iran will not be violated by the mullahs is clearly looking the other way as Iran’s ally Russia blatantly violates the 1987 Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty signed with the former Soviet Union. The Obama White House is sitting on a Pentagon risk assessment report completed last month that states “that the breach involved a new missile that violates the limits set by the treaty. The treaty bans holding, producing, or flight-testing ground-launched ballistic or cruise missiles with ranges of between 310 miles...

Rosetta's lander lasted just 60 hours on a comet after it bounced into the dark shadows of a cliff, where its solar panels couldn't power the vehicle. Why didn't it carry a more reliable power source, say a nuclear battery like one that's unfailingly fueled Voyager for decades? It's a simple question with a fascinating answer, one that begins with the Cold War and ends with the future space exploration. When it comes to space travel, plutonium-238 is the perfect fuel: long-lasting and, as I'll explain later, relatively safe. Without it, we have no hope of going much further than...

The revolutionary development of modern weapons within a world divided by serious ideological differences has produced a crisis in human history. In order to overcome the danger of nuclear war now confronting mankind, the United States has introduced at the Sixteenth General Assembly of the United Nations a Program for General and Complete Disarmament in a Peaceful World. This new program provides for the progressive reduction of the war-making capabilities of nations and the simultaneous strengthening of international institutions to settle disputes and maintain the peace. It sets forth a series of comprehensive measures which can and should be taken...

Actor Michael Douglas is reminding world powers that the threat of nuclear weapons is “no less important today than it was in my childhood.” […] Douglas said there may be fewer nuclear weapons these days, but they are “more powerful and more sophisticated than ever before.” …

Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.) thinks Iran shouldn't be the only country to dismantle its nuclear program. Norton introduced a bill this week that would require the U.S. to negotiate an international accord to disable its nuclear weapons program by 2020. The funds used for maintaining nuclear weapons would be instead directed toward such domestic programs as Social Security, housing assistance and environmental protection. The D.C. delegate has introduced the bill in every session of Congress since 1994 and unveiled it again this year to coincide with Earth Day. "As the United States seeks to eliminate the nuclear threat from...

Obama the undergrad Remember this? It’s one of the few papers that Obama wrote while in college or law school that is still available, a 1983 article that appeared in the Columbia campus paper. The article is mostly straight reportage and quotes about the Nuclear Freeze Movement, featuring organizations called “Arms Race Alternatives” (ARA) and “Students Against Militarism” (SAM). But Obama reveals his own attitude in a few comments such as, “Generally, the narrow focus of the Freeze movement as well as academic discussions of first versus second strike capabilities, suit the military-industrial interests, as they continue adding to their...

Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) fired at Sens. Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC), among others, calling their ideas “fiscally irresponsible and dangerous to the country” and “just as bad as the Democrats” after they voted to raise defense spending on Thursday without offsetting that with spending cuts to discretionary federal programs. Paul had introduced an amendment that would have raised defense spending, but offset that increase with cuts elsewhere, such as the Departments of Education, Energy and Commerce. That amendment competed with an amendment from Rubio that would have increased defense spending with no offsetting spending cuts—just a blanket...

Defense Spending: The venerable A-10 Warthog, designed to stop Soviet tanks, and the perfect weapon to "degrade and destroy" the Islamic State, as President Obama promised, faces a budgetary chopping block. We have noted the irony of how Obama was going to war against the Islamic State with weapons systems he had scrapped, ending the production runs of the F-22 Raptor and Tomahawk cruise missiles. They were dismissed by the administration as relics of the Cold War even as Russia was rearming and trying to reassemble the old Soviet Union. We've also mentioned the phasing out of the A-10 Thunderbolt,...

New Cold War: A revised Russian military doctrine identifies NATO as Moscow's No. 1 threat, as the Obama administration announced it was returning control of 15 bases in Europe back to the host governments. Russian President Vladimir Putin gave President Obama a lump of coal in his Christmas stocking in the form of a revised strategic doctrine. It re-emphasizes that NATO, notwithstanding President Obama's "flexibility" and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's "reset" button, is the No. 1 strategic threat facing Russia. We are reminded of Obama's rebuke of Mitt Romney in the third presidential debate, when the GOP nominee...

The State Department’s Under-Secretary for Arms Control and International Security, Rose Gottemoeller, proudly bragged to a Brookings Institution gathering that “our progress toward total nuclear disarmament is now 85% of the way there. If we can maintain the pace, our last nuclear device will be moth-balled before President Obama completes his term.” Gottemoeller asserted that “it is our fervent hope that our example will inspire others to follow suit” and maintained that “a nuclear-free world will be a safer world.” Whether either of these aspirations would bear out is unknown. Prior to the dawn of the nuclear age less potent...

'We Still Have More Work To Do'' The State Department's Rose Gottemoeller, under secretary for arms control and international security, spoke at the Brookings Institution Thursday where she reaffirmed the United States' "unassailable" commitment to putting the nuclear weapons genie back in the bottle. Gottemoeller told the attendees at the Arms Control and Non-Proliferation Initiative-sponsored event that "the U.S. commitment to achieving the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons is unassailable." She went on to note that the nation's stockpile of active weapons is down 85 percent from maximum cold war levels, falling to 4,804 in 2013...

National Security: It won't generate the buzz that torture allegations do, but a provision in the defense spending bill requires the White House to explain why Russia developed a cruise missile in breach of a 1987 treaty. President Ronald Reagan coined the phrase "trust but verify" regarding dealing with the Russians for good reason. American security was to be guaranteed through the strength of our will and the genius of our technology, not through pieces of parchment, handshakes, clinking glasses at conferences, or reset buttons. Enter President Obama and the age of flexibility, back-stabbing our allies on things like missile...

Defense: Members of Congress warn that the State Department is working on arms accords to demilitarize space and ban anti-satellite weapons, leaving Russia and China with a huge lead in military space capabilities. On Jan. 17, 2012, then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton issued a statement announcing the Obama administration's intention to work with the European Union on an International Code of Conduct for Outer Space Activities. It was supposed to be sort of a "rules of the road" for space-faring nations to deal with issues such as the accumulating space junk jeopardizing satellites and manned space activities such as the...

National Defense: The president launches attacks on the Islamic State with two weapons systems that were targeted for elimination by the administration years before their usefulness ended or any replacements were ready. With the decision to launch air and missile strikes against Islamic State targets in Syria, in addition to ongoing strikes in Iraq in what is said to be the start of a long and sustained campaign to "degrade and destroy" the terrorist group, President Obama has stumbled upon a revelation: The military whose budgets he's slashed and weapons systems he opposed is suddenly quite useful. As the Washington...

Nuclear Threat: Beijing's strategic military buildup continues with the unveiling of a road-mobile missile capable of delivering up to 10 atomic warheads anywhere in America. Time to show some flexibility, Mr. President? While President Obama was playing the back nine, and as it was confirmed that the Russians had developed a cruise missile, the R500, which violates 1987's Intermediate Nuclear Forces treaty, the Chinese were busy as well. They now have a mobile intercontinental nuclear missile with no other purpose than to make war against the U.S. The announcement of the DF-41's existence was not exactly approved by the Chinese...

WASHINGTON – The White House says the United States will no longer produce or acquire anti-personnel land mines and plans to join an international treaty banning their use.