America! It's about
★ Estimated Value – PRICELESS! ★
Posted on 09/23/2010 8:17:42 PM PDT by Neil E. Wright
The Navy & Marine portions of this Sustainable Defense Force, Copy & Paste: http://www.comw.org/pda/fulltext/1006SDTFreport.pdf report is summarized below and has a more complete display in the latest Navy League magazine, Seapower. Also enclosed in the magazine is an excerpt of CNO, Adm Gary Roughhead, comments on our Navy of the future. These pieces dovetail. Washington is taking the $1 trillion reduction in Defense spending over the next 10 years quite seriously. I honestly think we knew this was coming since 2008, but reading it is indeed a wake-up call. Would suggest reading the Executive Summary of the above report.
The following is an opinion piece written by Chet Nagle, graduate of the US Naval Academy and author of Iran Covenant http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chet_Nagle
The Obama administration intends to slash the defense budget in order to pay for its riotous spending on bailouts, “stimulus bills,” their signature healthcare program, and massive pork bribes for votes from congressmen who hopefully will not survive this November’s balloting.
To continue the spending spree, the White House plans to eliminate over a trillion defense dollars in the next ten years. Details of those proposed cuts were laid out by Rep. Barney Frank’s (D-MA) Sustainable Defense Task Force in a 56 page report titled: Debt, Deficits, and Defense – A Way Forward. None of the service arms are spared.
The Navy will be reduced to eight aircraft carriers (from twelve planned) and seven air wings. Eight ballistic missile submarines will be cut from the planned force of 14, leaving just six. Building of nuclear attack submarines will be cut in half, leaving a force of 40 by 2020. The four active guided missile submarines would be cut, too.
Destroyer building would be frozen and the new DDG-1000 destroyer program cancelled. Among other huge cuts, the fleet is to be reduced to 230 combat ships, eliminating 57 vessels from a current force level of 287.
The Air Force must retire six fighter air wings equivalents, and at the same time build 301 fewer F-35 fighters.
The nuclear bomber force will be completely eliminated in the name of unilateral disarmament—the B-1 and B-2 and B-52 and other bombers will still be able to drop bombs, but their nuclear weapon wiring and controls will simply be removed.
Procurement of the new refueling tanker and the C-17 cargo aircraft will be cancelled. Directed energy beam research and other advanced missile and space warfare defense projects will also be eliminated or curtailed.
Active duty Army personnel will be slashed from 562,400 to 360,000. That includes elimination of about five active-component brigade combat teams (the report is not exact). The Army will also suffer a myriad of other cuts, including closure of overseas bases.
The Marine Corps would be cut by 30%, from 202,000 to 145,000, and the other funding cuts planned for the Corps mean the United States will not be able to mount a major amphibious landing on any hostile shore. Marine Corps programs to be killed include the V-22 Osprey tilt rotor aircraft and the Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle.
The hot button item of reducing pay, pension, healthcare and other benefits for our soldiers, their wives, their families and their widows is stated as: “Resetting the calculation of military compensation and reforming the provision of military health care…”
Whatever those mysterious words will ultimately come to mean, the task force report shows a planned reduction of pay and benefits for the troops and their families to the tune of $120 billion.
Many other proposed cuts are not addressed in coherent detail, including how the reduction of our deployed nuclear warheads to 500 would be accomplished (a much greater reduction than contemplated by the pending START treaty with Russia ).
Today’s deterrent force of 500 Minuteman III missiles, for example, would be reduced to just 160 missiles or less, which then leaves a balance of 340 warheads for ballistic submarines and tactical delivery systems everywhere in the world!
Other key parts of American strategic defenses are slashed as well, including modernization, research, and maintaining safety and reliability of existing weapons.
These sweeping reductions in our defenses are bad enough, but the most disturbing part of the report from Rep. Frank’s task force of think-tank pundits is the lack of a rationale for such drastic cuts.
Instead of serious proposals for a national security strategy, the task force recommends something they call a “policy of restraint.”
The soaring rhetoric of the report is not specific, but it seems to suggest the United States should withdraw from the world and hole up in a little “ Fort America ..”
President Obama is emulating President Jefferson.
Strapped for money, Jefferson cut the navy by two-thirds and built small gunboats instead, saying they “are the only water defense which can be useful to us, and protect us from the ruinous folly of a navy.”
What were the results of Jefferson ’s version of a low cost ‘policy of restraint? Britain’s navy brushed the gunboats aside and burned the White House in 1814.
America! It's about
America! It's about
I agree,we have. But we must make sure that our Generals and Admirals are not busy preparing for the last war. We have all these aircraft carriers. Are we sure that they are not obsolete? Yes, they carried the day in 1942, but 70 years has past. Can a missle do their job? Think about it.
We NEED to cut the defense budget too, for USN, USAF, and USMC. When the war’s over, we can cut the Army’s budget too. Domestic spending doesn’t have a damn thing to do with it. We spend too much, period, and that includes the military budget. EVERYTHING needs to be cut in the Federal budget. And the military wouldn’t be in such dire straits if they weren’t buying $7 billion dollar destroyers, $191 million dollar fighters, and $15 billion dollar carriers. We were building Nimitz class carriers... the greatest warships of all time... for just $6 billion apiece just a few years ago. There’s no way in hell you can justify these white elephant prices for weaponry. Not even the richest country on Earth can keep a military of any quantity while we’re spending like that.
These sweeping reductions in our defenses are bad enough, but the most disturbing part of the report from Rep. Frank’s task force of think-tank pundits is the lack of a rationale for such drastic cuts.
Instead of serious proposals for a national security strategy, the task force recommends something they call a “policy of restraint.”
Did you READ the original post???
America! It's about
America! It's about
PING
Of course defense is Constitutionally mandated. Who is arguing otherwise? But $7 billion dollars for a destroyer? Are you going to defend that? Honestly?
I would recommend that all so-called "discretionary" spending be eliminated, along with all so-called "entitlements" which are outside Constitutional mandate. To cut back on defense and other Constitutionally mandated spending, offer a program that promotes saving tax-payer money. Say, if a Constitutionally mandated department were to offer a bonus for any cost-cutting idea that saves money, 75% of the savings is returned to the Treasury, and 25% is given to the department to pay in bonuses at the end of the year to their employees. This would eliminate the culture of "we've got to spend our budget so we can justify the same or more next year" mentality in the bureaucracy.
And for cases of fraud or abuse, PROSECUTE the offenders and give them SERIOUS prison time when convicted.
America! It's about
Cutting aircraft carriers means they won’t be able to repond to natural disasters. Stripping the Marine Corps’s capability is an ill-advised attempt to eliminate it.
Cutting pay and benefits while Congress gets annual increase without even voting is criminal. If they’re so eager for power, cut THEIR to $50k. Ask Americans if they would take a pay & benefit cut. Anybody willing? Didn’t think so.
Ships and planes cost too much because they are asked to do too many things. Often it is to benefit some contractor in a Congressman’s district. One must also consider the CAPITAL investment in automation vs. OPERATING cost of humans.
In short, defense is the LAST department to cut. Cut or eliminate every other department. “Millions for defense; but not one cent for tribute”.
We can start by dissolving the Department of Education and Department of Homeland Security and divvy up the portions back to their original Departments. Department of Energy can go too.
We can start by dissolving the Department of Education and Department of Homeland Security and divvy up the portions back to their original Departments. Department of Energy can go too.
America! It's about
Anybody that thinks we can patrol the world’s oceans with 230 ships is a moron. That’s 230 ships TOTAL. That includes minesweepers, support vessels like Destroyer & Sub Tenders, transports, supply and hospital ships. All unarmed and non-combat.
If we can’t patrol the oceans and protect our interests, someone will rush in to fill the vacuum. Reducing the number of ships at this time is as wrong as raising taxes in a recession.
Obviously you have never served in the military for you to be so naive as to the military’s missions and history. Under international law, the Marines are the only force we have that can LEGALLY be commited without a declaration of war. The Marines forced amphibious warfare onto the Pentagon generals, who fought it. Could we have fought WW2 and Korea without amphibious capability? As to Marine Special Forces, they predate Army Rangers and Green Beret. Edson’s Raiders and Force Recon were already battle tested before the Army units were even conceived.
This is not meant to denigrate the other services, they all have their missions and history. They deserve better from us than to worry about than arm-chair generals telling them how to do their jobs.
Yes, there is waste & redundancy. Most of it is because, at any one time, 1/3 of our military is resupplying lost or broken equipment, integrating new personnel and retraining. Ask any serviceman, from any branch, the lengths they went through to get replacement parts. You will have a very different picture of our military.
Thomas Jefferson cut the Navy of his time to gunboats (comparable to PT boats) with the attendant consquence of the British burning the Capitol and White House during the War of 1812.
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