Gates and all the current idiots in the Obama administration are clueless intellectual dreamers with no anchors anywhere in reality.
He has 'em, they are "nerfbles" guaranteed not to damage or harm.
Gates works for Obama now. He is a stooge.
If Obama says crap. Gates says where and how high.
Gates is the consummate bureaucrat waiting for orders. He’d blow up the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial, and burn the original copy of the constitution if either a Dim or Republican president told him to.
Sounds like Gates has the common sense of a block of cheese.
There is some reality here. To start with, US Navy ship procurement has turned into chaos. There are far too many individuals with a say in ship design, and there is no design stability, which drives the cost of ships through the roof.
Imagine how expensive a car would be if at intervals during its assembly, a half dozen major changes were made to its engines, power train, body, electrical system, interior design, and even wheels. You would end up with a million dollar Frankenstein monster that was a technical mess.
There has to be design and budget finalization. This means that any new changes or modifications must be made to the next ship design, as the current ship design and budget are frozen, and must be built to existing specifications and the budgeted cost. And *then* to start to actually build the ship.
This being said, to put it bluntly, the US Navy needs more expendable ships. As Gates pointed out, sending billion dollar ships to police up some pirates is not cost effective. By using “cheap ships” to do that work, that are low cost to build, low cost to maintain, and low cost to use, the good ships are kept in reserve.
An excellent comparison is the Air Force’s B-52 bombers. Cheap, easy to maintain, reliable. Even though we have advanced bombers, the B-52s still do most of the work, because we just don’t need all the expensive high tech bombers, with expensive maintenance, and expensive use, to do ordinary and boring jobs. We should keep them in reserve for when they are needed, and save a fortune.
Now here’s the real zinger. Our potential enemies #1 enemy is the US Navy. And naval strategy tells us that the first engagement with your enemy will often determine the outcome of the war. But if our peacetime front line are “cheap ships”, it is a problem for the enemy.
If they hit our “cheap ships”, it would be as if the Japanese had hit a different Hawaiian port, and blown up a bunch of tugboats. They would have wasted their attack, and the US Navy would have really nailed them.
With most of our “high quality” navy in Reserve, to attack our “cheap ships” would be insane. And yet such ships would be just fine for doing the ordinary, boring jobs, like policing pirates.
Gates is a whore. God bless our military-what will be left of it when this commie bastard leaves office.
THe Chinese are building up their navy and the Russians are modernizing and expanding theirs. The Russians have 3 carriers on the way, and the Chinese at least that many.
For a different perspective, current CNO and the Director Naval Warfare Integration Group both praise the new QDR and its role for the Naval Service in the pages of this month’s Proceedings.
I think they mean, Anchors Aweigh.
Aweigh
Actually Admiral Hyman Rickover, “The father of the nuclear navy” said basically the same things that Gates is saying. I don’t agree but I’m simply stating that this is neither a new point of view nor necessarily one geared toward weakening the United States.
Charleston County GOP Censures Sen. Lindsey Graham Senator Eyeing Sec Def Appointment?
Written by Bob Dill
Wednesday, 18 November 2009
Gates is a disgrace. He is willing to pander to this administration in exchange for his career. In my opinion these people are worst than people like Boxer or Frank.
IMO that’s not the problem. I think Gates is all for Gates, and to Hell with anything else. He has his marching orders from the WH, and he is marching as instructed.
The Left has always wanted to destroy our military superiority. They’ve tried everytime they’ve been in power.
He seems to think naval supremacy is a luxury we can't afford and that, like every other aspect of our military, an already shrunken U.S. Navy needs to downsize.I expect that the US Navy will be heavily involved in the war against Iran and its proxies in the oil shipping routes, and of course will be relied upon for air strikes against targets in Africa, Iran, and elsewhere. Thanks Kaslin.
That’s spelled
Ga(y)tes
Ping
Damn straight, and if he tries mothballing those carriers, he’s going to have the American public looking for a short rope and a tall branch.