The Seawolf production...which was to have been the replacement for the aging Los Angeles Class was instead terminated...at only three boats. End of the line. The newer, smaller, more up-to-date Virginia class is being forcibly limited to one boat per year...and the administration wants to end the two-shipyard capability to build them...and put all our eggs in one basket. At one per year...the US attack sub fleet will collapse to only 28 submarines, most in port at any one time. Sitting ducks.
We (US) can detect and retaliate with a vastly larger strategic nuclear sub force which I would bet moves quietly and undetected off the Chinese coast.
The vast majority of that force is in-harbor. Part of Xlinton's campaign to reassure the ex-Soviets.
The DF31, DF5, and its various incarnations will be of little use against the National Missile Defense system, a system that will continually evolve over the next few decades.
First, as with the cancellation of THEL, this presumes we have decades to piss away our need to commence deployments. As Israel discovered to its cost, it needed THEL right now. Not in two or three years. Now.
Secondwe won't have an "evolving" NMD. Not at the current rate. The RATs oppose it outright, and W is stifling it by either benign or worse neglect. Perhaps he merely intended to pander with it, never actually believeing in it and certainly not intending on deploying a NATIONAL defense. Just a "limited" one. As the IWG reported, a major robust NMD could have already been fully deployed for less than he has spent just twiddling his thumbs with slow-walking testing and limited R&D.
As for the current land-based system (Xlinton's design architecture btw) , such as it is, which is intended to barely be able to block North Korea's direct attack...it is useless against the Seaborne variants which can come from all vantage points. And let's not forget that the Chinese have also been given the blueprints to the Topol-M...designed to beat kinetic interceptors.
Now, I admit that there is some danger that if the midterm election becomes a sentinel election ushering in a large number of liberal and moderate congressmen and senator the NMD could be in danger.
No kidding. This is one of my major fears. And that's why we can't be half-hearted at the top about national missile defense. It is the one thing the GOP was supposed to be solid on. So we need to get through to the leadership. Stop the pussy-fighting around. Start showing some focus. And real Resolve. Get down to business. Deploy. Other wise the conservative base will simply give up in despair over being betrayed yet again by the RINOs.
However, this is the conservative "Chicken Little" way of looking at things. Most midterm election produce very little change in the makeup the both houses.
I hope you're right, but there is reason to worry. There appears to be a perfect storm brewing...Dennis Hastert thinks so...and the Administration is practically making no secret that its hostile to the pro-border enforcement majority of the House...and would like to see them lose. Apparently heedless of all other considerations.
The next presidential election will in my opinion bring many surprises to those believe that Hillary is going to be president.
Again, I wish you were right. But she still has those 900 FBI raw files. And the ruthlessness to use them. W had the chance to demand they be returned. He never did.
I believe there might many dark horse on both sides of the isle that could knock off the front runners and so I think the NMD system will be funded well into the future because whomever is elected president in 2008 they will be only varying degrees of right of center, and not left of center.
I really think this is possible...but it won't happen if we just let this White House tell us who our candidates should be.
The country in is more conservative than anyone in the Washington punditry thinks.
On that we fully agree. But we need to get past the filters. And we need someone solid and strong to rally around to clean out the dead wood that has accumulated.