Posted on 08/31/2009 6:26:41 PM PDT by neverdem
It isn’t easy to put U.S. defenses back on track after they’ve endured a season of neglect. Gen. William Snow found that out firsthand.
Snow’s job, when he arrived in Washington in the World War I era, was to direct the buildup of artillery for the Allied Expeditionary Force. He thought his office should have stationery reflecting the importance of the task. His request was rejected. Rather than fund this extravagance, it was suggested the general purchase a rubber stamp to mark his correspondence.
Snow had joined a War Department completely unprepared to fight a war. The Army hadn’t been used to buying much of anything since the Civil War. It had forgotten how.
Nor was there much to buy. The United States had virtually no defense industrial base. When America entered the war, Congress handed out unprecedented contracts for artillery, tanks and planes. The war was over before U.S. industry could deliver any of them. Doughboys went into battle riding British tanks, piloting French planes and firing artillery made by their allies.
America in 2009 is returning to the 19th century, a world where America will be incapable of producing the instruments needed to defend America. Worse, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates’ defense policies are pumping steroids into the speed of that decline.
Both houses of Congress have passed the defense authorization bill, giving their rubber stamp to dismantling the defense industrial base. Last week, President Barack Obama made a speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars cheerleading the decision.
The White House has couched many of these defense cuts in rhetoric that makes them sound like smart business decisions — axing unneeded weapons and killing costly programs. We’ve seen massive cuts to everything from missile defense to how many ships and planes America needs.
The truth is that the administration is more interested in budget slashing than smart buying. And its ill-advised cuts are endangering operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. The proof of this is simple. They are cutting programs and replacing them with ... nothing. The Pentagon plan is to simply ignore future needs or else push the decision to buy new equipment far into the future, when paying for new planes, combat vehicles, missile defenses and ships will be somebody else’s problem.
What Washington has not explained is how it’s going to sustain a defense industrial base when it doesn’t buy anything. Today, defense purchases account for about 10 percent of the nation’s industrial output. In a decade, that production could virtually vanish.
In fairness, Obama did not invent this problem. Washington has not seriously worried about the industrial base since the end of the Cold War. While Gates’ cuts have been trumpeted from the Pentagon’s E-Ring, folks forget that his predecessor, Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, slashed about 100 procurement programs.
The problem is that neither administration really considered the effect of these decisions on the capacity of the American industrial base to support any future Pentagon strategy. A recent study by the Aerospace Industries Association found that some of our defense sectors were already on life support. Regardless of any strategy the Pentagon might pick, the industrial base for developing rotary-wing systems (like combat helicopters), long-range bombers and some space assets is now so crippled that companies would have a difficult time responding to new requirements, even if the military decided today that it wanted a lot more new stuff.
There is only one answer. The Pentagon should immediately start a sustained program of modernizing its military capabilities.
Otherwise, the defense industrial base is going to dry up and blow away. With it will go more than just high-paying jobs and technical innovation. We’ll be saying goodbye to America’s capacity to defend itself at a reasonable cost. And that’s simply unacceptable.
Examiner Columnist James Jay Carafano is a senior research fellow for national security at The Heritage Foundation
I hope that this comes as no surprise to anyone here.
Also, the skills rquired to produce the stuff are lost.
There needs to be stuff constantly in the supply and mfg chain to keep the skills current. Already some of the best and brightest SW engineers are wasting their time here at
MS on products that should have been cancelled (Zune? Flight Sim? Bing?) and producing hacks for the weasels
that run complex scams for the stock and securities markets. All non-productive, all a waste of talent.
Was anyone ever under the illusion that the left wasn’t going to gut defense???
I mean look at 1992 through 2000...Same playbook, different players...Gut defense, pay for welfare programs.
Only this time, they are doing it to the Intelligence community too...Pacifism is like a religion with the left.
As well as McCain.Did not the dude say we are not going to be base on a manufactureing based economy during the primaries?Correct me if I’m wrong.
I served my last 8 years in the AF under the Clinton administration and saw our defense budget slashed every year and about a year before 9-11 I had said that it would take another Pearl Harbor to wake America up and make folks realize that without a strong defense we were leaving ourselves wide open for an attack on our on soil...
We are headed down that same path...only this time...I fear it will be far worse...
We need the manufacturing base that’s been outsourced to China and elsewhere. Engineers, machinists, and technicians need places to go between defense projects.
Yes the defense industry is being gutted. Talented S/W engineering teams are being disbanded and their members are looking for jobs elsewhere.
It's worse this time.
It is much worse this time — They are actually going after the Intelligence community too.
God forbid we ever get hit again, but if we get hit on his watch...the fhit is going to hit the san...
****I served my last 8 years in the AF under the Clinton administration and saw our defense budget slashed every year and about a year before 9-11 I had said that it would take another Pearl Harbor to wake America up and make folks realize that without a strong defense we were leaving ourselves wide open for an attack on our on soil...
We are headed down that same path...only this time...I fear it will be far worse...****
This time the people in power are out to neuter America precisely because we have a large population of free Christians who have in the past and the present been instrumental in spreading the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
This is what the world wants to stop. We have many of our fellow citizens that wish this too. They have been indoctrinated by an educational system that has systematically removed Christ from the educational process.
DO NOT confuse these acts with innocent childhood pacifism.
We have a marxist muslim (ANTI) president at work with his (hidden) agenda which is consistent with his muslim marxist beliefs.
Czars?
Think one moment about the czars.
WHO needs more czars??? .....
Where do his allegiances lie? Who is Obama? There are many vids where he introduces his pastor,Jeremiah Wright, a man who introduced him to “his christian faith 20 years ago”. My guess is that he still retained his muslim beliefs from Indonesia.Thats why he still relates to Islam and secondly, his “ church” gave a muslim, Loius Farrakhan a lifetime achievement award...
http://www.bollywoodsargam.com/video_todayfeaturedvideo.php?blockbustermovieclip=Prhnc2fxAzg——The_shocking_video_Barack_Obama_does_not_want_you__to_see!!_featured_hollywood_blockbuster_video.html
Basically, very unamerican. Actually Anti American.....
Who is obama.. I dunno. What is he doing is unconstitutional.
Either way, face it he already has his agenda deep into play
He has already set up his parallel government with what 32 czars who were hand picked and that report directly to him.... totally bypassing the senate. This treasonous conspiracy by the MARXISTS have nothing to do with the constitution which call for the peoples input. Unconstitutional!
And he took oath to uphold the constitution...
Soon you will see him create a crisis and bring out his own militia of Black Panthers with “general” Louis Farrakhan! No seriously though, he will shift power so he is no longer the president of the US but the totalitarian Ruler of the US. He may well retain the title “pres”
Change the government! Impeach the president!
Not only Glenn Beck sees this, but Sonja Schmidt...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E9yI9LCILhU
or Rev MAnning on Youtube... se his Anti American President,
or look up Larry Sinclair, Press conference part 1
Its either impeach or prepare for his seeded race/ economic war.
****We have a marxist muslim (ANTI) president at work with his (hidden) agenda which is consistent with his muslim marxist beliefs.****
In all truth I can’t see a true marriage of Marxism and Sharia Law. Either Obama is intent on helping institute Islam or Marxism, or he is winging it.
Otherwise, the defense industrial base is going to dry up and blow away.
Only when America is defenseless and at the mercy of China, Russia, even Iran & North Korea will liberal guilt be assuaged. Liberals will spit on conservatives who defend freedom, but will gladly lick the boots of the commisars that kick them in the teeth.
Guess what? We had our second Pearl Harbor, and we STILL kept shrinking out military.
It will be. We have a totalitarian leftist who will attempt seize dictatorial power with the next attack on American soil and will actually sympathize with our enemies.
Doesn't Congress control the budget?
Not with The Coup in charge. Every serviceman and woman needs to not re-up. Every potential enlistee needs to not enlist. This is a coup, it is not a legitimate Executive, and the Legislative is hopelessly corrupt.
You're just going to get yourselves killed for the Kenyan's amusement. Until he's removed, don't do it. Get home. Stay home. Prepare. Not much time left now.
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