[jpl]

And to make matters even worse, Obama now intends to unilaterally downsize, or perhaps even eliminate, our nuclear stockpile deterrent, as well as our space program capabilities. He is trying to systematically dismantle our defenses one little piece at a time!

[hennie pennie]

*ping*

[DonaldC]

Well, I guess the party had to end sometime.

[Citizen Tom Paine]

Unfortunately, we will pay for our mistakes in the blood of our children not the blood of our leaders.

[ETL]

China, Russia, Iran and Chavez are all together in trying to reshape the world as we know it. And Obama is doing everything he can get away with to help them make it a reality.

[Scotsman will be Free]

“It’s no longer the case that the United States can overwhelm clever defenses with sheer numbers.”
Haven’t done that since our 1,000 plane raids over Germany in WWII.

[Bulldawg Fan]

The last President who made America this vunerable was James Buchannan who sat by while the country fell apart. But no one ever questioned his loyalty to America, that only has happened recently with the communist we have in office now.

[bayliving]

Maobama is a traitor to MY country and as such deserves a traitors fate.

[Zetman]

Well, the only good part is that we still have the technical know-how to build all of this stuff. We haven’t lost that. Some day, we might be faced with a huge national emergency (hopefully when a Conservative is in the White House) and we will HAVE to rebuild all the “infrastructure” of our military capability. Sure, it will be expensive, but we have proved that with the proper motivation, and the right people in power, and with sufficient funds allocated, we can accomplish a great deal in a short period of time.

We have the oil resouces within our borders that the libs currently won’t let us touch. Those reserves are still there, and can be tapped as soon as enough motivation exists to sweep the libs out of the way. Ditto’s with weapons and technology. We have already done a lot of the advanced research to build the things we need. Lasers, hypersonic missiles and aircraft, robots, and such. We just need the leadership to clear the decks so we can get it done.

I hate to think that we be “forced” to embark on a massive “overnight” build-up like we did in WWII (with another Pearl Harbor-like attack upon us), and I hate the fact that Obambi is putting us in such a position. However, if we DO get hit with another Pearl Harbor, if the likes of Sarah Palin are in office at the time, we DO have the know-how, raw materials, and ability to quickly build factories (or convert existing facilities), and get ourselves onto a wartime footing in relatively short order, if we literally throw everything we have at the effort. It would be painful, expensive, and it might take longer than we hope, but it could be done. We have a lot of empty factories sitting around our country.

We would also need to reconstitiute our Intelligence capabilities. But again, we know HOW to do that too, and we have plenty of brains here in the USA capable of doing it, it just needs the proper leadership and will to get it done.

So, the only long-term hope a China or Russia would have would to be able to cripple our domestic capabilities here in the USA. However, they lack the ability to do that with conventional weapns and forces, and will for sometime to come. That is why they want to have libs in power here as much as possible - to to prevent us from getting our act together.

They may also hope to overwhelm us with nukes - which is another reason they are using the current libs in power to try to get us to dump them. This is why we need real Conseratives in charge NOW. It will be much easier to rebuild now, and thwart our enemies, while there is no “immediate” emergency. We can do it quickly if we have to, like WWII or even the Apollo moon shot, but I shudder to think of the level of national emergency we would have to experience in order to get us to actually initiate such an action (and if we keep having the libs in power, we are finished anyway, they would prevent such a build-up - even in a grave emergency).

So, lets boot out The “O”, and his commie friends, and get the rebuilding underway now, on our own terms, at a more comfortable pace. That way we never have to worry about the WWII Pearl Harbor scenario again.

[sport]

As long as obama is in the White House and the Democrats control Congress, neither Iran or China have a hell of a lot to worry about concerning the U.S. military.

[familyop]

"At present, 'there is little indication that China or Iran intend to alter their efforts to create 'no-go' zones in the maritime areas off their coasts,' writes Krepinevich, president of the non-partisan think tank, the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments."

The mainstream, bipartisan propaganda buffs are really full of it. The truth is that the various import interests want to suck the remainder of the debt economy dry and leave you all to starve. They are betraying the USA's defense to keep freight fuel prices and foreign product prices down. The "MSM" is sponsored. Funding for propaganda under the guise of "news" does not come from never-never land.

US TOLD TO LEAVE CENTRAL ASIA [Russia & China demand "deadline."]
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1437369/posts

[El Gato]

At the same time, U.S. naval and air forces have been shrinking under the weight of ever more expensive hardware. It's no longer the case that the United States can overwhelm clever defenses with sheer numbers.

That's been the case since at least the end of the Vietnam War. We really could not just overwhelm enemies ever since the end of WW-II, when not only could we... we did. In WW-II our "stuff", especially ground army stuff, wasn't as good as that of the Germans. But we had a whole lot more of it. A lot of it we gave or sold to the Russians, who had a whole lot of troops to use it, as did we.

But that said, the ever shrinking portion of the GDP or federal budget devoted to defense hasn't helped any either. In 1964, total federal outlays were 18.5% of GDP. Defense was 8.6& and entitlements were 6.1%. By 2008, before the lastest big ramp up in federal spending, Defense was 4.0% and entitlements were 12.6% while overall federal spending ws 209.9%. But of course to hear many tell the tale, it's the Defense buget that is bloated. Much of the growth in the entitlement fraction came in '67 to '78, that being the effect of the Great Society programs of LBJ. Although there was something of a bump up in the mid '80s and mid 90s, the later following a bit of a decline. But entitlements realy started UP again in the early 2000s, and are still going up.

Wish I had the numbers for 2009. I've got a strong stomach and think I could look at them without immediately tossing my cookies.

[tanknetter]

The F16 fighter, for instance, originally cost about $35 million each (adjusted for inflation). It is being replaced by the F-35, currently priced at $266 million each. The pattern holds for the F-22, which the Pentagon has bought to replace its F-15s, and the B-1 and B-2 bombers built to replace B-52s and F-111s. Small wonder the Air Force inventory of fighter-attack planes and bombers has sagged 20 percent during the past 15 years from 2,073 to 1,649.

Huh?!? I've never seen either a fly-away cost or a gross cost (spreading the R&D dollars across the buy) for an F-35 anywhere NEAR the $266 million range. That may be a total lifecycle cost (including operational costs over a notional 30-40 year lifespan), but if that's the case than there's absolutely no way that an F-16's cost is as low as $35 million (adjusted)

To continue ... while the F-22 is suppose to replace the F-15C, the B-1 and B-2s were built to COMPLEMENT the B-52s in the heavy/strategic bombardment role, not replace them. And the F-111 was replaced by the F-15E, not the B-1 or B-2.

The "sagging" of inventory (actually the term "gap" is more applicable) is not so much a matter of cost as it is the 1990s Clinton "hiatus" in driving new weapons into operational service. The F-22 and the V-22 were supposed to reach IOC in the early 1990s. The F-22 reached it in the mid 00's and the V-22 is only reaching it now because the R&D phases for both systems were stretched out under Clinton (although to be fair, the V-22 almost died at the hands of Dick Cheney in the early 1990s). Legacy aircraft are reaching the ends of their service lives at a time when new aircraft are barely even starting theirs.

Given that, this guy doesn't seem to know what he's talking about.

[SunkenCiv]

So it was that Washington, using its armada of aircraft carriers, cruise missile-launching submarines, fast cargo ships, long-range bombers, airlifters, and air refueling fighters, could eject the Iraqis from Kuwait (1991), bomb Serbia (1999), kick over the Taliban regime in Afghanistan (2001), and knock off Saddam and his cronies (2003). Everybody else had to meekly follow along (or sit on the sidelines). But now the party's over. The United States, Pentagon strategists say, is quickly losing its ability to barge in without permission.

Thanks neverdem.