Posted on 02/15/2011 1:33:47 PM PST by americanophile
Will this be the year that Congress takes after the defense budget, seeing it not as holy writ laid down by an unchallengeable priesthood but rather as a political document hammered out by competing bureaucracies, each with long-standing vested interests? It's a bubbling brew out there, the Tea Party Republicans keen to slash any and all federal programs, joined in a potential alliance of convenience with liberal Democrats seeking to kill big-ticket weapons slammed as pork-barrel waste or Cold War antiques.
The Obama administration's proposed defense budget for fiscal year 2012, rolled out Monday afternoon by Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, makes for a gigantic target on this shooting range.
All told, it amounts to $702.8 billion, broken down as follows: $553 billion for the baseline discretionary Defense Department budget, $5 billion for a handful of mandatory programs, $117.8 billion for the costs of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and—a category usually omitted in these sorts of analyses but clearly laid out in the tables of the White House budget office—$27 billion for "defense-related" programs in other federal departments, nearly half of it for nuclear-weapons labs, reactors, and warhead maintenance in the Department of Energy.
The money to fight the wars is probably untouchable. First, as a result of the troop pullout from Iraq, it's a lot less money than the $160 billion funded last year. Second, as was the case last year, Gates is straightforward in itemizing these war-fighting costs ($80 billion for the troops and supplies, $10 billion for equipment to counter roadside bombs, $12 billion to repair and replace equipment, etc.). This is a refreshing contrast to his predecessor, Donald Rumsfeld, who offered no elaboration and stuffed several non-war-related programs into the account to make the baseline budget seem smaller.
(Excerpt) Read more at slate.com ...
Considering the problems we're having maintaing in the numbers we have currently then perhaps 'more submarines and aircraft carriers' is a big misleading.
The F-35, if it survives, will be our last manned tactical fighter. UAV's/ UCAV's are the future.
Directed Energy Weapons are about to become a breakout technology in my view.
So I would cancel the F-35. I also would cancel the EFV and make the Marines/ Navy come up with a 21st century answer to the Higgins boat (25 kt. speed, etc.). The Army's FCS Program was always way too ambitious. And does the LCS really pay for itself? I have heard that the Navy Surface Warfare community hates it.
We absolutely need new CVN's and SSN's-- to replace the old ones and the ones that the Chinese are going to sink.
Given that our current president seems bound and determined to encourage a nuclear attack on us or our former allies (i.e., Israel,the UK, Poland, etc.) the answer is we do need them. I might also add that determining our national security needs requires more than a finger in the wind and squinting at the horizon-by a damned fool.
People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.
-George Orwell
How else are we going to world policeman?
All we need is to nuke one trouble spot ... stand firm as the world and the enemy within tries to destroy us for it ... nuke THEM if need be ... stand firm and dare anyone screw with us again.
Yes, it DOES open up the potential of an atomic war, but hey ...
It's a slow death of a thousand cuts that follows the reduction of Americans into silence and inactivity.
Let's just go down swingin'
What's wrong with, " Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead " ... ?
Yet another glaring similarity between this regime and the Carter regime. Jimmah canceled the construction of an aircraft carrier while he was in office and significantly scaled back the maintenance availabilities for the ones that were left. It was a serious interruption in the construction schedule for the Nimitz class hulls, and it took President Reagan to turn the machine back on.
Not that Premier Hussien would know the first thing about using either vessel appropriately. I’m amazed he hasn’t already offered to permanently anchor one of our nuclear ships in Haiti to provide free power and a new airport...
ML/NJ
Absolutely.
As you know the competition between the services is huge. I think we need to spend more wisely. If the Air Force gets one the Navy does not necessarily need one too.
That is true, but we need some traditional forces from the last wars for contingencies. We also need more cyber offensive and defense as well.
Not to mention getting the federal government out of education entirely, it is a states’ issue. Defunding the EPA entirely. Paring back the IRS dramatically. Cutting at least half the state department (ie the politicians there, leave the embassy guards and the engineers and a small ambassador/consul staff) and ditch all the career SIS washington commies in the main building.
Defund all the arts at the federal level. Defund planned parenthood. Defund the ACLU and unions.
there are more, this just comes to me first.
Last I heard, the USA is the only nation in the free world with carriers.Britain got rid of theirs about a decade ago - ‘too expensive and we can let the US do it’ was the reasoning.
Yes. And more fighters and bombers and missiles and tanks.
No. Americans elected a muslim. The USA is broke.
Uhm.........Yes we do. That is unless you want to install and staff US air and sea bases all around the globe.
If China has a CVN killer maybe we need to think outside the box.
UCAVS launched from Subs
Harder to find and target
http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/ciencia/secret_projects2/project331.htm
Last I heard the American people put a muslim in the white hut. If a nation is dumb enough to do that then what is the point? We are broke too so we cannot afford it.
Last I heard the American people put a muslim in the white hut. If a nation is dumb enough to do that then what is the point? We are broke too so we cannot afford it.
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