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 ...
Perhaps...Perhaps not.
I certainly wouldn’t dismiss the need for more of either out of hand. This is especially true of Submarines. Of Aircraft Carriers, however, technology has nearly surpassed it’s time. We now have the potential for aircraft that can fly internationally — even “space planes” in the near future — that would render Carriers obsolete. Furthermore, with the development of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV’s) doing more work, Carriers are not as necessary. And Carriers, in the era of the Carrier-buster missiles developed by China and France make a high profile target for which we currently have no effective counter-measure. We are, I think, seeing the last generation of the Carriers. The Submarines, however, may be around for a while to come.
Subs and Carriers are the best weapons America has...and this is an Army guy saying this.
Subs and Carriers not only are great offensive weapons....they are great defensive weapons, too. And, the US has the major advantage over the rest of the world with its Subs and Carriers
Sounds like the America-Hating Free Trade Communist Globalists want to destroy our military....like they have done with our economy and nation.
Carriers, ships and subs are on a different kind of funding track. Because of their expense and complexity, and because the shipyards can’t just stop and start with any kind of jerky on-off motion, they are on a continuous fiscal track that acts sort of like a steady conveyor belt, year after year.
As a result, projects are always underway, being designed and built over years. Those projects are not nearly as subject to the whims of politicians.
So, to kill the building of a carrier, you’re talking about stopping design on the one that will take its first cruise in about 2025. There are already boats in the process of completion going on right now that have already been paid for.
The Ford class come at $10-$15 billion a copy. Gates has already moved to building one every 5 years, instead of every 4, which will still give us carriers 10 in the fleet come 2040.
Also, the F-35 (if Obama lets us have them) can fly off the much smaller America class LDA under construction. I stopped paying attention to subs after the Carter set sail.
We should not slash-and-burn defense. That will get us no where good and, like it or not, defense contracts are jobs programs.
The fact is we are what stands between freedom and tyranny. It's fallen to us to police the world. We spend as much on defense as all our allies combined and then some!
“Nothing is more provocative to our enemies than a perception of weakness on our part.”
I head that once before, somewhere.
You haven’t had too much of Obama?
On 25 July 2007 the then Defence Secretary Des Browne, announced the £3.8bn order for the two new carriers.[7] On December 11, 2008, Defence Secretary John Hutton announced that the two ships would enter service one or two years later than the originally planned dates of 2014 and 2016.[8] The in-service date was further extended to 2020 in The Strategic Defence and Security Review 2010.[2] Construction of Queen Elizabeth is, as of 2010[update], well under-way.[9] The Queen Elizabeth class ships will be assembled in the Firth of Forth at Rosyth Royal Dockyard from nine blocks built in six UK shipyards; BAE Systems Surface Ships in Glasgow, Babcock at Appledore, Babcock at Rosyth, A&P in Newcastle, BAE at Portsmouth and Cammell Laird (flight decks) at Birkenhead.[10][11]
Number One dry dock at Rosyth has been modified to accommodate one of the Queen Elizabeth class vessels at one time.[12]
Do we really need more stupid journalists?
Since this is from Slate, it'e easy to understand the Baghdad Bob thinking.
However, let's examine the facts that Slate thinks so highly of:
1)NKorea and China are both adding either subs or carriers to their inventory of weaponry
2) Many of the current crop of carriers and subs are old and have outdated systems aboard
3) In many cases, updating these older vessels would cost as much or more than purchasing a new ship
5) Last, would we want to send our young service mn and women to sea in vessels built during WWII? In essence, that's what the morons at Slate want to do. Bad idea.
If it's the budget they're concerned with, let's look at other places we can cut the budget - Get rid of the Depts. of Agriculture, Education and HUD. They are non-esential and provide no useful or measurable services. Get rid of the TSA and transfer the people/funds to immigration and border control. Rollback Congressional salaries, staff and perks. Also, defund Obama's czars. They also cannot point to any useful services they provide - ESPECIALLY for the money it costs us!!!
That's a better start than what Slate suggests.
Reading the headline ONLY, does “more” me more total quantity or more replacement of the same quantity?
The headline is meant to get a reaction, would say they succeeded.
“The people who beat their swords into plowshares will plow the fields for those who didn’t.”-Benjamin Franklin
LOL
You are obsessed. /s LOL
I had enough of him as a phony candidate.
Thats the F35B which could fly off the small carrier.
Much more complex and expensive airplane.
I believe the time has come to transition to unmanned
close air support and fighter planes. Smaller faster
more survivable ships. The ability to deploy fatal
hacks into enemy infrastructures. The Army can leverage what it learned from Future Combat systems into ways to make soldiers more deadly - exoskeleton systems, smart small arms, robots. Imagine a USB flash drive made to look
like a dragonfly, flying into the Iranian version of the
pentagon, carrying a virus capable of making their systems puke their guts out, or transit Ajad’s emails to us.
‘The future is in UAVs, directed energy weapons, and spaced based defenses. The last two the very programs that have been cut/eliminated. The future is for the bold and the victors will have the high ground. ‘
True, these were the areas , along with other cutting edge technologies, that Rumsfeld concentrated on.
This Rand Corp publication gives a good detailed unclas overview of what SHOULD be a national strategic objective:
Mastering the Ultimate High Ground: Next Steps in the Military Uses of Space [new window][preview]
The author assesses the military space challenges that face the Air Force and the nation in light of the findings and recommendations of the congressionally mandated Space Commission, released in January 2001. After reviewing the main milestones in the Air Force’s involvement in space since its creation as an independent service in 1947, he examines the circumstances that occasioned the Space Commission’s creation, as well as the conceptual and organizational roadblocks that have impeded a more ...
www.rand.org/pubs/monograph_reports/MR1649.html
Not in a world where everyone gets along and other hippie bullcrap.
So yes.
“Too much money on last generation weapons for last generation wars. The future is in UAVs, directed energy weapons, and spaced based defenses. The last two the very programs that have been cut/eliminated. The future is for the bold and the victors will have the high ground.”
They are developing USV. Basically unmanned submarines. It is extremely awesome concept, while we need to reach for the highground, we need to rule the seas.
Not to mention getting the federal government out of education entirely, it is a states’ issue.
That is absolutely correct, and speaking here as a teacher at various levels.
The human nature of it is that citizens will still insist on education in any case, but why the federal government has anything to do with it is incomprehensible. The US Constitution says nothing about it. And not that long ago (fifty years) the Federal Gov't had very little to do with education - the US Dept of Education came about somewhere in the mid eighties - well after the United States, ALONE, put men on the Moon.
The US Dept of Education is the perfect example of centralized federal gov't that is simply not needed (nor authorized by the Constitution).
Re: EPA, I wouldn't outright agree because of certain venues in which it does reasonable work, the nation's fresh water quality for example which transcends State jurisdictions. It's just that it has become a political animal to push certain agenda's. Cut it and set priorities.
The Defense thing is complicated and over my head; but one obvious thing is Homeland Security, which I don't think was ever needed, and is now an internal federal force like the SSS, and Janet Napolitano who has no business whatsoever, and is actually sinister, being in national security. The US Coast Guard also simply has no business being under a separate dept from that of DOD - it is "guarding" the coast is it not?
DHS is one of GWB's terrible mistakes; if there was a reactive need for a "Homeland Security" organization then sunset it. There was an FBI was there not? It is almost like "they" used 9/11 as an excuse to establish an additional internal police force in our nation.
The United States federal government, authority and revenues, could easily be cut thirty percent with no adverse ramifications to any of us. Support him or not, Mitch Daniels: "you will be amazed at how much government you will never miss."
It is now a matter of priorities and values, and responsibility and citizenship is losing to the LEFT.
Johnny Suntrade
The Ohio Class Replacement Project is a great ship, it will combine everything that the current Ohio Class can do, and will be sailing into the 2080s.
http://www.military.com/news/article/navy-news/ohio-class-replacement-moving-forward.html
WE HAVE A WINNER JOHNNY!
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