Countdown until Zer0 leaves Office: 359 days as of January 27, 2012.
Posted on 01/27/2012 6:43:06 PM PST by MamaDearest
(CNSNews.com) - Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said Thursday that the cuts in defense proposed by President Barack Obaama will create "risks" in America's "capability to respond" to threats.
“The risks come with the fact that, you know, we will have a smaller force," Panetta said a t a Pentagon briefing. "As we said, it’s larger than we had prior to 9/11, but obviously it will be a smaller force, and when you have [a] smaller force there are risks associated with that in terms of our capability to respond.”
Army Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, echoed Panetta’s assessment, while pointing out that when the admnistration's cuts in defense are implemented there will be risk that the U.S. military will not be able to do as much as quickly as it can do now.
“The primary risks lie not in what we can do, but in how much we can do and how fast we can do it," said Gen. Dempsey. "The risks therefore are in terms of time and capacity and we fully considered these risks.”
Both men, however, said the risk could be managed. In part, this could be done, Panetta said, by be ready "to re-grow the force quickly if we have to."
The U.S. military is currently an all-volunteer force dependent on individual citizens joining the service only when and if they want to join it.
“The force structure shifts I’ve outlined today entail some risk to be sure, but to manage that risk we will ensure that we can mobilize, surge, and adapt our force to meet the requirements of an uncertain future,” Panetta said.
“To that end, the Army will retain more mid-level, mid-grade officers, and NCOs [non-commissioned officers]--these are the guys who have the experience--and they will maintain them even as their overall strength decreases to ensure that we have the structure and experienced leaders necessary to re-grow the force quickly if we have to,” he said.
Panetta reiterated that the new "risks" to national defense come from the proposed budget cuts.
“The risks we’re going to be facing obviously come with some of the areas where we had to reduce the budget," said Panetta, "but what we’ve done is to try to develop the kind of agility and capability so that we can respond to the threats that we’re going to face in the 21st century, and I think this is the force for the future. Are there risks associated with it? You bet. Can we deal with those risks and make them acceptable? You bet.”
Gen. Dempsey said the military needs to change the way it does things or face even greater risks.
“I’m convinced we can properly manage them by ensuring we keep the force in balance, investing in new capabilities, and preserving a strong reserve component,” said Dempsey. “And as I’ve said before, we will face greater risks if we don’t change the way we’ve been doing things.”
During the press conference, Panetta conceded that the United States still faces “a number of very important threats in the world,” such as terrorism and turmoil in the Middle East, the proliferation of nuclear weapons, Iran, North Korea, and cyber warfare.
Nevertheless, according to Panetta, the FY 2013 defense budget that Obama will present to Congress will reduce the size of the Army from 562,000 now to 490,000 in 2017. Over the same five-year period, the active Marine Corps will decrease from its current level of 202,000 to 182,000.
“We could reduce, streamline, and standardize our airlift fleet with minimal risk,” said Panetta.
In accordance with the Budget Control Act, the 2013 defense budget plan reduces spending by $259 billion over the next five years ending in 2017.
For FY 2013, Obama’s Defense Department will request $525 billion for its base budget, which is down from $531 billion in FY 2012. It will ask for an additional $88.4 billion for overseas contingency operations that involve combat troops, which is down from the $115 billion in FY 2011.
Go, Panetta! Live your dream to kill the Land of the Free & the Home of the Brave. I heard you say that this puts America back to pre-9-11 levels. That makes so much sense in the face of all the peace & love in the world. Please don’t act like you care - you don’t.
Countdown until Zer0 leaves Office: 359 days as of January 27, 2012.
Ping to jazusamo.
“The U.S. military is currently an all-volunteer force dependent on individual citizens joining the service only when and if they want to join it.
“The force structure shifts I’ve outlined today entail some risk to be sure, but to manage that risk we will ensure that we can mobilize, surge, and adapt our force to meet the requirements of an uncertain future,” Panetta said.
“To that end, the Army will retain more mid-level, mid-grade officers, and NCOs [non-commissioned officers]—these are the guys who have the experience—and they will maintain them even as their overall strength decreases to ensure that we have the structure and experienced leaders necessary to re-grow the force quickly if we have to,” he said.”
He’s talking draft here. The Leftists, the Liberals have been pushing for reinstating the draft since the all volunteer Army came to be. These insufferable, disgusting Socialists are manipulating our lives as though we, and our children are cattle.
In his speech about cutting the military, Obama savored again quoting President Eisenhower about maintaining balance in and among national programs, while confidently assuming no one remembers the thrust of the Military-Industrial Complex Speech. Eisenhower’s theme warned about maintaining proper balance between the private and public economies.
Eisenhower’s concern would now be the astronomical growth of social programs that remain sacrosanct ever since Johnson introduced Medicare and Medicaid. In contrast Defense has undergone real spending reductions; reductions placing Defense at 19% of the budget now from 47% in 1962. In contrast, HHS and SS have tripled to nearly half today’s budget.
He would be astounded Obama proclaims a receding tide of war. Eisenhower understood Eleanor Roosevelt initiated us into unending international conflicts when proclaiming her Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Ronald Reagan gave practical expression to this ideal when defeating the “Evil Empire”, and the last three presidents have prosecuted the GWOT.
Bin Laden’s death or crippling of al-Qaeda hardly constitutes victory. Victory requires seeking out and supporting anonymous, selfless individuals and constituencies willing to endanger their lives and those of their families for durable economic models and representative governments. Such governments bring GWOT victory by frustrating plans, breaking alliances and fracturing terrorist organizations into ever less effective units.
However, Obama can rely upon a morbidly obese Pentagon bureaucracy as exampled by a Navy, which has more Admirals than commissioned ships. Washington will enthusiastically follow Obama to gut the ground forces, which provide an environment where potential leaders can experience deliverance from lives dominated by assassins stalking them and their families.
I suppose I could go with reorganization directed to more trigger pullers and fewer ticket punchers, but I would not favor any reduction in force. Somewhere in an old letter I did, I was able to calculate that if the active forces had incurred only the reductions Bush #1 proposed, our later reliance on reserve and National Guard forces would be about one third of that experienced.
The only way to reduce forces now is to abandon the principle in place since the end of WW II that the military must be able to fight two conventional wars at the same time. The war plan analyses that validate such a future world have got to be Ivy League fantasies.
Bureau of Economic Analysis: Table 3.16 Government Current Expenditures by Function
http://www.bea.gov/national/nipaweb/TableView.asp?SelectedTable=119&Freq=Year&FirstYear=2009&LastYear=2010
Remarks by the President on the Defense Strategic Review
http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2012/01/05/remarks-president-defense-strategic-review
Military-Industrial Complex Speech, Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1961
http://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/eisenhower001.asp
“.....cuts in defense proposed by President Barack Obaama will create “risks” in America’s “capability to respond” to threats.”
But that’s been the goal of the Muslim in Chief.
We are ruled by morons.
“.....cuts in defense proposed by President Barack Obaama will create “risks” in America’s “capability to respond” to threats.”
But that’s been the goal of the Muslim in Chief.
We are ruled by morons.
Socialists are manipulating our lives as though we, and our children are cattle.
To socialists, that’s all we are.
Unreliable elements to be shaped, used and discarded
as needed.
Panetta is a corrupt, Communist America-hater. So it’s not surprising that Obama would put him in charge of demolishing our military.
The Global Hawk program has demonstrated its value in U.S. military operations in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya, and in humanitarian relief operations in Japan and Haiti.
It's the modern, affordable solution to providing surveillance. It provides long duration persistent surveillance, and collects information using multiple sensors at the platform.
In contrast, the aging U-2 program, first introduced in the 1950s, places pilots in danger, has limited flight duration, and provides limited sensor capacity. Extending the 50-year-old U-2’s service life also represents additional investment requirements that our country can’t afford.
The guy is crippling our country!
There's no doubt you're correct. Obama has wanted this since before becoming CinC and Panetta is his tool. What a shame that they should destroy the finest military on earth.
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