Posted on 06/12/2017 9:45:31 PM PDT by blueplum
WASHINGTON -- Defense Secretary Jim Mattis declared Monday that he was "shocked" upon his return to the Pentagon by the poor state of the U.S. military's readiness for combat.
He put most of the blame on Congress for its inability to approve budgets on time or repeal a law that strictly limits defense spending.
Testifying before the House Armed Services Committee, Mattis said Congress has "sidelined itself from its active constitutional oversight role" by failing to deliver a steady stream of funding to pay for new weapons and other critical gear.
"It has blocked new programs, prevented service growth, stalled industry initiative and placed troops at greater risk," Mattis said as he urged
(Excerpt) Read more at cbsnews.com ...
Psst!
He just told the Americans! Don't pass it on to the rest of the world! Tee hee!
Seriously though, are you saying that we don't deserve to know this?
I would blame constant and inconclusive wars wearing out men and equipment, but never allowing them to return victorious.
The trick is to make the hard decisions the right way, avoid pork, subsidize merit, and, above all, prepare for the next, not the last, war. Spend what it takes but understand that spending alone is not what it takes. What it takes is the most expensive commodity of all because it is so rare, foresight, judgment and knowledge tempered by experience.
It is vital to understand the dimensions of asymmetrical warfare but equally to understand that the greatest threat to America is our misplaced priorities. We are hurtling toward a fiscal reckoning that will render all hopes of upgrading the military impossible. We are accelerating that rush toward the fiscal cliff with military bases at home and abroad which sap our strength as they drain our treasury and entangle us in peripheral wars which ultimately threatened to hogtie us like Gulliver.
On the one hand we face asymmetrical challenges from aggressive and militant Islam and on the other hand we face within a generation a Star Wars challenge from China. We must make our choices very wisely or we will find ourselves overmatched abroad and disintegrating at home. Those hard choices begin with closing useless and expensive bases.
LOOSE LIPS SINK SHIPS, LITERALLY!!!
Statements like this fly in the face of what President Trump always stresses about keeping things close to the vest, not tipping one’s hand and withholding the element of surprise.
It is common knowledge that we are not equipped to fight two in two theaters (i.e. Pacific and Europe or today in North Korea and the Middle East).
Would have expected better discretion and judgment from Secretary Mattis.
No, he needs to tell WASHINGTON about the shocking lack of defense readiness that WASHINGTON caused by democrat politics and policies. (Our foreign enemies already know it!)
Mattis ‘surprised’? He retired in 2013. He didn’t notice anything wrong while he was an Obama lackey? Trust in Mattis is entirely misplaced.
What we DO NOT need is overseas land bases, power projection or an army beyond what is needed to dominate our home continent and environs. Of course the military industrial complex has succeeded in producing a cowering and illogical fear of non-existent threats and endless crises, so there will be no end to unneeded defense spending.
You really want to trust a future Obama POTUS to make a Pro America decisions? Brilliant plan. Chicoms and other predatory nations love armchair isolationist ideas like this.
When you remove the trip wire bases with our troops on them you make military decisions purely political. Removing all our foreign basis would be a disaster guaranteed.
“The ChiComs plan is to de industrialize the USA over the next century, and it is working. They think in centuries we think in quarters.”
The ChiComms are woefully ignorant of history and destiny. By 2030, the average age of China will be 50 years of age. The ChiComm apes have aborted their future. India, on the other hand, will see half their population under the age of 30 by 2030. India will dominate Asia economically and militarily.
Private equity companies have been leaving China by the droves since 2011. Guess where they are going...
Mattis surprised? He retired in 2013. He didnt notice anything wrong while he was an Obama lackey? Trust in Mattis is entirely misplaced.
Yeah, Mattis does seem to be a garden variety swamp creature. If he wants money my suggestion is start cutting the PC garbage. Does the Navy still have that “green” fuel boondoogle? Etc., etc. Rinse and repeat. I’m sure there are billions to be saved cutting 8 years of leftist spending in DOD.
Even so they will have hundreds of millions of draft age men.
“Even so they will have hundreds of millions of draft age men.”
And India will have twice that number, and the ranks won’t be filled with Fu Manchu grandpas.
That is grim.
Me, either. In a war against terrorist and lone-wolf tactics, you need more, smaller bases widely scattered rather than fewer, larger bases concentrated in dense population zones.
Yeah, the ChiComs have millions of young men who will never find wives, thanks to the One Child policy that resulted in millions of females being aborted in favor of boys.
Their libidos will be channeled into the People’s Bachelor Army (Horny Motorized) and sent into battle. Survivors can then enter a lottery for award of available women; successful hubbies will be outnumbered by roughly 8 to 1.
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