Defense and the budget.

I haven't blogged much on defense lately...I've been focusing on the gun ban bill soon to hit.

Luckily CDR Salamander is thinking about it and things look grim.  Check out his entire article at his house but this tidbit has me worried...

The "deal" that everyone is talking about from last night will do nothing. The problem is spending, and all the class warfare perpetual campaign taxing will do nothing to either grow the economy of fix the budget problem.  A promise to cut spending some insignificant amount at a later date is just an advertisement of the dismal state of leadership, vision, and courage we are in.
The Republicans only control the House, so there is only so much they can do even if they had a different Speaker than Boehner. Senator Reid's Senate has not passed a budget (in violation of the Constitution) in years. The President has neither the background or the inclination to be a national leader or to govern, he is a revolutionary. He is doing exactly what he wants to do, that is to create wholesale change in this nation more in line with his ideology.  We elected him to do so, and he is doing it.  Agree or disagree, but what do you expect him to do?
So, as we talk about "payloads and platforms," Pacific Pivot, the LCS makeitwork patch of the month, and all that good stuff, remember this - it is no more important than Napoleon in 1812 deciding on the best winter gear for his infantry. Important in an isolated sense, but not critical to the macro decisions happening in the background.
All this has been known for years - Professor Lieberman warned us about it in the late 80s as I sat in his classroom in quasi disbelief that we would ever let this happen.  Well, we did, and here we are.
As I outlined in an email to some folks last night, our plans for a future fleet right now is vapor-locked, and unless a major global war or significant regional maritime war breaks out in the next decade, there is a better than even chance that on the Surface side of the house at least, we will be in stasis until we leave the 2020s. 
The big challenge for the next 15-years will be force level preservation in a military fiscal environment not unlike the the time period of 1920-1933 - without the innovation that we saw in the same period in carrier and cruiser development.  

Yeah.

Sobering.

And if you break it down to the Marine Corps what does it mean?  Probably that we will have to "play with what we have in hand" for a generation.

I don't follow the Commandant or the SgtMajor of the Marine Corps because quite frankly I don't like them (though I've never met them), don't trust them, have zero respect for them and think that they lack courage.  Not physical courage but moral courage...of course that can be laid at the feet of 99% of our leaders today so that just makes them ordinary.

The bad news is that this is a time when extraordinary leadership was called for and the people sitting in the big chairs are all lacking.  But I digress.  I don't follow him closely but in reading some news stories I came across him warning of tough cutbacks.

What does that mean?

Probably pain all over the place.

Keep your eyes on the Marine Personnel Carrier...the JLTV...the GCV...CH-53K and perhaps even the F-35.

Can you feel it?  Something tells me 2013 is gonna suck.