Dr. Goure doesn't usually surprise me but when I read his latest today it absolutely floored me! Read the whole thing but check this out...
We were presented two rather stark choices. Either we prepare for future challenges or we maintain our current force.
Goure is arguing that the choice the Pentagon made is wrong. That current challenges are so dangerous that we can't risk gutting our forces.
This is probably the most meaningful article on defense spending (wish he would have gone into greater detail on whats actually needed) I've read this year.
The Republicans believe, although some may be reluctant to say so publicly, that the nation is facing a tide of threats for which the administration’s proposed force structure will be inadequate. This week alone, Russia advanced its plan to dismember Ukraine, China sought to extend its control of the South China Sea, North Korea continued preparations for another nuclear test, Al Qaeda and its affiliates demonstrated that they are not on the run but rather resurgent and Iran continued to prepare for conflict in the Persian Gulf.Wow. I'm still taking it in.
The likelihood that the United States will have to fight multiple major theater conflicts (MRCs) at the same time is increasing. Moreover, these won’t be the kind of MRCs planned for after the Cold War. Our prospective adversaries have gone to school on the American way of war. They have been acquiring advanced offensive and defensive capabilities designed to counter longstanding U.S. technological and operational advantages. HASC Republicans understand that the measure of the United States as a superpower is a force structure of sufficient quantity and quality to fight and win these new types of high-end conflicts in multiple theaters.
We were presented two rather stark choices. Either we prepare for future challenges or we maintain our current force.
Goure is arguing that the choice the Pentagon made is wrong. That current challenges are so dangerous that we can't risk gutting our forces.
This is probably the most meaningful article on defense spending (wish he would have gone into greater detail on whats actually needed) I've read this year.
I disagree. It's all baloney.
ReplyDelete-Russia had and has no plan to dismember Ukraine. Russia's recent actions were mandated by the US attempt (with the Kyev coup) to take over Russia's naval facilities in Crimea, that was an understandable red line for Russia. There are no military threats from Russia.
-China's actions in the South China Sea do not affect the US, any more than US actions in the middle East affect China. China does not threaten the US.
-The sixty-year-old Korean War should have been settled years ago, and Korea unified. The US doesn't want that because the ongoing hyped threat the US a reason to station its bombers one air-hour from Shanghai and Beijing, and to keep US troops in Japan. The US has made Korea an accompanied tour, by the way, with family housing and all the rest. Some threat.
-The over-hyped Al Qaeda threat is best countered by intelligence and policing, and not by large-scale military action which merely recruits more terrorists. Witness Afghanistan.
There is no prospect of major theater conflicts except at the Lexington Institute, the "defense industry's pay-to-play ad agency."
the only point i agree with is Russia. after that we part company (no bad thing people can disagree). i'm looking at China and i see a threat to us and our allies. i look at N. Korea and i see a backwards nation that will not unite until that despotic dictator is shot in the back of the head by probably a military officer.
DeleteAQ isn't a threat to us but its obvious that the nations of the ME and Africa are prime grounds for new recruits.
as far as the Lexington INstitute is concerned, i see slime on all the think tanks.