via Breaking Defense...
* The US Army is cutting 10 combat brigades AND will be down to 495,000 people by 2015. In my opinion thats INCREDIBLY fast.
* The US Navy has laid up 11 cruisers, cut the number of LCS to be procured, is not going to refuel an aircraft carrier, and is talking about possibly going down to 8 flattops.
* The USAF is dropping aircraft, squadrons and trimming personnel. Same for the Marine Corps...battalions are going away, personnel are being cut etc....
Yet even with the cuts that have been announced, and the ones under consideration, leadership still asks for cuts to pay raises and benefits for those that remain and now talk in congress revolves around another round of base closures.
We're missing something when it comes to the defense budget...or something really weird is going on.
Rep. Adam Smith has warned his colleagues repeatedly that Congress must make “unimaginable” choices to cope with the automatic budget cuts known as sequestration. In particular, Smith says they must consider closing military bases using a new round of base closures (BRAC), a process that’s always politically painful and which many in Congress argue was discredited by the 2005 round, which they say cost more money than it saved. The administration asked for another BRAC in its 2015 budget submission, but Rep. Buck McKeon left it out of his version of the National Defense Authorization Act. Smith had filled his put-BRAC-back amendment with all sorts of caveats and restrictions, apparently hoping against hope to assuage his colleagues’ concerns, but McKeon isn’t having any of it.Consider this.
* The US Army is cutting 10 combat brigades AND will be down to 495,000 people by 2015. In my opinion thats INCREDIBLY fast.
* The US Navy has laid up 11 cruisers, cut the number of LCS to be procured, is not going to refuel an aircraft carrier, and is talking about possibly going down to 8 flattops.
* The USAF is dropping aircraft, squadrons and trimming personnel. Same for the Marine Corps...battalions are going away, personnel are being cut etc....
Yet even with the cuts that have been announced, and the ones under consideration, leadership still asks for cuts to pay raises and benefits for those that remain and now talk in congress revolves around another round of base closures.
We're missing something when it comes to the defense budget...or something really weird is going on.
And I was thinking that rise of ZSRR 2.0 will stop this butchering.
ReplyDeleteIf in conventional terms America is scared of Russia you must be really terrified of the UK and France because we have kit that work, troops equipped to 21st century standard, and can even move them around the planet. No? Thought not. In the US's Great Game the Russians are distraction. A distraction that can be bypassed if some of the budget spent by the State Department and CIA on undermining states with soft power and espionage was spent on real kit.
ReplyDeleteThe thing with the US defense budget is that sequestration isn't the cause of the cuts. Sequestration will just cut the rate at which spending increases. Now we can all point to F35 and say it has mauled the budget. But is really the cause of such deep cuts? Hasn't there always been large expensive programmes? Especially in the Cld War where all your services has pet mega projects some of which overlapped each other in goals? (For services there I lump the USN/USMC as one!) I think the reason behind the cuts is political.
Tinfoil hat time. Since the end of the Cold War in Europe the governments of the major European states (those with large populations and in size) have been on the road to shrink their standing forces to roughly the same size. We British are heading for 80,000 soldiers. The Italians, Spanish, and Germans are in that region. The French will probably resist cuts to below 100,000 but we shall see. It seems US troop numbers are to be cut roughly 450,000 thousand roughly the same as the European powers in total. What I believe I am seeing is a balancing of strengths between Europe and the US in HEADLINE capabilities. By headline I mean the numbers often quoted in the media which are the ones the public take note of, if they take note of anything; how many tanks, how many aeroplanes. Of course as anybody with any interest in military matters knows the US's true strength lies in the depth of its enabling systems, everything from intel to say logistics systems, the systems civilians don't know about, don't care about, and would mostly struggle to understand. I said it was tinfoil hat time.............
F-35 is set to maul 40% of the acquisition budget when it moves to FYP - that is unaffordable even if sequestration is lifted. The only sane way out of this mess is to increase taxes on everyone (at varying rates) if you want Guns AND Butter.... The super rich can certainly afford to pay more, but the middle class is where the money is.... Politically unpalatable, so here we are.
Deletethe tax shock is coming with Obamacare. quite honestly everyone forgets that many of the laws provisions have been delayed. once the full force of this thing hits people are going to be pissed. thats why they want immigration reform NOW! they need as many as possible signed up to protect it from repeal.
Deletethe crazy thing. the Obama administration is proposing toll roads on interstate highways because they know that ordinary tax raises will get fought tooth and nail.
the defense budget will continue to be screwed. the only hope is that the F-35 is killed so that the money can be spent on worthwhile projects. in the meantime the JCS will go down as the most inept leadership for the military in the modern age.
I would ass.u.me. that recently RELACDU troops are ordered to be around for any recall to Active duty?
ReplyDeleteKinda like a large pool of trained draftees or reserves but not organized.
Maybe they know something that would simply erase the advantages of a large force.
Maybe.....they are just imbeciles.
i'm betting on them being imbeciles.
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