Gates finally finds his ‘nads
According to Frank Gaffney at Big Peace, outgoing Defense Secretary Robert Gates has finally found his testicles to stand up to the draconian cuts that the Obama Administration has in store for the Pentagon;
Secretary Gates has particularly warned against a “hollowing out” of the military, a not-so-implicit criticism of the $400 billion Mr. Obama has announced that he intends to cut from Pentagon accounts. This reduction would come on top of the roughly $178 billion already being excised by the Gates team.
In so doing, Mr. Gates recalls the mistake made twice during my decades in this town – first by Presidents Ford and Carter, then by Presidents Bush ‘41 and Clinton: Yielding to the ever-present-temptation to meet contemporary budgetary exigencies by cutting the nation’s investment in its armed forces, leaving them without the modern equipment, realistic training, adequately sized forces, up-to-date facilities and development of the future technologies needed to deter and, if deterrence fails, to prevail in tomorrow’s wars.
Being a liberal means never learning from your mistakes mostly because they can blame conservatives saddled with fixing their mistakes with a complicit media.
Gaffney closes out his piece with;
Mr. Gates’ warnings about the Obama agenda are indeed welcome. One can only wish he had done less to enable it to date, and pray that he does not make matters worse still before leaving office four weeks from now.
Yeah, that’s my main complaint about Gates. He knows that once he green lighted defense cuts, the Left would take that as permission to slash and burn DoD like the Clintons did for eight years to fund their jackassery. There certainly is waste that can be cut from defense but it requires a scalpel, not a hatchet and machete.
And I don’t see anyone calling for $400 billion cuts to EPA or the Commerce Department. Or even $400 billion in cuts to whole rest of the government. Any other agency slowing down on their recruiting efforts or their R&D plans? Why is Defense saddled with balancing the entire budget…well, until the next time we’re inevitably attacked.
Thanks to Flopping Aces for pointing me in the direction to Gaffney.
Category: Barack Obama/Joe Biden, Military issues
Wasn’t Gates himself the one who offered huge cuts to Defense Budget?
I get that there’s excessive fat in the budget (the alternate F-35 engine for example, or spending $500M to send the USS Enterprise on ONE last deployment) So in that respect there is a lot that CAN be cut out of the budget and not really harm anything. but there’s a lot of things that we NEED. Taking by service here’s a short list IMHO Army: We NEED to replace the Brads, they’re fodder for IEDs and can’t do diddly in Afghanistan. Tilt-rotor airframes show promise, and if so we can have faster versions of our current rotary wing airframes, and show promise. The FCS, was long ago scrapped but whatever it was that we wanted, we’ll need. Navy: Carrier Replacement The Enterprise will be decommissioned before the Ford will be ready to be commissioned. The Perry class is really old, and needs replacement, as does the Ticonderoga class cruiser as well needs to be replaced, as does the Trident SSBN/SSGN. I doubt the Virginia Class is coming off the line fast enough to replace 1 for 1 the 688’s (Los Angeles Class) Fast attack subs that are being decommissioned. Also many airframes need to be replaced. Marines: The AH-1 Zulu upgrade for the USMC is desperately needed. Some of their anphib tracks need to be replaced, and they have a few systems to do that. Never mind that the AV-8B is an OLD airframe. Air Force: The cracks in the F-15/F-16 fleet make it clear that we NEED to replace some of the older airframes, not when we want to, we NEED to. The F-22 may well become VERY important in future wars. We will need more C-17’s, you can not use an airframe as much as we’ve been using them and not need to replace them PDQ. more would reduce the strain on the current fleet. The C-130’s have an update, and we may need those soon. Let us not forget that training costs money, that goes for ALL services. When slashing a budget in a time of war it is a tightrope one must walk. seeing as… Read more »
Don’t forget that these dollars are theoretical, and calculated using Government Math: by canceling a program that hasn’t gone beyond Milestone B in the acquisition process, we save billions with respect to the total cost of ownership.
Bases such as Bitburg, The Rock, and a dozen little kasernes and camps in Germany, Europe, and other places can be shut down to tremendous savings.
#1 Yes FO, but this is a second wave that the whitehouse arbitrarily pulled out of its ass. If I remember right it was an additional 400 billion. 2# Doc. a) I’m on the fence about the F-35 second engine. I wish I knew what the justification was for it’s continual development. I have a hard time believing they could so plainly state it would be simply to keep more jobs in said delegations state(though that may be the real reason). B)No the Brad should NOT be scrapped!!! No one vehicle can do everything, what other vehicle do we have, that is adequate for Mechanized fast moving warfare? Not the Stryker or MRAPs. Most should be moth balled since the force will be getting lighter anyway. Wait until something better replaces it. C) Tilt-Rotor Aircrafts are Death traps! Its a flawed concept, that can’t be fixed. There is a reason the Army rejected the concept(I think it was the 70s). The vehicle’s flaws simply can’t be overcome. It is also less then capable of providing the lift then the choppers it is supposed to replace. The Osprey is almost certainly the biggest lemon in the history of the Marine Corp. Secretary Cheney couldn’t kill it in the early 90s. It would be better if they started from scratch. Find out what Birds the USA/USN have, see what does the job, buy the equivalent. Adaption of that piece of crap, in the inventory of the USMC will actually make Marines’ less mobile! D) Yeah the Marines’ amphibous tracks are aging rapidly and should be replaced. With what though? Last I heard Gates’ cut the replacement from the budget in the first wave of cuts. E)CUT THE GODDAMN TOP HEAVY OFFICERS!!! We simply don’t need that many officers any longer and can afford to be choosier. The Army should do away with ROTC, it was a system set up for a national strategy based on massive mobilization. A strategy since discarded by both the Army and the Congress. Another criteria whould be added beyond a college degree. Either enlisted time(3 to 4… Read more »