Pentagon requests 20% reduction in war funds
Bloomberg News says that the Department of Defense is asking for 20% less in funding for our adventures worldwide, ostensibly because our presence in Afghanistan will be reduced;
While the decline in war funding largely reflects the continued withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan — from the 10,600 now there to half that planned by year-end — it remains enough to draw questions about why the Defense Department shouldn’t pay to fight wars as part of its basic mission.
“The continuing drawdown in Afghanistan is not having a proportionate effect on” the war budget because it’s “being used for a lot of things other than Afghanistan,” said Todd Harrison, a defense budget analyst with the nonpartisan Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments in Washington.
“It’s a budgetary shell game for getting around” the caps imposed by the automatic spending cuts known as sequestration, Harrison said in an email.
You know what would really reduce our funding for wars around the world? If we fought our wars to a successful conclusion, well, that would help immensely. It would probably cost less if we went to war with an eye on killing the enemy and breaking his stuff rather than fighting a conflict within the parameters of some ideal about being the nicest army on the battlefield.
We should probably get over the thing that by unilaterally declaring victory before the war is won, the war has ended. Iraq should be a glaring example of that fallacy, but apparently, it’s not.
Category: Big Army
I just don’t get the Pentagon anymore. They use to be the leaders for the dogs of war. The spokesmen for all things about American military security worldwide. Now they are bigger bean counters than the GAO and IRS combined. How about using the 20% reduction they want to continue funding the A-10? Or a dozen other programs of needed training and preparation so desperately needed in the current military. I remember when the Pentagon fought tooth and nail for every dime they could get of had to give up. Now they are nothing more than Obama ball cuppers and and administrative yes men. Sad, sad state of affairs if our nation is called on to rise up and fight on another front. Could it happen? In my opinion, yes, in an unexpected heart beat.
I have a nagging feeling we’re missing something here. The administration is cutting the budget while involving our troops in spot fires all around the world, and the Defense Dept. is happily bending over to take this. When something occurs that makes absolutely no sense, it means something is going on that we don’t know about.
Apply Occam’s Razor: It could just mean that all the real leaders have left the puzzle palace and everyone left is a eunuch.
Same thing happened in the 90s under Clinton. The military was cut 40%, but the OPTEMPO was increased 300% while he was imPOTUS.
The events in Paris should be a glaring example of what being the “nicest guy on the battlefield” will get you. Everyone that we meet in combat understands one thing. Brute motherfucking force. You obliterate your enemies in one area and the word spreads and stupid shit calms down elsewhere.
Our mistake has been to give these shitheads a breather. We have had our knee on the necks of these goat fuckers a million times and taken that knee away because we didn’t want to be perceived as being too harsh. And look where we are now. Look where our “allies” are now. France and England are overrun with Islamic radical turds who are using the protections they are afforded in those countries to espouse violence.
America is close behind. Aided and abetted by our media and liberal politicians, who all evidence to the contrary, cannot bring themselves to acknowledge that while not all Muslims may be terrorists, all terrorists seem to be Muslims. But hey national leadership, lets keep focusing on the important stuff, like speaking out on how important it is for protesters to disrupt brunch.
Somebody remebers when US military force was something to be feared.
Now it’s a complete joke.
Let me get this straight… The puzzle palace is now asking for LESS funding? Yeah, that’s not political in nature.
Shades of Carter’s “Hollow Army”!!
This WILL come back around to bite us o n the ass – hard – and often.
In the meantime, I will do my best to discourage any bright youth from joining the military – any branch. Why waste their time, when they could be advancing themselves in the civilian world, with (hopefully) a lot less frustration, now and later.
My CSM at Bragg once chewed me out talking about how good I had it there. “I was in the VOLAR! You know what that is?” “Yes CSM” “You don’t have a clue what that is, stop complaining and stop being a smartass.” “Roger CSM”
They keep pulling this nonsense, and our troops are going to have to go back to the time-honored practice of pillaging again to support their war effort.
Its not pillaging Pinto.
There was only one thief in the Army, the rest of us are just trying to get back our shit.
General & Flag officer perks are safe – priorities.
I’m wondering about the European base closures too – AF Mildenhall in the UK, etc. For an administration which claims it intends to ‘destroy’ ISIS/ISIL, this seems like a weird time to continue with force reductions and decommissioning bases. Although I guess at least Europe isn’t literally right next door to the Middle East. Still, I’m very much in ignorance about this whole thing; hoping some of you guys can educate me!
Good thinking on your part.
The issue with not having capability in Europe is a severe lack of logistical and transportation capacity for delivering troops, equipment, weapons, etc., to the “Box” where ever it is.
If we don’t have bases in Europe to provide for those, we end up dealing with even longer delays in logistics.
The other “immediate” concern will be with medical emergencies. Troops are flown out of theater to Germany where they get treated after being stabilized. Without Germany, we’d have serious problems as far as medical treatment of wounded casualties.
Thanks! I knew that Germany was a major staging ground particularly for wounded being evac’d from the Middle East; I don’t remember (if they said) the other closures. Mildenhall stuck in my mind for some reason or other.
Of course, I also only originally heard about it because of a BBC article; haven’t seen anything about it in the news locally, which adds to the frustration! It did say bases are being closed in Germany and Belgium – Reuters, http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/01/08/us-usa-defense-europe-idUSKBN0KH18O20150108.
In general it just seems like a really weird decision to make while claiming to want to destroy an enemy force. Though I suppose on the flip side it might make Europe be in a position of having to step up instead of relying on US forces.
It would probably cost less if we went to war with an eye on killing the enemy and breaking his stuff rather than fighting a conflict within the parameters of some ideal about being the nicest army on the battlefield.
Right, plus dead enemies with broken shit have a hard time causing trouble anywhere but where they are….
Guys, don’t confuse the issue with facts. Geeze…
Waiting for Department of education and HHS to request less money
The GOs,FOs and rest need to look long and truthfully in the mirror. They sought Truthfully answer how they are upholding their oaths.Not Officers any more just politos climbing hacks. Joe
I don’t want to see a reduction in defense spending either.
However, the military leadership doesn’t really make these decisions- -they are basically told what their budget limits will be. They make decisions and set priorities within those limits, but ultimately they have a duty to give the president their advice but comply with his legal orders whether they agree or not. It may seem like it would be noble for them to quit in protest, but in reality they would be shirking their responsibility.
Military spending is really dictated by Congress. Yes, the president submits a budget, but he already knows what Congress will approve- it is basically a compromise between the parties. The military leadership develops plans, but the civilian service secretaries and the Secretay of Defense broker the budget.
Furthermore, there are several ‘colors of money’. This article is referring to a reduction in OCO (Overseas Contingency Operations) funds that pay for combat operations. The money for actually building and maintaining the services is from a different category. That’s why the consultant calls this a shell game.
Jack,
Here’s a perfect example that shows the contrary statement you made about the budget:
http://valorguardians.com/blog/?p=42963
When military leaders tell Congress to “cut” something, for one thing the Commander in Chief is telling them to say that. But at the same time, they do have a vote and can tell Congress what they want/don’t want.
Name any other department that has told Congress “please cut our budget! We have too much money!” But, DOD is doing it constantly. Why? Because Barry wants to dismantle the military so he can use that money for his social / community projects.
As far as OCO goes, while they might be using that funding for other things by “maneuvering” it a certain way, it still has a purpose. What Congress needs to do is kill that stupid sequestration rubbish that the white house thought up so we don’t have to deal with this kind of BS.
After reading the article, a big thing that irritates the crap out of me:
“…the Heritage Foundation, a Washington-based policy group.”
Why do we have the “largest” office building in the world that’s supposed to be full of thinkers, planners, strategists, policy-shapers, etc., when we’re outsourcing everything to civilian think tanks?
Why don’t we cut 80% of the Pentagon and see how much that saves us? I’m guessing we could run the Marine Corps for about 10 years with that kind of cut. Since, after all, we’re outsourcing “thinking” to civilian organizations.
SECDEF needs to start poking every other cabinet member and saying, “WTF are you giving up? When are you going to Congress to ask to cut YOUR budget?” But, he won’t because he’s well, you know.
The fact that we’ve got troops on multiple fronts indicates that we really shouldn’t be “asking” for a decrease in funding. But, leaders are going to Congress to say, “Cut our budget! Please!” because Barry is telling them to.
The service chiefs aren’t ‘asking’ for a budget cut. They are told what their budget will be and make decisions on how to spend it. This is the same for all cabinet members, but since defense spending is one of the largest single parts of the budget and the largest part (usually around 50%) of discretionary spending it gets a lot of attention.
The think tanks don’t make policy, and they are definitley partisan. They are a bunch of analysts with a definite bias that are paid through grants from private individuals or corporations- there are think tanks on both ends of the political spectrum, and their reports are held up by pundits on each end as ‘proof’ that this policy or that is right/wrong, etc. I am sure that there is another think tank on the liberal side that is saying this is the best budget ever.
Think of it this way: the service chiefs all have missions and roles laid out in Title 10 and the National Security Strategy. Each combatant commander has plans that call for certain capabilities, and each Chief has his vision for how their force should meet all of these requirements as well as how they want to modernize and maintain their current force. Theses are not always in alignment. Then congress gets involved on pet projects in their district.
BTW, despite the propaganda, the USMC is very expensive- their airplanes need gas and spare parts too, and they are far too small with the wrong capabilities to meet the nations security obligations