{"id":463,"date":"2008-11-11T10:40:00","date_gmt":"2008-11-11T17:40:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.harmonicminer.com\/wordpress\/2008\/11\/12\/tearing-down-our-military\/"},"modified":"2008-11-11T11:44:04","modified_gmt":"2008-11-11T18:44:04","slug":"tearing-down-our-military","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.harmonicminer.com\/wordpress\/2008\/11\/11\/tearing-down-our-military\/","title":{"rendered":"Tearing down our military"},"content":{"rendered":"

Obama and the Democrat congress have big plans. They want to pay for expanding entitlement programs by gutting our national defense.<\/a><\/p>\n

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Even before the election, leading Democrats in the House and Senate were prognosticating a “transformation” in U.S. defense capabilities. The two most recent Democratic presidents made similar promises. When Jimmy Carter came to office, he all but eliminated our human intelligence capabilities and ordered an across-the-board reduction of 15 percent in everything from ships to planes to “end strength” — the number of soldiers, sailors, airmen, guardsmen and Marines in the services.<\/p>\n

Bill Clinton did the same thing, only bigger. Half the Army’s divisions disappeared, along with scores of ships and combat air wings. He also introduced the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy to allow gays to serve in the armed forces.<\/p>\n

The net effect of both presidents’ cuts of capabilities was to embolden America’s adversaries. Arguably, American troops still are paying in blood for the cost cutting done during the Carter and Clinton administrations. That may well be happening again, in an ever-more dangerous world.<\/p>\n

–Cost Cutting: When the moving vans roll up to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. in January, it will be the first time since Richard Nixon took over from Lyndon Johnson that our nation has changed its commander in chief while at war. Yet leaks from the Obama transition team and Capitol Hill indicate that cuts in defense spending are a top priority.<\/p>\n

Pulling U.S. troops out of Iraq would “save” $10 billion per month. Further “savings” can be found by cutting production of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, the F-22 Raptor, Virginia-class nuclear attack submarines, the V-22 Osprey and the DDG-1000 destroyer. Converting the national missile defense system back to a basic research program, eliminating two Air Force fighter wings, and putting a naval carrier strike group in mothballs would “save” hundreds of billions more. Rep. Barney Frank, chairman of the House Financial Service Committee, has called for a 25 percent reduction in the Pentagon’s budget — about $150 billion — and said, “We don’t need all these fancy new weapons.”<\/p>\n

Any of these cuts will have the effect of seriously reducing U.S. defense capabilities. One parochial example: The V-22 Osprey is programmed to replace all of the U.S. Marines’ 40-year-old CH-46 helicopters. Without the Osprey, Marines will have to walk to the next gunfight.<\/p>\n

In his first remarks as president-elect, Obama promised defeat to “those who would tear the world down.” If that’s what he really wants to do, prudence dictates that he ought not start by tearing apart our nation’s defenses.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So, the question: will we be able to cauterize the wounds caused by Carterization of our military? Sure we will; it’s always possible to cauterize after an amputation. But you’ve still lost a limb, one you needed, and will never get back, most likely.<\/p>\n

The rest of the world is building UP its military strength. Russia’s research and development programs, and China’s, continue unabated. The USA is fabulously successful at developing new weapons technology, but if we sit on our lead, and indeed deliberately reduce it, the rest of the world can and will catch up. We don’t want to live in a world where those nations which are hostile to us are our military match, or even where two or three of them put together can seriously challenge us.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, too many people, especially in the 18-35 set, don’t remember the bad old days of rough parity with the Soviet Union.\u00a0 Further, they didn’t study it in history class, in any detail….\u00a0 probably because the writers of the textbooks are embarrassed at how enthusiastic academia was for nonsense like the nuclear freeze movement, the notion that the Soviet Union was somehow morally equivalent to the USA and would absolutely always be here, etc.<\/p>\n

The requirements for fighting terrorism are only part of the picture.\u00a0 Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, etc., all pose dangers, albeit different ones in each case.\u00a0 The USA needs to retain its historic capability to fight two major wars, on two major fronts.\u00a0 It barely has that now, though it would come at great strain.\u00a0 We can’t afford to reduce our capabilities.<\/p>\n

The rest of the world needs to look at us, and think, “We really don’t want to try these guys.\u00a0 Maybe it would be worthwhile to sit down and talk with them instead.”\u00a0\u00a0 Of course, for this to work, the world has to believe we have not only the capability, but also the willingness to defend our interests.<\/p>\n

The search for peace by projecting weakness always ends in war.<\/p>\n

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