Comments on: DoD Identifies Key QDR Themes

By: cvn

cvn — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 02:01:09 +0000

Between 6% (Reagan) and 8.5% (JFK).

http://www.armedforcesjournal.com/2007/03/2545232/

I am sure Mahon never said something as idiotic as: “F-22 are useless compared to letting Grandma starve.”

By: loggie20

loggie20 — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 14:43:17 +0000

What percent of GDP should the “Military budget” be?

Why?

What did Alfred Thayer Mahon say in the 1880s?

By: cvn

cvn — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 13:53:03 +0000

Loggie20 : “F-22 are useless compared to letting Grandma starve.”

what “brilliance” — unreal..

The Military budget is not even 4% of GDP and barry will cut 8 Billion more to pay for his stupid social welfare programs and reward his good-for-nothing ACORN/Union/welfare dependents…

How about eliminating HUD, Medicade, Medicare, SS, the department of Education, etc, and all the truly wasteful big government welfare programs which are better served by the private/religious sector and not scrimp on the Military..

I am tired of Democrats doing what the always do: raise taxes and cut the military.

arthur — SS is the ultimate ponzi scheme…

By: arthur

arthur — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 06:20:20 +0000

I1m mad as hell about obama taking money from social security. aig, goldman sacks, madoff, are just ponzi schemes. So now we the tax payer are paying off crooks. Now obama says he‘ll cut the military budget. The russians, and the chinese don‘t have the money either. We live in a world of global deception.

By: Boots

Boots — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 02:43:30 +0000

We can argue about hardware forever. Whatever the hardware, why can’t we integrate the services a bit more and save millions instead of USAF doing it’s thing and USN/USM Air Wings doing their things. Don’t use Army troops and USAF FO’s as an example of integration, let me know when a F-22 pilot takes orders from a USN E-2 Hawkeye Battle Management team.

By: loggie20

loggie20 — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 00:44:11 +0000

F-22 are useless compared to letting Grandma starve. The SS surplus went to paying for it so that taxes would be reduced, then it becomes the deficit when the SS trust looks for cash. Generational inequity from the F-22.

It is not PLO or a few alternative uses it is the big one, the US poor and old you take from.

The Buddhists and Daoists the vast majority on the island we called Formosa do not care about missiles pointed at them. Why should you?

Ask yourself, ‘what does Red China get from trying what Bomber Harris did to Germany?’

Did Bomber Harris win? Or did Harris and Arnold win WW II?

What if Red China believes that it will get it way through Wei Wu? Why spend all the money?

Long war bankrupts the kingdom.

By: cvn

cvn — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 16:29:35 +0000

loggie20

You think the Chicomms are just misunderstood and need a hug?

Ask the Taiwanese if they think 1000+ missiles pointed at them is just some mutlti-cultural misunderstanding…

By: cvn

cvn — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 16:21:27 +0000

In the supplemental: some $800 million for the Palestinian Authority ($556 million in Economic Support Funds, $125 million in Migration and Refugee Assistance, and $109 million in International Narcotics Control and Law Enforcement funds). Keep in mind, we could have had another eight F-22s for that price. Which, even if you think the F-22 is useless, it can’t possibly be as useless as giving nearly a billion dollars to a corrupt and incompetent Palestinian Authority — oh wait if obama will bow to the saudi king anyone think he considers Hamas a better “investment” than the f22?

By: Charles Phillips

Charles Phillips — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 02:57:27 +0000

The comparison of budgets of the US and Russia or China has some nuggets of truth. Remember first that Russia and China pay their soldiers poorly, and the support infrastructure is negligible in comparison to the US. China does not have libraries and dependent facilities or even mail delivery like the US has! US weapon systems are not comparable — our systems operate day or night, have far better occupant protection, etc etc. We also have global power projection and both Russia and China have problems supporting their militaries when they are on the frontiers of their countries. In Desert Storm — our systems outperformed comparable Soviet era systems easily. The Abrams tank drove at night and still could kill T-72s at max range, while the T-72s were blind. How many comparisons do I have time to list?
Anyway — our budgets should be compared to our strategy.

By: John

John — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 01:37:08 +0000

If the F 22 were so important how come it’s not being feilded in current combat?

By: loggie20

loggie20 — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 00:29:34 +0000

bobbymike,

“Absolute dollars is meaningless.” True!

It is meaningless whether the US spends a billion or a trillion.

Nothing is useable!

See MV 22, F 22 etc.

The reason the US spends so much is that it can, because congress uses it as jobs and to pull in PAC $.

No one asks: what better use of the resources?

If the F 22 were so important how come the US survived it being 15 years late, too expensive and failing to perform?

By: loggie20

loggie20 — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 00:24:39 +0000

cvn,

Yes, the Russians like a military that has its all to surpress the South Ossetians.

China is intimidated by Tibetan Lama’s. They know the best deal is not to bankrupt themselves in continuous long wars. (See Sun Tzu)

Who do you think our $ trillions are needed to tilt against?

North Korea? Omar of the Taliban?

By: bobbymike

bobbymike — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 23:50:18 +0000

@mike — just a couple of points 1) Yes we “outspend” China and Russia in actaul dollars but while we spend something like $80k to $100k/soldier they spend hardly anything by comparison. Absolute dollars is meaningless.

I agree with your capabilities based argument could you provide a link to the study that analyses these nations capabilities and concludes we are 100 times more capable.

And my personal two cents worth about Gates. What in his background allows us to believe that HE IS THE FOUNTAIN of all wisdom when it comes to the types of opponents we will face from now to the end of time. As I said above I would like to see (Hey, maybe it exists I honestly don’t know) all those studies authored by Gates — say in the mid or late 90’s — that said the next ten years will see the US fight only COIN and SOLIC wars.

By: cvn

cvn — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 21:09:39 +0000

The common theme is obama blames America first and any weapon system for serious power projection is to be curtailed, hence, no F-22, No next gen Bomber, no FCS, no MKV, no ABL… a military that only Russia, the ChiComms, and obama could love….

By: mike

mike — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 18:07:47 +0000

Reading this article and others on the new changes I see that the critics of the right path are those employed in, or, are associated with, the old way of doing business. Currently we outspend China 4 to one and Russia 8 to one. The money comparision is one way to determine what we need to counter the “major conventional” war if they occur. The other is compare their arsenal of hardware and software against our arsenal of capabilities. America over powers them both 100 to one!!! Yes we need our ships, bombers, fighters, transports, missiles, bombs, heavy Abrams tanks, troops, seaman and airmen. But do we need power point slides makers and tens of thousands of oversight and subject matter experts? The defense industry needs a major restructure in how they do business with the government. Many of the defense contractors know that they are building redundant duplicative systems for the DOD. The software code writers and hardware builders, engineers, etc., are working the same products but charging time to different programs. They hire retirees to “manage” the variety of redundant programs claiming expertise and former contacts. This needs to be stopped. The contractors working under the FCS program are doing this. Hopefully this time the QDR will flush out those redundancies. Billions of dollars can be saved, and we will be able to fight any future enemy rogue states, and a band of zealots hiding in mountains with programs designed without interference of lobbyists and retired military who are making money using the Pentagon’s name. The taking of Kabul away from the Taliban was done by the CIA not the military industrial complex. Lessions hopefully are learned and Mr. Gates is doing his job and will go down in history as a great SECDEF. Congress please do not mess it up.

By: John

John — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 17:32:40 +0000

You can’t always get what you want
And if you try sometime you find
You get what you need

By: Charles Phillips

Charles Phillips — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 16:07:56 +0000

The great theme here seems to be: live with what ya got and hope that the next Administration replaces your worn vehicles. As I recall, we prioritized low intensity conflict, delayed armored vehicles, and so went into Iraq and Afghanistan with Hummers. No armor! Vulnerable to anyone with a pistol. Suddenly we needed vehicles that could stand up to bomb blasts (gee, we had never run into mines before!) and people were attaching “Hillbilly Armor” to their vehicles, and people were coming back in plastic bags. Now we are, even more, concentrating on irregular war and delaying purchase of armored vehicles. We are also gonna fly our old F-15Es until maybe the next Administration buys us some F-35s (they are the follow on to the multi-service F-111, a problem-free program!) if they money is there starting in 2010.