Tag: Defense Department

War Just Keeps Rolling On And On

Will this country ever step back from war?

After 16 continuous years of all out war you would think that the country would be become war weary…..nothing is further from the truth…..an actually NO ONE cares that we have been at war for damn near two decades.

I ask the question…will we ever find a way to step back from war?  That would be the job of the Congress and those cowards are too timid to even consider the prospect….but it needs attention….

Goddammit!  Enough is enough!  Time to step back and get a f*cking grip……

President Donald Trump has expanded every aspect of the war on terror he inherited from his two predecessors. In his first nine months Trump has ordered a renewed surge in Afghanistan, increased the tempo of drone strikes, and granted the military greater autonomy. Meanwhile, in Afghanistan, the Taliban now control or contest more districts than at any point since 2001. And last week four American soldiers died in Niger, an increasingly active front in the war on terror. Americans are now fighting — and dying — in at least eight different countries across the Middle East and Central Asia. The deaths of American forces are a particularly sobering reminder of the war’s high costs and should prompt people to ask whether the costs are worth it.

Unfortunately, the evidence of the past 16 years clearly indicates that the answer is no. Enough time has now passed since 9/11 to reach two important conclusions. First, the threat posed by Islamist-inspired terrorism does not justify such a mammoth effort. Second, the aggressive military strategy the United States has pursued since 2001 has not only failed to reduce the threat of terrorism; it has likely made things worse.

https://warontherocks.com/2017/10/time-to-step-back-from-the-war-on-terror/

There has got to be a way to end endless war!  Just got to be a way!

Maybe this will do the trick…..

WARS THAT the United States is waging around the world undermine our security by turning entire populations against us and diverting our attention and resources away from urgent needs at home. No, the opposite is true: the United States faces serious threats, and can only protect itself by confronting them wherever they emerge. This debate has divided Americans for more than a century. Congress may soon have a rare opportunity to take one side or the other.

https://www.commondreams.org/views/2017/10/29/how-end-endless-war

Congress will be the answer?  (raucous laughter heard)

The American Conservative asks the same question…….

The U.S. military has been engaged in hostilities overseas continuously in at least one country for almost sixteen years and has been fighting in multiple countries for most of that time, but the last time Congress voted for an authorization for the use of military force (AUMF) was in the fall of 2002 prior to the invasion of Iraq.

Since then, the U.S. has started or participated in new military campaigns in Libya, Iraq, Syria, and Yemen without Congressional authorization or debate, and most of these campaigns that began under President Obama continue to this day. Earlier this year, President Trump also ordered a cruise missile attack on Syrian government forces without U.N. or Congressional authorization, and the administration has yet to provide any arguments that the attack on the Syrian government was legally justified.

http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/does-congress-have-the-guts-to-invoke-war-powers/

Those cowards have not got a cajone among all of them…if we depend on Congress for anything then all is LOST!

If anyone differs from my thoughts please tell me what you think…..all opinions are valid and should be discussed.

Is This How “Skynet” Begins

I am sure that everyone that reads this blog is familiar with the term “Skynet”…that computer that runs everything on earth and dispatches terminators to do the dirty work….well it had to have a beginning and I think one of the spin-offs covered that…but could there be a “real life” beginning?

There has been some amazing leaps in AI research and it looks like the Penatgon is going to be the first to use it in search of “bad guys”…….

Turning hours of drone video into actionable intelligence is just the start for the fast-moving machine-learning team.

By year’s end, the Pentagon wants computers to be leading the hunt for Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria, through turning countless hours of aerial surveillance video into actionable intelligence.

It’s part of Project Maven, a fast-moving effort launched last month by Deputy Defense Secretary Bob Work to accelerate, improve, and put to wider use the military’s use of machine learning.

Source: The Pentagon’s New Algorithmic Warfare Cell Gets Its First Mission: Hunt ISIS – Defense One

Of course I am making light of the situation…but it is a good question when machines are starting to do a lot of our tasks and thinking for us…..

I still think that humans are better at making this decision than a machine….the machine can think faster but can it see the “not normal” that may arise from the intel?

I believe that a good analyst can see things that a machine will overlook as “not” important.

I know I am an old fart but I stand by my statement.

The Pentagon And The World Of Tomorrow

We have had many stories and many scandals in waiting and the one story that has taken a back seat is the budget and the Pentagon.

Trump has asked for a sharp rise in defense spending and how is the Pentagon taking this windfall of funds?

An interesting concatenation of parallel efforts to pull the U.S. military up by its proverbial bootstraps is beginning to show signs of purposeful strategic direction. There are calls from many quarters to increase the sizes of the Navy, Army, Air Force, , Marine Corps. Add to these the proposals to accelerate near-term Army land force modernization, ramp up the production rates of our most modern military systems such as Virginia-class submarines, the F-35 fighter, late model Army Black Hawk and Apache helicopters, and expand the Marine Corps’ amphibious warfare fleet.

We are beginning major new investments in a strategic bomber, an aerial tanker, a ballistic missile submarine, long-range cruise missiles and theater and strategic missile defenses. Then there are the efforts by organizations such as the Army’s brand-new Rapid Capabilities Office and the Pentagon’s Defense Innovation Unit Experimental (DIUx) to jumpstart modernization by repurposing existing capabilities in order to close critical capability gaps in such areas as electronic warfare and long-range fires. Finally, there are a wide range of potentially revolutionary capabilities being explored under the umbrella of the Third Offset Strategy.

Source: The First Signs Of A National Mobilization For War Are Appearing | RealClearDefense

History has given us many examples of what this could mean.

Let’s not forget Europe at the turn of the 20th century…or if you do not like that one…….the Europe of the 1930’s…..and where did all that escalation lead?

Does anyone else see the danger that is approaching?

Why not?

But What Is The Strategy?

The good news is…..thinking……thinking……not much but since we are about to spend our national asses off in defense maybe we should take a look at what we would get for the money.

An essential element is missing from President Donald Trump’s plan for boosting the budgets of the U.S. military services by $54 billion in 2018. How, exactly, does the commander in chief intend to use the world’s most potent fighting force?

Beyond the threat posed by the Islamic State and other militant groups, Trump doesn’t articulate what he’s defending the country from. Defeating what Trump and his aides call “radical Islamic terrorism” doesn’t require an additional investment of tens of billions of dollars. And Trump, whose “America First” mantra suggested an isolationist approach, has viewed Russia as a potential partner, not an adversary.

Source: Trump’s defense budget boost raises questions on strategy | PBS NewsHour

To be fair, and yes I can do that, to Trump there has not been a real strategy for decades……all want to boost the military but none have any idea of how they will be used….I guess the strategy is that we will play it by ear for now……problem is we need to stop wasting time and sit down and look at the future of our services……

There have been many National Security Strategy (NSS) development efforts over the past decades. But it appears we have not had a traditional, thorough, objective national strategy review and update since 9/11. As taught in our military education system, force structure determination must begin with a review of the NSS. The last two NSS products were issued by the Obama Administration in 2010 and 2015. The 2010 strategy was cited as a significant departure from previous strategies, with one point being the elimination of reference to Islamic radicalism.

Source: National Military Strategy Development—Time for a Revolutionary Approach | RealClearDefense

We have a written review every so often….but like most things it does not look deep enough in the international situation….they cover the problems in our face and never tries to find the ones in the shadows….I do not expect too much from the Trump admin…..they seem to think more money means better military…..that is the M-IC talking in the review.

Just a few months into the Trump administration, it still isn’t clear what course the president’s foreign policy will ultimately take. What is clear, however, is that the impulsiveness, combativeness, and recklessness that characterized Donald Trump’s election campaign have survived the transition into the presidency. Since taking office, Trump has continued to challenge accepted norms, break with diplomatic traditions, and respond to perceived slights or provocations with insults or threats of his own. The core of his foreign policy message is that the United States will no longer allow itself to be taken advantage of by friends or foes abroad. After decades of “losing” to other countries, he says he is going to put “America first” and start winning again.

Source: A Vision of Trump at War – Council on Foreign Relations

Time for a real National Security Strategy (NSS)….but that will take thought and that is simply not available in the Trump WH.

Believe me when I tell you that Twitter is not the answer.

2017 Defense Budget

I have written about the overall budget and how it will most likely effect the people of this country…..not a pretty picture….but I can take heart that word has come down that Trump will get some push back on these social cuts…..

One area that needs to be covered separately is the pending Defense budget…..Trump is asking for huge increases with all the “savings” he has found by crapping on social programs…..a look at those parts of the Defense budget…..

The Pentagon’s request for $30 billion in additional funds for the current year will go toward new aircraft and weapons and the fight against Islamic State, according to officials who on Thursday detailed President Donald Trump’s federal budget supplement. – Wall Street Journal (subscription required)

By presenting the majority of its fiscal year 2017 defense supplemental funding request as base budget dollars rather than special war funding, the Trump administration has set itself on a collision course with Congress, top Pentagon budget officials confirmed Thursday. – Defense News

President Donald Trump’s new budget proposal promises to lay the groundwork for his much-anticipated military buildup. But it is already being criticized as over-hyped. – Politico

The White House released its Fiscal Year 2017 supplemental funding request today, which had been touted as being focused on gaining near-term readiness but may come too late to fully support operations and maintenance additions in this current year. – USNI News

Mackenzie Eaglen writes: President Trump is proposing to increase military spending in his first budget blueprint to Congress. By how much is debatable, since there is no agreed-upon baseline from which to measure growth. But one outcome is clear: the president’s proposed defense budget increases are inadequate to meet his stated goals of rebuilding the U.S. military. – The Hill

Todd Harrison writes: As was the case some thirty years ago in the Reagan buildup, the decisions made today will determine the capabilities available thirty years from now—and most of the men and women who will serve in that future force have not yet been born. Military and civilian leaders are latching on to the idea of a “readiness crisis” in the hopes of securing short-term budgetary gains. But they would be wise to slow down and consider the long-term consequences of how they grow the defense budget. – Defense One

This is all too worrisome…..this country has been at war for 25 years or more and this budget does nothing to change that trajectory…..if anything it makes it worse.

The Pentagon can’t properly train and support the people and weapons it already has. Simply adding more won’t solve the problem — and could undermine long-term readiness.

As the budget debate kicks into high gear this week, many in Congress and the new Administration are pushing for a substantial increase in the defense budget. Much of the justification for this increase rests on the notion that the military is experiencing a “readiness crisis.” In recent Congressional testimony, the Army noted that two-thirds of its Brigade Combat Teams are not at an acceptable level of readiness because of personnel shortages, maintenance backlogs, and insufficient training. Of those that are ready, the Army says that “only three could be called upon to fight tonight in the event of a crisis.” In the same hearing, the other Services echoed the Army’s claims. The Navy reported that “overall readiness has reached its lowest level in many years,” and the Air Force reported that it is “now able to keep only half of our force at an acceptable level of readiness.”

Source: Trump’s Bigger Military Won’t Necessarily Make the US Stronger or Safer – Defense One

I do not believe that this is the answer to “Making America Great Again”…..

Worries Of The Defense Department

With a new president and new set of rules there is going to be concerns of the different departments…..and the Defense department is no different…..

The years of unpredictable funding and the threat of its continuation is the biggest threat to the U.S. forces, Karl Schneider, acting deputy undersecretary of the Army, said Tuesday at the Association of the U.S. Army’s Global Force Symposium. – Defense News

Even as the U.S. Army prepares to grow, Lt. Gen. Joseph Anderson still worries about units not having enough time to recover between deployments amid a rising demand for the service to take on more missions. – Military.com

Thomas Spoehr writes: The Pentagon has sustained year after year of budget cuts without corresponding reductions in commitments and missions. The resulted is a “meatless skeleton”: a military deprived of the ability to repair what gets broken, to train to critical levels of proficiency, or to maintain the supporting structures needed to sustain operations while still having to carry out those operations. Budget deliberations should start from a fact-based understanding of this situation and then explore options to fix it. – Real Clear Defense
Defense Secretary Jim Mattis has withdrawn retired senior diplomat Anne W. Patterson as his choice for undersecretary for policy after the White House indicated unwillingness to fight what it said would be a battle for Senate confirmation. – Washington Post
President Donald Trump has overruled a decision by his national security adviser, Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster, to sideline a key intelligence operative who fell out of favor with some at the Central Intelligence Agency, two sources told POLITICO. – Politico

Nothing looks rosy within the Department of Defense…..appears like the warning signs of an approaching storm…..a winter of discontent if you will.

Then there is the defense spending thing……it is getting out of hand…..

President Donald Trump’s budget proposal, announced in his address to a joint session of Congress and on a subsequent visit to the USS Gerald Ford aircraft carrier, calls for increasing defense spending for fiscal year 2018 by $54 billion above the Budget Control Act, or BCA, caps. He plans to pay for this by making large cuts in the budgets of other agencies, such as the U.S. State Department, the U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, or EPA, and the U.S. Coast Guard.

This plan will not happen because military leaders are opposed to making reductions in spending for State Department and the USAID; additionally, many members of Congress are opposed to cutting the EPA and Coast Guard budgets to pay for an increase in defense. As Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-SC) said, that the proposal was “dead on arrival.”

Source: 5 Ways to Better Manage U.S. Defense Spending – Center for American Progress

There are few good ideas in that report….and good ideas are in short supply coming out of the Trump administration…..but my guess is he will NOT listen to any good ideas….just the ones that do more harm than good.

Strategy Lessons for a New Secretary of Defense

We have a brand new SecDef, less than a month in place, and there is worries that he is a bit too military for an accuracy needed in the position.  Others think that he will be a yes man to his boss….he will design policy to fit rhetoric.

Personally, I think that he might be a good choice…..but as usual the government went to the M-IC for the new leader……that would make him a neo-liberal in his world vision and that is disastrous for the military and the people it serves.

The RAND Corp has written some suggestion for the new guy in the Pentagon….while I am not a neo-liberal by any stretch these are good suggestions and could improve the new SecDef position……

Shortly after taking office, President Donald Trump promised “a great rebuilding” of the United States military. This tall order will fall predominantly on his new Secretary of Defense, retired Marine General James Mattis. Over the next several months, Mattis will need to begin laying the intellectual groundwork to accomplish this objective. His team will craft a new Defense Strategic Review (formerly known as the Quadrennial Defense Review) and unveil a host of other issue and service-specific documents. If history is any precedent, most of these documents will be flashes in the pan, discussed by Washington policy wonks for a month or two before fading into relative obscurity. Yet, history also suggests that some strategy documents can have a more lasting impact and that the difference is often the result of how the strategies were developed as much as what they say. And so, setting aside the question of what policies the new administration’s strategy documents should contain, there is a question of how to structure the strategy-making process to maximize their impact.

Source: Five Simple Strategy Lessons for a New Secretary of Defense | RealClearDefense

I realize that generals can be hard-headed but in this case he should take the advice and work for a better world…..not just ways to destroy parts of it……

DoD, You Have A Leader

I have been waiting for two appointments made by PEOTUS Trump, SecDef and SecState these will be very telling in our pursuit of a Trump foreign policy.

SecState has been a yo-yo, a game of appearances and so far nothing of substance….but SecDef had been a relative silent choice….that is until yesterday….an unofficial official announcement was made that a choice had been made…..Gen. Mattis for SecDef….

Sources tell the Washington Post that Donald Trump has picked a “Mad Dog” for secretary of defense. That’s just one of the nicknames held by retired Marine Gen. James Mattis, who CNN notes is also known as the “Warrior Monk.” Apart from spending four decades with the Marines, Mattis was recently the chief of US Central Command—a role in which he clashed with President Obama over Iran—and spent time as the supreme allied commander of transformation for NATO. John McCain has called Mattis “one of the finest military officers of his generation and an extraordinary leader.” He has a “cult-like following” among infantry Marines and soldiers, the Military Times reports.

“He speaks truth to everyone and would certainly speak truth to this new commander in chief,” a former Pentagon official tells the Post. Mattis has raised eyebrows—to say the least—in the past with quotes such as “It’s fun to shoot some people” and, “Be polite, be professional, but have a plan to kill everybody you meet.” Trump has called him the “real deal.” Mattis would require a special waiver from Congress before being confirmed because he’s been a civilian for less than seven years. Despite a Trump transition spokesperson saying no decision has been made, Donald Trump Jr. tweeted that Mattis was offered the gig and an official announcement is expected next week.

Mattis sees Putin in a different light as Trump…will this be a point of contention between the two?

Trump, himself, made the appointment official in his Victory Tour he began yesterday….however there is a slight problem…you see he has been out of the military for 3 years and the law is it must be 7….he will need a waiver….which he will probably get for Congress is controlled…..but there may be some push back from the Dems…..just to be a pain in his ass.

Dude, Where Did The Money Go?

How many times have you heard a nose picking, ass scratcher go on and on about those freeloaders (the poor) that are wasting government money?  Or that have string opinions about wasting money on unpopular programs like school lunches or pollution control or other such programs?

But does any of that add up to $8.5 trillion (that is trillion with a “T”)?

$8.5 trillion is the amount of cash that the Defense Department has somehow misplaced……(wink wink)

WTF?

When government is completely dysfunctional and seems not to serve the people’s interests, we have to wonder where our tax dollars are going. Thanks to a Reuters investigation by Scot Paltrow, we have an answer—or, rather, a non-answer. Apparently, the Pentagon has made use of $8.5 trillion of our tax money handed over by Congress since 1996—but don’t ask what was done with the money. The Department of Defense doesn’t have a clue.

Audits of all federal agencies were mandated by law beginning in 1996, but the Pentagon is unique in never having complied. In almost 20 years, the Pentagon has never accounted for trillions it spent, in part because “plugging”—fudging the numbers—is standard operating procedure.

And they worried about the price of a school lunch…..typical ignorant toads.
Think about this….if we add the money that is missing with the amount we have wasted on our wars of adventurism then we would not have a budget deficit…..see how easy economics is once you remove your head from your ass?

The Budget Bullsh*t!

It’s Monday and I hope everyone had an enjoyable weekend….but now it is time to get busy……

Every Congress we are confronted with the way we shall spend our revenue….and as most people know we seldom do that under budget.  And that brings on the endless whining and sobbing over the busted budget.

One side tries to get cash for social programs like education, environment, etc and the other is all about cutting spending and at the same time trying to eliminate some revenue….(you business men out there explain that to my readers)….and in the end the Congress pushes the signing of a budget to the very limit of time and even threaten to screw the country if they do not get their way…..(a mature solution is seldom on the books)……

But the one area that most agree with needing more and more money is the Pentagon or as most call it the “defense budget”…..one can understand the need for a good secure nation but the problem is all the cash that the Pentagon gets it also pisses much of it away…..

Late last year, I spent some time digging into the Pentagon’s “reconstruction” efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan, countries it invaded in 2001 and 2003 in tandem with a chosen crew of warrior corporations. As a story of fabled American can-do in distant lands, both proved genuinely dismal no-can-do tales, from roads built (that instantly started crumbling) to police academies constructed (that proved to be health hazards) to prisons begun (that were never finished) to schools constructed (that remained uncompleted) to small arms transfers (that were “lost” in transit) to armies built, trained, and equipped for stunning sums (that collapsed).  It was as if nothing the Pentagon touched turned to anything but dross (including the never-ending wars it fought).  All of it added up to what I then labeled a massive “$cam” with American taxpayer money lost in amounts that staggered the imagination.

Source: The Amount of Our Taxpayer Money the Military Pisses Away Is Just Unbelievable | Alternet – Linkis.com

It is ridiculous the amount of taxpayer money that is wasted or “stolen” for lack of a better word….and yet it is the same debate every session….no one is willing to make the Pentagon more economically sound…..why is that?

Plug the waste hole and some of the social programs to get some cash…just a thought.  But nope!  No one cares about those millions but the 100’s that someone may use for food stamps and some stroke out and go a days rant about the fraud…..