Tag: Military Spending

PTSD!

That dreaded disorder the afflicts so many of our service men and women…..well okay but this PTSD means “Peace Through Strength Doctrine”.

Trump has been pushing this slogan for over a year….it goes well with his con job of “Make America Great Again”…….but that is all it is…..a slogan and a racket…….

Donald Trump has embraced the popular “peace through strength” doctrine (PTSD) with his characteristic panache:

“I’m going to make our military so big, so powerful, so strong, that nobody – absolutely nobody – is gonna to mess with us,” Trump says. On other occasions he’s said similar things: “We want to defer, avoid and prevent conflict through our unquestioned military strength” (same link) and, a year ago, “Nobody is going to mess with us. Nobody. It will be one of the greatest military buildups in American history.”

I will acknowledge that the PTSD has surface appeal. Why not show the world the United States is so awesomely powerful that no one in his right mind would even think to get on its wrong side? It seems to make sense in a practical sort of way.

https://original.antiwar.com/srichman/2018/02/16/peace-strength-racket/

Make war to preserve the peace……another silly slogan.

Like I say slogans to try and get the approval of the people….make them think there is a threat and they then will accept massive spending on weapons and ordinance that we do not need for their protection.

Pentagon’s Drug Of Choice

Speaking of an addiction……

Our Fearless Leader has declared war on opiates….declared war but has done little to nothing to actually fix the problem other than putting “lying Eyes” Conway in charge.

We have the budget process distracting everyone from important stuff……

The Pentagon has another addiction other than opiates…..it is CASH!

Donald Trump has, it seems, finally offered his plan for dealing with the opioid crisis in America. He did so during his State of the Union address to Congress, filled with Republican applause (none louder than The Donald’s), introducing the country to an Albuquerque policeman who had decided to adopt the future baby – now named “Hope” – of a homeless, pregnant heroin addict he found preparing to shoot up behind a convenience store. Previously, the president had directed the Department of Health and Human Services to declare the opioid epidemic to be a “national emergency.” He didn’t, however, come up with an extra cent of federal money to make it so. As a result, his response to the present national crisis of addiction turns out to be a nod of approval to the possibility of police officers adopting the babies of opioid addicts.

And that’s the closest his administration has come to forward thinking on the issue of drug wars in his first year in office. The president has, in fact, been a major enabler of what may be the leading addiction crisis in America. I’m thinking about the Pentagon and its drug of choice: money. At a time when, from infrastructure to health care, money is desperately needed and seldom found, only the Pentagon is still mainlining dollars as if there were no tomorrow. It’s shooting up in full view of the world and Donald Trump is aiding and abetting the process, eternally calling for yet more money to pump up that military (as well as the U.S. nuclear arsenal).

https://original.antiwar.com/Nick_Turse/2018/02/08/us-militarys-drug-choice/

 

Never fear 2018 will be more than previous years…

The new Congressional budget boosts military spending in a big way. Last night’s PBS News report documented how military spending is projected to increase by $160 billion over two years, but that doesn’t include “overseas contingency funding” for wars, which is another $160 billion over two years. Meanwhile, spending for the opioid crisis, which is killing roughly 60,000 Americans a year (more Americans than were killed in the Vietnam War), is set at a paltry $6 billion ($25 billion was requested).

One thing is certain: Ike was right about the undue influence of the military-industrial-Congressional complex.

The military talks about needing all these scores of billions to “rebuild.” And, sure, there are ships that need to be refitted, planes in need of repairs, equipment that needs to be restocked, and veterans who need to be cared for. But a massive increase in military and war spending, perhaps as high as $320 billion over two years, is a recipe for excessive waste and even more disastrous military adventurism.

Even if you’re a supporter of big military budgets, this massive boost in military spending is bad news. Why? It doesn’t force the military to think. To set priorities. To define limits. To be creative.

Perhaps you’ve heard of the expression, “Spending money like drunken sailors on shore leave.” Our military has been drunk with money since 9/11. Is it really wise to give those “sailors” an enormous boost in the loose change they’re carrying, trusting them to spend it wisely?

Where’s The Money?

The time draws closer for the Congress to take up the issue of military funding….that is cash that we will need to funding all the wars we are now fighting and the ones on the horizon awaiting approval to be fought.

It appears that there are a few in Congress that want the AUMF to be addressed before any funding is approved….

Senate officials are hoping to get to a final vote on the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), a military spending bill in excess of $700 billion. Getting to that vote, however, means dealing with all the military and war-related amendments in the bill.

Senate leaders appear to have decided that the easiest way to get around this is to severely curtail debate on certain particularly controversial issues, with an 89-3 vote today agreeing to limit procedural debates on the matter.

Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) is trying to manage the debate, which is to say, dramatically curtail the debate. There are still major issues to be settled, however, with Sens. Rand Paul (R-KY) and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) both pushing major debates, on war authorization and transgender soldiers, respectively.

Sen. Paul intends to repeal the 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF). The amendment is seen as politically awkward for some hawks, who argue that they want to create a new AUMF that explicitly covers current wars, but who are reluctant to see any limitations placed on the way America’s wars are waged.

(antiwar.com)

That’s the 2001 AUMF problem all over. Though on paper it was intended to only cover 9/11 and the Afghan War, the authorization has been used by all presidents since as carte blanche to wage any war, anywhere on earth, in which the term terrorism can remotely be applied.

There is no secret if you are a regular here on IST that I am a definite antiwar person…..while I do not agree with muich the Sen. Paul offers up as policy I do appreciate his stand in the AUMF……

As Congress takes up the 2018 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), I will insist it vote on my amendment to sunset the 2001 and 2002 Authorizations for the Use of Military Force.

Why?

Because these authorizations to use military force are inappropriately being used to justify American warfare in 7 different countries. Sunsetting both AUMFs will force a debate on whether we continue the Afghanistan war, the Libya war, the Yemen war, the Syria war, and other interventions.

Our military trains our soldiers to be focused and disciplined, yet the politicians who send them to fight have for years ignored those traits when developing our foreign policy.

Source: Rand Paul: Why we must repeal the 16-year-old Authorization for the Use of Military Force | Rare

Personally, I think any new conflict we must fight must be authorized by Congress….there should be NO blanket authorization.

Update:  After writing this draft news came down about the defeat of this proposal….

Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) had to push heavily and very publicly against the Senate leadership to get even the limited debate that ultimately occurred on his amendment, aiming to revoke the 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF). The vote did not occur. In the middle of the debate Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN) moved to table (kill) the amendment, forcing an immediate vote. The Senate then voted to kill Paul’s amendment, by a vote of 61-36.

The post-9/11 AUMF has been interpreted broadly by US presidents as allowing unlimited war-making powers against anything even loosely described as “terror.” Sen. Paul argued that the AUMF was wrongly been used to authorize seven distinct wars, and that repealing it would force Congress to debate specific authorizations for specific wars as an alternative.

While he’d hoped this would bring in support not only from opponents of the war, but from hawks eager to get their votes on the record to authorize these many, effectively unauthorized wars, little support ultimately materialized. In addition to Sen. Paul, speaking in favor during the debate were Sens. Ben Cardin (D-MD), Chris Murphy (D-CT), and Dick Durban (D-IL).

While the failure of the amendment doesn’t preclude future efforts at passing new AUMFs to cover America’s many wars, it makes such debate a less pressing matter. Talk of an AUMF for the ISIS wars, put off since the 2014 mid-term elections on various reasons, can be expected to remain just talk, and no real advance on the effort is likely.

(antiwar.com)

This seems to get a little more popular every time they try to bring it up for a vote……hopefully the Congress will come to its senses eventually.

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.

News From Afghanistan–2 American Deaths

I know this close to the election and everyone is on the edge of their chairs hoping that their candidate will pull out the win….

But for those that actually care…..two more American soldiers were killed in Afghanistan fighting the Taleban…..and unlike the media I will NOT put the troops on the back shelf for any reason……

Two US service members were killed Thursday battling Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan alongside local troops, reports the AP, rare combat deaths for American forces who largely handed over securing the nation to Afghan troops some two years ago. NATO described the Americans killed and two other Americans wounded in the assault as being part of “a train, advise, and assist mission” in Afghanistan’s Kunduz province. They have not been identified. Kunduz officials later said they were investigating claims that local civilians also were killed in the fighting, possibly in a retaliatory airstrike.

Taliban fighters briefly overran the city of Kunduz in early October, a show of strength by the insurgents that also highlighted the troubles facing local Afghan forces 15 years after the US-led invasion of the country. The Taliban captured and held parts of Kunduz a year earlier as well before the city was fully liberated weeks later with the help of US airstrikes. Though US combat operations are officially over, thousands of US troops remain in Afghanistan, and special forces routinely accompany Afghan forces on missions, notes Reuters.

IST wishes to give our heart felt sympathy to the families of these slain soldiers……

With the deaths of these two brings up the subject of money spent and results accomplished in Afghanistan……after 15 years…..

If there is one thing that is certain in this tumultuous presidential election, it is this: Whoever replaces Obama will have to deal with the mess in Afghanistan that he leaves behind – the one he inherited from George W. Bush almost eight years ago and was unable to clean up.

Billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars have been spent trying to build up an Afghan army and instill Western values in a hard-bitten land of warlords and tribal hostilities that has never been successfully controlled or changed by a foreign power.

Now a new report by the Special Inspector General for Afghan Reconstruction (SIGAR) that points to a resurgent Taliban and failing social programs – including improving the plight of Afghan women — begs the question, “Why are we still there?”

In a story Monday, the Times says that the Taliban has stolen a page from ISIS and is actively using social media as a propaganda vehicle to trumpet its victories and taunt the government. One video, for example, showed Taliban fighters cruising around the outskirts of Lashkar Gar, the capital of a southern province, in a captured American Humvee; the government has said there were no insurgents near there. In recent days, the Times said, the Taliban released video footage – shot from cameras mounted on a drone — of a suicide-bomb attack in Helmand Province.

A bumper crop of opium poppies this year is helping to fuel the Taliban resurgence. The SIGAR report says that since 2002, the U.S. has spent $8.5 billion on counter-narcotic efforts “yet this year saw a 43% increase in opium production, according to the United Nations. Eradication results are the lowest in a decade because of security challenges, namely in Helmand Province.”

(yahoo news)

In case you are interested….we have spent $780 billion….that is just over 3/4 of a trillion dollars that is trillion with a “T”……

What part of this sounds like a success?

F-35, The Flying Turd

I have been a staunch supporter of the A-10 Warthog that is due to be retired for a flying lump of manure, the F-35……I have written several posts in defense of the A-10…..(a little reminder)…..

When I heard the the US military was thinking about replacing the A-10 Warthog with the ultra-modern F-35 I went into full ranting mode….I have been defending the honor of the Warthog…..but in case you missed some of the post I have written….a little reminder……

Source: A-10 VS F-35 – In Saner Thought

(that post contains several other posts on the A-10 controversy)

I have stated many times what a waste of taxpayer money this “brick” is and yet the defense department keeps throwing taxpayer cash at it……

The Pentagon will need as much as $530 million extra to finish the development phase for Lockheed Martin Corp.’s F-35, the most expensive U.S. weapons system ever, defense officials said.

……..

The call for more money comes as the Pentagon’s chief weapons tester has issued a fresh warning that the aircraft, projected to cost $379 billion for a fleet of 2,443 U.S. planes, is far from showing it has full combat capability.

Source: The Lockheed F-35 Needs Another Half Billion Dollars – Bloomberg

A project that should have cost $379 billion now needs yet another infusion of taxpayer cash to the tune of $530 billion……that brings the total of a trillion (trillion with a “T”) for a piece of crap!

How much  more money will this debacle cost the American taxpayer….,that waste of money is needed elsewhere……rime for the DoD to admit that this is a failure and spend the money on more realistic programs.

Put this turd in the crapper where it belongs…the A-10 is the best plane for the defense of our troops…..period!

When will the taxpayer begin to regret that their money is being pissed away on programs that about as useful as rotten turnip?

An Obsolescent Military

Since Vietnam the US has depended on air power to turn the tide of the war/conflict….today we not only have highly qualified pilots but also depend on drones to do some of the heavy lifting…..

But after multi-million ordinances deployed and thousands on thousands of sorties….what have we gained?

But first let’s look at the word “obsolescent”…….meaning basically…no longer useful……

What, precisely, is the US military for, and what, precisely, can it do? In practical terms, how powerful is it? On paper, it is formidable, huge, with carrier battle groups, advanced technology, remarkable submarines, satellites, and so on. What does this translate to?

Military power does not exist independently, but only in relation to specific circumstances. Comparing technical specifications of the T-14 to those of the M1A2, or Su-34 to F-15, or numbers of this to numbers of that, is an interesting intellectual exercise. It means little without reference to specific circumstances.

For example, America is vastly superior militarily to North Korea in every category of arms–but the North has nuclear bombs. It can’t deliver them to the US, but probably can to Seoul. Even without nuclear weapons, it has a large army and large numbers of artillery tubes within range of Seoul. It has an unpredictable government. As Gordon Liddy said, if your responses to provocation are wildly out of proportion to those provocations, and unpredictable, nobody will provoke you.

Source: An Obsolescent Military – The Unz Review

Unz Review has a decidedly Libertarian point of view…..when reading that take it into consideration before going off on some worthless tangent.

Wasted Time And Wasted Money

For a couple of years I have been drawing attention to the stupid at the Pentagon when they wanted to replace the close combat support plane, A-10 Warthog, with a gold plated brick, the F-35……a plane that has had nothing but problems….and the list of problems is extensive…..here read the problems for yourself……

The F-35, which comes with an estimated $1.5 trillion pricetag over the life of the program, has faced numerous hurdles and delays. Most recently, there have been concerns over its computer systems’ vulnerability, and Chinese hackers have possibly stolen classified data related to the project.

The F-35’s construction has continued, and it is being manufactured across multiple states and different countries. For better or worse, it’s going to be the US and its allies’ main warplane for decades to come.

Source: Pentagon: Here are all the problems with the F-35 – Business Insider

But guess what?  The Air Force is not the only service that has a piece of crap for equipment……the Navy is having similar problems with their newest warship…..

When a branch of the US military starts rolling out a new pet project, it is rarely either cost effective or literally effective. The US Navy’s littoral combat ship (LCS) program is really underscoring that recently, with more ships breaking at seemingly random, meaning four nearly brand new ships have broken down in less than a year.

Just yesterday, the Navy discussed problems with its first LCS, the USS Freedom, which inexplicably was put out of commission back in July when seawater got into the engine and the oil system and started rusting things out. Limping back to home port, the USS Freedom now needs an engine replaced outright, with no timetable for the fix, or the cost.

Today, officials reported the USS Coronado, which only got commissioned back in 2014, has suffered an unspecified “engine casualty” and is struggling back to Pearl Harbor for repairs. It had just left Pearl Harbor on Friday.

That makes four LCS ships that have broken down in the past year, which is a pretty disastrous track record considering that even the oldest ship, the USS Freedom, was commissioned in late 2008, and the US only had a total of six active duty LCS ships in total.

The LCS is a product of the US Navy’s efforts, in the wake of the Cold War, to shift its priorities away from having more large capital ships than the Soviet Union toward just having a lot of stuff that floats about in the water, so they could have a nominal presence more or less anywhere.

The idea was that the LCS would be a low-cost, reliable ship for limited missions around coastlines, but the reality is that upkeep on the ships has been dramatically higher than initial estimates, and an LCS ends up costing more than a larger, and more combat-ready ship like a frigate.

Still, with several billion dollars sunk into the plan and the Navy’s priorities still squarely on quantity over quality, the LCS fleet is being constructed in earnest, even as the few already completed stumble back into the docks, because they didn’t do so great on the reliability front either.

(antiwar.com)

The more we try to improve our equipment for our troops the more we screw up everything……what could possibly be the reason?

Defense contracts……it is about the bucks not the quality of the equipment….

Maybe they should adopt a new slogan…..”plan smarter….not cheaper”

Thoughts?

How About an Amerexit

I know I said that I would let the “Brexit” thing go for now…..but I read an article that made a lot of sense……..at least to me…..

As long as everyone is running for an exit….why not the US?

The US is up to its butt in military alliances and as usual we are funding most of them……maybe it is time to re-think all this involvement and let others handle their own problems….just I thought….

With populism running wild in Europe and in the United States – the Brexit and American presidential candidate Donald Trump questioning U.S. alliances being just two obvious examples – suddenly people are asking the big questions about the future of Western institutions that should have been asked after the Cold War ended. Both the Brexit […]

Source: How About an Amerexit from NATO and Other One-Sided Military Alliances? – Antiwar.com Original by — Antiwar.com

This would go a long way in doing what most GOPers are always whining about…..lower the budget deficit….maybe even help balance the damn thing….

Can I get an Amen?

The Civil War Inside the US Military

I have been writing a blog now for 10 years and I have always kept with my beliefs that we should not rush into conflict for any reason short of an attack on the nation proper……I can justify the invasion of Afghanistan but not the occupation for 14 years…..in all that time I have also been a keen observer of the budget battle especially the money that will be earmarked for the military or what we call the defense budget…..

This year is no different……I have been watching the battle for the budget on the Hill…..I have watched the propaganda machine go into full tilt boogey…..The Russian are coming seems to be the war cry…..

In early April, a battalion of senior military officials appeared before a Senate panel and testified that the US Army is “outranged and outgunned,” particularly in any future conflict with Russia. Arguing for a much bigger budget for the Army, they claimed that, absent a substantial increase in funding, the Russians would overtake us and, even scarier, “the army of the future will be too small to secure the nation.”

The Russians are coming! The Russians are coming! And before you know it, Brooklyn will be renamed Putingrad.

Source: The Civil War Inside the US Military – Antiwar.com Original by — Antiwar.com

It will be interesting to see where this budget, the final budget, will lead our military….will the armed conflicts continue to rise or will calmer heads prevail?

Any bets?