Tag: Military Spending

Military Budget Under The Knife?

When Obama was elected president I wondered if the mushrooming economic crisis would effect the massive military budget that seems to grow no matter how bad the economy gets.  My question is sorta answered….but we will see.

Hi-tech fighter aircraft, new warships and missile defense projects are all potential targets for big cuts in the US defense budget, as the American military faces a new era of limits under President Barack Obama.

With a mushrooming budget deficit of more than a trillion dollars, the new administration has signaled it hopes to scale back military spending partly through a planned reduction of troops in Iraq and by taking the axe to big ticket weapons programs.

A list of candidates for possible cutbacks drawn up by the Pentagon includes more Navy destroyers built by General Dynamics, fighter jets including Lockheed Martin and Boeing’s F-22 Raptors and carrier-based Super Hornets, a digital radio system for all the armed services and missile defense weaponry for Poland and the Czech Republic.

Gates has already singled out the F-22 Raptor fighters, which cost about 350 million dollars each, for potential cutbacks.

Military analysts have also questioned the need for more Navy aircraft carriers and a computer-linked network of Army vehicles, known as Future Combat Systems, which has faced criticism.

On the political left, Obama has already been accused of failing to rein in the vast Pentagon budget that represents nearly half of the world’s military spending.

“The Barack Obama administration is continuing the neo-conservative agenda of US military domination of the world — albeit with perhaps with a kinder-gentler face,” said Peter Phillips, a professor at Sonoma State University and director of Project Censored.

For decades, the military budget was been sacred and untouchable…maybe those days are coming to an end.

Will China Enter “New” Cold War?

China fears containment abroad and separatist groups at home, a defense policy paper said on Tuesday, justifying a drive to increase military spending and push the People’s Liberation Army into the high-tech era.

China’s security has been improving as its economy grows and the PLA embraces modernization, the defense “white paper” said, but pro-independence forces in Taiwan, Tibet and the energy-rich western region of Xinjiang still “pose threats to China’s unity and security.”

China has pointed to its recent deployment of navy ships to police pirate-troubled seas off Africa as a sign of benign military intentions. Analysts say the mission shows a rising but cautious power’s desire to project its growing global influence without alarming neighbors.

But China’s increased spending on arms has been criticized as opaque by other countries, including the United States and Japan.

Beijing says its defense budget is purely for defensive purposes and is quite open, and it notes its budget is much smaller than the Pentagon’s. Experts estimate China’s true defense spending could be as much as triple the stated figure.

Russia has entered, and now there are indications that China wants to be part of any “new” Cold War”.