Defense cuts

Obama goes on offense over defense cuts

In Like a Lion, Out Like a Lamb...

Obama affirms US commitment to Iraq: President says US troops will leave behind a self-reliant Iraq, but warns neighbours not to meddle in country's affairs.

As I've said before - New Shiite Alliance Excludes Iraqi Prime Minister - I think the Iraqi Shiite link to Iran has been overblown. We will soon find out who is correct and whether or not Iran truly does want a major role in Iraq and not just an ally in the region.

Rep. Frank: Keeping troops in Iraq past withdrawal date ‘totally unacceptable’

I can't do much more than to quote from what Rep. Frank said. I think he hit the nail on the head:

“The biggest single chunk of deficit reduction must come from scaling back our enormous military expenditures from where they now are to where our legitimate needs are,” Frank said.


“There is no way at all to do a socially responsible deficit-reduction plan — no way to do a long-term deficit reduction [plan] which preserves our ability to protect the quality of life here in this country, and elsewhere in the world — without very substantial reductions in military spending.”


Frank was quick to note the importance of maintaining a powerful military to protect U.S. interests, weaker allies and the homeland — but with limitations.


“I do want the U.S. Air Force to be the largest air force in the world,” he said. “But I don’t think the U.S. Navy has to be the second largest air force in the world for us to be safe. I’d be happy if … the Navy was tied for fourth.”


The threat of terrorism, he argued, is nothing like that posed by Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union during the Cold War.


“It is not an existential threat to the United States,” he said. “You don’t defeat terrorism with nuclear submarines. I wish you did, because we have them and they don’t. It would be over.”


The outspoken Massachusetts liberal also urged the elimination of substantial U.S. forces in Europe, arguing that the political climate requiring those troops is long gone.


“Harry Truman, I think, did a great thing in 1949 when he went to the aid of a beleaguered, poor, war-broken Western and Central Europe threatened by Stalin,” Frank said. “Europe’s no longer weak and poor; Stalin is fortunately long dead and his successors crumbled; the only thing that hasn’t changed is America continues to subsidize heavily the defense of the wealthy nations of Western Europe against non-existent threats.”

Careful preparation, rather than expensive weapons, took out Osama Bin Laden

Emotionally, the Bush administration—and the country—felt the need for a major military response after the attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. But although Iraq may still come right in the end, was it the best use of our money and resources? Afghanistan may eventually become stable—but haven't we just learned, if we didn't know it already, that the real and more complicated threat now comes from Pakistan? In 2008, the U.S. ambassador to Kabul told me, in effect, that Pakistan was none of his business. Perhaps it should have been.

Are you kidding me William Braucher Wood? Pakistan was none of your business? No wonder it took almost 10 years to get bin Laden. I bet Ronald Neumann, ambassador from 2005 to 2007, felt the same way.

A new national security team

Here are some quick comments on the national security moves:

It appears clear to me that Ryan Crocker will be an upgrade over Karl Eikenberry as ambassador to Afghanistan.

As to the other moves, in my mind, Secretary Gates is the finest Secretary of Defense in our history. Mr. Panetta, although talented, probably won't come close to Secretary Gates. Secretary Gates has been fighting the DoD bureaucracy since the beginning of his tenure asking for budget cuts and to spend money on "stuff" we need now, not 20 years from now; he was a visionary. Mr. Panetta, a Washington insider, is not a visionary.

With regards to the GEN Petraeus move, it seems like a lateral move that just allows him to collect his Army retirement check and a paycheck for being CIA Director, while keeping him in the United States with his family (most of the time). This move also keeps him off the ballot, an added benefit to career politicians that view him as a potential threat.

Finally, Lt. Gen. Allen will do a fine job in Afghanistan if his work in Iraq's MNF-W is any indicator.



Here is an excerpt from the article:

Perhaps the greatest risk of the reshuffle comes in Afghanistan, where the departure of Gen. Petraeus will remove America’s most skilled military commander from a campaign that appears to be teetering between success and failure. Lt. Gen. Allen, however, was a key contributor to the successful turnaround of the war in Iraq; and Mr. Crocker offers a major improvement over his predecessor, Karl Eikenberry, who contributed substantially to the souring of U.S. relations with Afghan President Hamid Karzai.

President Obama's Defense Cuts

I still think that the last thing that should be cut from the DoD budget is manpower. It takes years to build. We can quickly build more planes, bombs, and tanks, but we can't quickly build up end-strength. Unfortunately, both Secretary Gates, who I agree with frequently, and President Obama, feel otherwise. We have a force that is tired and weary; cutting 40,000 of them will only make them more tired as we ask them to do even more.

Gates: The Pentagon's accountability cop

Too bad he is one of the few accountability cops. I think back to Mario Cuomo's speech in the 1984 Democratic National Convention often. To paraphrase he spoke about President Reagan giving tax breaks to millionaires and buying missiles we couldn't afford. If we are going to cut spending, both parties need to dismantle the military industrial complex as we know it. Not on the personnel front, but in the R&D front where waste is plentiful.

Sources of the DoD spending cuts

State Dept. faces skyrocketing costs as it prepares to expand role in Iraq

Look at how hard it is to keep funding in place without DoD and the defense industrial complex taking the lead...

Netherlands becomes first NATO country to end its combat mission in Afghanistan

The Runaway General

I love GEN McChrystal more than ever now. What did the administration think they were going to get with an SF Officer in charge? Someone that isn't sarcastic and speaks his mind? The President and Vice-President need to calm down. On another note, the more I keep reading about Eikenberry lately, the less I like him. He seems to be creating way too much tension everywhere he goes. Calm down Karl, not being made a four-star general before your military retirement isn't the end of the world. I know you are a little jealous of that fourth star on McChrystal's uniform...

Erdogan Rebuffs U.S. While Protesting `Propaganda' Turkey Is Iranian Ally

This is a spectacular overview of the "new" Turkey. Very informative and a glimpse into the new developing dynamic...

Apathy and Corruption in Afghanistan

As the U.S. military sets out to secure cities including Kandahar, it is relying far more heavily on Afghan forces than at any time in the past nine years, when the American mission focused mainly on defeating the Taliban in the countryside, rather than securing the population. But the Afghan forces are proving poorly equipped and sometimes unmotivated, breeding the same frustration U.S. troops felt in Iraq when they began building up security forces beset by corruption, sectarianism, political meddling and militia infiltration...

The United States and other Western allies still plan to inject hundreds of millions of dollars and thousands more troops into Kandahar and surrounding villages this year to try to wrest control of Taliban strongholds and allow breathing room for the expansion of government services in an area that has been effectively lawless for decades...

The vast majority of police officers in Kandahar are illiterate. The allocation of fuel they get from the Interior Ministry is either insufficient or partially stolen virtually every month. Officers are dependent on NATO troops for everything from fuel, ammunition and bottled water for checkpoints to generators and air conditioners for police stations.

Corruption is institutionalized throughout the ranks, and American soldiers say Taliban spies and sympathizers have infiltrated the force.

The former police chief at the station Rathmann is embedded in was dismissed recently for suspected links to insurgents. His deputy was locked up briefly for allegedly stealing cases of bottled water.

The new chief defends officers' right to collect bribes, pointing out that their starting pay -- $210 a month -- is grossly inadequate...

U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team

The report released last week by the DHS inspector general reveals an institution that is floundering. CERT is understaffed, with no capacity to do anything other than process data for anomalies and react to breaches after the fact with fixes it has no authority to enforce. Among the report's findings: Of the 98 positions authorized for the emergency readiness team, only 45 are filled, forcing it to rely on outside contractors to perform even basic functions such as updating operating procedures.

After seven years, CERT still lacks a strategic plan, goals or any performance measures to assess its progress. Making its role as the nation's ostensible first line of cyber defense still more difficult is the fact that it has no authority to ensure that any of its safety recommendations are implemented, even by the other federal agencies it is charged with protecting. Many partner agencies reported not receiving any instructions for CERT's primary monitoring software, making it difficult for them to access information about threats.

Keep Fighting!

"As recently as last month, the DoD [Department of Defense] F-35 team provided positive feedback on the technical and financial performance of the GE/Rolls Royce team,” Rice wrote. “This is not our opinion, but the judgment of the managers of the Joint Strike Fighter office.”

The Joint Strike Fighter Office is made up of colonels who will never be promoted to general and want to get a job along with their military retirement check after 30 years. I'm willing to bet the entire office goes to work for a defense contractor after "retiring" from their Pentagon desk job at colonel. Why would they oppose a program that justifies their existence in the private sector; a job that allows them to be "experts" and get paid $200,000 per year after military retirement. Who cares that ground pounders go through a pair of boots every two weeks in Afghanistan and only receive two pairs per year from the military, they think.

See also:
GE woos Pentagon

GE and Rolls Royce woo the Pentagon

Once again, the military industrial complex and beholden politicians are making bad decisions. They don't seem to understand that when one door closes, another opens RE: killing this engine. There will be another project...

The GE-Rolls-Royce team is facing an uphill battle at the Pentagon, where Defense Secretary Robert Gates has already threatened to recommend that the defense bills be vetoed if they contain funding for the secondary engine.

The fixed-price offer comes less than a month before congressional defense committees are expected to start considering the fiscal 2011 budget, renewing their tug-of-war with the administration over the benefits of having two engines for the Pentagon’s largest fighter jet purchase.

The defense committees have provided funding to develop the secondary engine despite the Pentagon’s efforts to kill it over the last four years.

Obama must decide whether to talk to the Taliban

Neighboring countries and most Afghans believe that the endgame has begun for a post-U.S. Afghanistan. There are just 14 months for the U.S. military surge to show results while Washington simultaneously prepares to begin its July 2011 troop withdrawal and handover to the Afghan government. Already, efforts to jockey for future control of Afghanistan have been seen among Pakistan, India, Iran and even Russia. Several NATO countries eager to withdraw forces are frustrated. It is clear in the region that someone will have to mediate with the Taliban, but in the absence of U.S. leadership, a tug of war is taking place over who will do it, when, how and where.

The only thing worse than a U.S. attack on Iran would be an Israeli one.