Counter-IED Research and Development to be cut?

Pentagon Program to Limit the Threat of Roadside Bombs Faces Budget Cut

This is one R&D project that should not be cut from the DoD budget.  The threats from IEDs are not going away... It is quite sad that R&D needed in today's operations is cut, but unproven and expensive R&D designed for warfare generations down the road is kept.

Lawmakers claim that "lack of coordination” with some activities undertaken by the individual services led to their discussion of program cuts.  In fact, the committee report said, “The Army and the Marine Corps have pursued their own separate efforts to develop counter-IED mine rollers.”  This is one more example of inter-service rivalry vying for military industrial complex dollars.  The first change that needs to be made is getting rid of bottom-up budget making.  The Secretary of Defense needs to be given a dollar amount by the President, like every other cabinet secretary, and then divy the money out to the services, rather than the services coming up with a budget on their own and submitting it to the Secretary.  In this instance, if the SECDEF had said "Counter-IED programs" get $X and the Marine Corps and Army will split the money and conduct research jointly, the current problem described would not be happening.

With Air Force's new drone, 'we can see everything'

This seems like very promising technology. It is funny how the AF is already framing its argument about how important they are and that ground troops won't be needed as much. It sounds very similiar to their "air power" argument at the end of WWII and during the Cold War arguing that bombing alone can win wars.

The Air Force placed a contractor on the set of a reality TV show to learn how to pick out the interesting scenes shot from cameras simultaneously recording the action in a house. And taking a page from high-tech companies such as Google, the Air Force will store its reams of video on servers placed in used shipping containers in Iowa.

The Air Force is looking to mount wide-area surveillance cameras on airships that can stay aloft for up to two weeks.

"This is all cutting-edge technology that is being fielded in a short period of time," said retired Lt. Gen. David A. Deptula, who served as deputy chief of staff for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance.

"If you look into the not-too-distant future, what these technologies will allow us to do is remove more and more ground forces and replace them with sensors where we normally would have to rely on people going somewhere to find something out," he said.

Feeling Warehoused in Army Trauma Care Units

This is a spectacular article detailing the Army's ongoing problems. Here is an excerpt:

For many soldiers, they have become warehouses of despair, where damaged men and women are kept out of sight, fed a diet of powerful prescription pills and treated harshly by noncommissioned officers. Because of their wounds, soldiers in Warrior Transition Units are particularly vulnerable to depression and addiction, but many soldiers from Fort Carson’s unit say their treatment there has made their suffering worse.

This overmedication seems remarkably similiar to what I wrote about almost two years ago in June 2008:America's Medicated Army

Military Suicides Up Among Soldiers in Repeat Army Tours

This is not surprising since servicemembers are never given any time to get used to "normal" life before returning to the war zone, divorce rates are through the roof, and when war veterans leave the service they can't even find a job. They are pushed away from the non-draft "these wars don't affect me" society, a society that owes them everything, but gives them nothing, after dreaming non-stop, sometimes for years, of the great world they were to return to after serving in war. The let-down is depressing for any veteran. It is no wonder they would rather leave this world than continue in it. Below is a painting by Van Gogh, finished days before he shot himself; his last words were "the sadness will last forever."

On the Threshold of Eternity (1882)

Vincent Van Gogh

But we don't want no stinking MEADS!

MEADS, which is scheduled to be delivered in 2018, is designed to intercept short-range and cruise missiles as well as shoot down planes and drones. Unlike the Patriot, the MEADS system is mobile and can be trucked around a battlefield, with its radar swiveling 360 degrees to track targets from any direction.

The only reason the Pentagon wants this thing is to appease Europe. Euro-free-riders need to spend more on defense, their own defense, not us... especially since they think supporting NATO operations is voluntary. Besides, from an angry bear perspective, wouldn't cutting off oil and natural gas to Europe be even more effective than missile strikes? Aren't Russian and Iranian missiles just for May Day and Revolution Day parades anyhow?

Transferring this project from the U.S. Army, which has tactical authority over ground to air defense, to the Missile Defense Agency, which is a strategic authority more in line with SDI/Star Wars type missile defense primarily led by Air Force officers, is a mistake. Where we need to transfer the authority to is NATO HQ and wipe this off of our budget. Oh wait, we basically are NATO. Catch-22.

One More Division for the Army

This is a good time to expand the Army... bad economy = recruitment numbers up. Perhaps they could bring back 2AD "Hell on Wheels" - this time actually on wheels, not track, in Strykers.

Army wants to save pieces of Future Combat Systems

Secretary Gates' (pbuh) laying the smack down on GEN Casey face

My question is, if the Army wants to save pieces of the FCS, why can't the Army just use their budget money to buy the patents to said technology? Then they could do whatever they want with the technology. Too bad not many lawyers read this blog to chime in...

Also, showing that his screw-ups were not limited to his time as MNF-I commander, here is an excerpt quoting GEN Casey saying that, "Boy I thought I could convince my boss to buy a Bugatti Veyron, even though he only wanted a Ford Fusion."

“I ultimately could not convince him that we had taken enough of the lessons that we learned from the current fight and incorporate them into that vehicle program,” said Gen. George Casey, the Army’s chief of staff, who was unusually frank about the service’s disagreement with Gates. “I thought we had, but he thought we hadn’t,” and so Gates proposed cutting $87 billion that was to fund a new generation of light armored vehicles.

Army More Selective as Economy Lags

A bad economy is good for something at least...