Remember recent TV ads in which the Department of the Navy depicts our ship deployments in the form of red dots across the globe? All of the dots that really matter, the carriers, are presently sitting in harbor (or someplace equally innocuous) at their moorings This weekend represents the first time since days pre WW2 that the US failed to protect her own interests with at least one carrier group on patrol. The reason cited was budgetary shortfall.
So, while President Obama and family enjoy yet another 10 million dollar Hawaiian vacation, the Carrier USS George H W Bush is at dock collecting barnacles for lack of funds to operate at sea. The same report stated she would sail sometime shortly following the coming of the New Year.
Any of his defenders want to step up and tell us all about what a great President he is now? What a disgrace, 19 days and counting.
Trump has done more for the U.S. economy in the short time from being elected to now than Obama has in 8 years.
Trump's already Made America Greater than Obama ever did.
I look for any nation holding U.S. citizens hostage/detained to be released before Trump takes office or shortly thereafter. If not, I see President Trump showing the rest of the world that he means business with the safety of our nation and citizens.
Agreed. We need to revamp our military again. But the liberals are howling like werewolves about cost. In point of fact, the combined services need about 2,500 F-35's. The price tag for those 2,500 F-35's is 382 billion. Now, call me overly pragmatic. But being prepared is far less expensive than not being prepared.
Take the 9/11 attacks. 19 guys with box cutters were able to permanently change the skyline of Manhattan, and further inflict 3 Trillion dollars in damages to the US and her economy over the following 3 years. And we got nada for that 3 Trillion, certainly not any new military hardware, it just went up in smoke. Imagine what a crack division of Russian infantry, backed up by a naval force with a carrier with comparable jet fighter aircraft might do if such a force were able to make a landing in Mexico for example. Maybe a little off the wall, but say they just moved that force to Cuba, while Iran made it's move on Israel. In that day 382 billion in the face of the 3 trillion that 9/11 cost, or a Russian occupation in Cuba might cost, suddenly becomes pretty darn affordable. Say affordable about 10 times for us there Nancy. We have to keep our foes at bay. I guarantee if North Korea gets the door open far enough they will make a hole where Japan or Guam used to be. Which conflict we would be automatically drawn into by treaty. And that says nothing about Iran and the Middle East.
I hope Trump pushes the at least the F-35 program through. And if I had my way the F-22 program would get a restart too. Like the guy famously said on the 6 Million Dollar Man, "We have the technology." Let's use it. But that is the fallacy of liberal foreign policy, we can duck spending for the short term, but it will come back to bite us one way or the other. It's cheaper to do what Trump says, and have a military force too terrible to go up against. At least American soldiers would be paid a living, military contractors would provide thousands of jobs, and we'd have the military hardware to show for it.
Or I suppose we could just send our enemies pallet loads of cash in the middle of the night to bribe them, and then they can built up their own military.
We are these days constantly fed the line that the US is the world's most formidable superpower, the like of which has never been seen. And we are. But the edge or the margin we once enjoyed has been pared down significantly in some vital areas.
Though Russian claims of nuclear superiority are obviously not true, we have allowed our own deterrent to erode owing to ordinance retirement and aging technology. We have to upgrade. But military hardware is aging across the board and meanwhile our potential foes are catching up. Both Russia and China have new aircraft that can kill the F16, F14, F15 and F18 which are 4th generation fighters. The 5th generation fighters such as the F22 and F35 were meant to give the US air superiority for the next 3 decades, but are meeting fierce resistance from the left who have argued mostly on financial grounds, that the US does not need the new fighters to neutralize the tactical threat.
The same shortfall in hardware is true for the US Navy, Army, Marines and Coast Guard. But the corker is in military personnel. We've pink slipped away many of our best and brightest and in so doing, have set back our capability to train a viable force to a point dangerously tenuous in the face of real threat.
Thus IMHO we come to the real threat to our national security, and that is in the fatal error of underestimating, or understating our enemy's military capabilities. Quite the rosy picture had been painted several years ago, by folks like former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and various officials of the present administration. But at the end of the Obama era, that picture isn't quite as rosy as we the people were led to believe. The F35 is way late for deployment, as it is admittedly over budget. And the overall preparedness of our Armed Services, though ready to repel terrorist nations of the Middle East, is not ready to face off against the big powers. According to Obama et-al, as was revealed in his scoffing chastisement of Mitt Romney, the threat of large scale war is gone. To him, everybody has evolved in their thinking, (21st Century style) and now rejects war. Isn't that nice?
Such is the real problem behind our shrinking US military. The unfortunate encroachment of the liberal into the political arena has had it's affect. It's a matter of perceived realities. The liberal can rationalize any welfare program, while they can cut any existing component of national defense.
Thankfully we now have a President who will listen to our generals, and not voices from La-La Land where everything is daffodils and lollypops.