Us military cuts

[Bob]

Don gave me permission to post this.

We have all been aware of the cuts to defense going on at the Pentagon. Don, writes articles in Florida for their publications. Don retired from the Air Force as a fairly high rank as an Officer then went to work as PR person for a defense company then retired again.

This was not published but is a letter to me where I sought his view on the cuts to defense.





Donald Gilleland



10:26 AM (12 hours ago)https://mail.google.com/mail/images/cleardot.gif



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to me
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Bob,

Feel free to use this.


Don


There are no easy answers to your questions. Our President is unilaterally disarming us. For what reason I can't be sure. When I was on active duty we had over a million men and women in each branch of the military. Today we barely have one million in all of the services combined, and Obama wants to take them down further than pre-World War II numbers, which is very dangerous in this uniquely unstable world. Fifty years ago we had a 600 ship Navy and now we're down to just over a 300 ship Navy and Obama wants to take it down further. The A-10 Warthog is one of the very best close air support aircraft in our inventory. Even though it is 40+ years old, it is still a great airplane. Its 30mm Gatling Gun, mounted on the front of the aircraft, just chews up enemy tanks. The suggestion is that we use the F-35 for close air support, which is ridiculous. It's a $135 million air superiority aircraft that doesn't even yet perform to specs. Why would we get rid of a great performing aircraft, even if it is old, to depend on an as yet unreliable fighter aircraft to perform a mission it wasn't designed to perform? Even when the F-35 is perfected it won't be a match for the 5th generation fighters being built by Russia and China. They will be equivalent to our F-22, which we quit building because of costs. Its costs grew to $190 million a copy.

On another issue, we have virtually abandoned Israel. I didn't think that would ever happen. I suspect Israel will yet have to take out Iran's nuclear capability by themselves.

I don't know what President Obama's end game is, but it can't be good for our country. I don't respect the general officers who are marching in lock step with him. I would like to see some of them resign over principle. But that won't happen. Their rationale is that he would just replace them with someone else who would do his bidding, and they can do more for the country by staying on active duty.

Bob, I fear for our country. Not for me. I'm too old for it to matter much, but I fear for the next two generations coming behind me. It isn't a pretty picture.

Don

[Max Rockatansky]

Thanks for the letter, Bob.

A little nitpicking; Don is wrong about the manpower numbers. Neither the Marine Corps nor the Coast Guard ever numbered a million man force.

When I was on active duty we had over a million men and women in each branch of the military.
http://www.marines.com/history-heritage/timeline

Don is correct about the superiority of the A-10 as a close-air support (CAS) aircraft. However, the Air Force never liked it. The Army's complaints basically forced it on the Air Force. All A-10s are in the Air Force Reserve and they've been seeking to retire it for some time.

This link from last year shows Congressional legislators seeking to stop the Air Force from retiring the aircraft: http://defensetech.org/2013/12/13/bill-blocks-air-force-from-retiring-a-10-warthog/

While the President and Congress are responsible for our budget, the services themselves are responsible (within limits) of how their budgets are spent.


Lawmakers have pushed back against any talk of the A-10’s retirement. Sen. Kelly Ayotte, R-N.H., blocked the nomination of the Air Force secretary, citing her concerns about Air Force’s A-10 plans and Defense Department struggles to bring the Joint Strike Fighter online.

Air Force has not formally made a decision about whether to retire the aircraft. However, Lt. Gen. Charles Davis, Military Deputy for Air Force Acquisition, made clear that budget restrictions have forced the service to consider cutting entire programs to save money.


“Everything that we have is being effected by sequestration right now – satellites, missiles, air frames have already been cut 13 percent. Do you try to retire something so that you get rid of the entire logistics trail and the depot? You can save a lot of money. That is the discussion that is going on right now,” he said.


The potential budget deal that still needs to be approved by the Senate and signed by President Obama would reduce sequestration cuts and add $3 to $7 billion to the Air Force’s budget. However, Davis said the service would not prioritize saving the A-10 and instead listed funding more flying hours and the Joint Strike Fighter program has higher priorities.

[Codename Section]

WWII levels were appropriate for a world war.

I have no problem with saying Obama dislikes and misunderstands the military, but I do have problems with saying this is about hating or downsizing.

The military's advancement in technology has changed how we look at troops and force. The type of training our 0311's get today is like that of special operations in the 1980s. Our scout snipers now get the training force recon got in the 80's, force recon turned into SOCOM and now get SEAL/Delta style training.

The entire military is refining and honing into more specialized teams because we don't have the same types of wars as they used to have.

This is not a big deal to anyone actually in the know, no offense to your friend.

[donttread]

Don gave me permission to post this.

We have all been aware of the cuts to defense going on at the Pentagon. Don, writes articles in Florida for their publications. Don retired from the Air Force as a fairly high rank as an Officer then went to work as PR person for a defense company then retired again.
For too long we have turned national defense into an imperialistic offense it was never intended to be. Time to get back to where we need to be.
This was not published but is a letter to me where I sought his view on the cuts to defense.






Donald Gilleland





10:26 AM (12 hours ago)https://mail.google.com/mail/images/cleardot.gif



https://mail.google.com/mail/images/cleardot.gif
https://mail.google.com/mail/images/cleardot.gif






to me
https://mail.google.com/mail/images/cleardot.gif











Bob,

Feel free to use this.


Don


There are no easy answers to your questions. Our President is unilaterally disarming us. For what reason I can't be sure. When I was on active duty we had over a million men and women in each branch of the military. Today we barely have one million in all of the services combined, and Obama wants to take them down further than pre-World War II numbers, which is very dangerous in this uniquely unstable world. Fifty years ago we had a 600 ship Navy and now we're down to just over a 300 ship Navy and Obama wants to take it down further. The A-10 Warthog is one of the very best close air support aircraft in our inventory. Even though it is 40+ years old, it is still a great airplane. Its 30mm Gatling Gun, mounted on the front of the aircraft, just chews up enemy tanks. The suggestion is that we use the F-35 for close air support, which is ridiculous. It's a $135 million air superiority aircraft that doesn't even yet perform to specs. Why would we get rid of a great performing aircraft, even if it is old, to depend on an as yet unreliable fighter aircraft to perform a mission it wasn't designed to perform? Even when the F-35 is perfected it won't be a match for the 5th generation fighters being built by Russia and China. They will be equivalent to our F-22, which we quit building because of costs. Its costs grew to $190 million a copy.

On another issue, we have virtually abandoned Israel. I didn't think that would ever happen. I suspect Israel will yet have to take out Iran's nuclear capability by themselves.

I don't know what President Obama's end game is, but it can't be good for our country. I don't respect the general officers who are marching in lock step with him. I would like to see some of them resign over principle. But that won't happen. Their rationale is that he would just replace them with someone else who would do his bidding, and they can do more for the country by staying on active duty.

Bob, I fear for our country. Not for me. I'm too old for it to matter much, but I fear for the next two generations coming behind me. It isn't a pretty picture.

Don

[Mainecoons]

The U.S. can't anymore afford to police the world than it can the bloated welfare/government state.

We should be thinking at least 25 percent reduction in the total budget. There should be no sacred cows. Government has become so bloated and incompetent in America that it consumes 40 percent of the GNP and has reached the point where it is throttling the private sector.

You either cut it or it collapses the private economy. Those are the choices.

[Peter1469]

I feel bad about the retirement of the A-10 as myself and a shit load of soldiers in my battalion may have been killed in Iraq (1991) without them, but the email sort of hits it- tank killers. What enemy do we have has tanks? Russia and China, but we will likely only get to kill those tanks if we go into Russia or China. Neither have the ability to get their tanks to the US and sustain them in prolonged combat operations. Those planes should never have been air force anyway..., army all the way.

We don't need a million man force if we stop playing world cop. We can intervene when vital US national security interests are at stake. And that doesn't include vital Israeli security interests. Israel is a sovereign nation state so it has to put on its big-boy pants and defend itself.

The key, and where the US got it wrong in the past is to cut wisely. We need the combat arms force along with the sustaining force to operate brigade (not division) level forces for limited full spectrum engagements. Take nation building out of the tool kit and you eliminate the need for large occupying forces. Gen. Colin Powell was wrong: if we (a sovereign nation) breaks it, we don't own it.

On edit: look at the costs of Desert Storm (short war, no occupation), the invasion of Afghanistan through the fall of the Taliban, and then the invasion of Iraq and the fall of Baghdad. Every inexpensive compared to the decade of rebuilding in Afghanistan and Iraq.

[Paperback Writer]

I was under the impression that the cut to the defence budget is merely 1% (or something of a less-than-3%) reduction, am I incorrect?

[Peter1469]

I don't know the exact cuts, but it likely is only a cut to projected growth. So instead of an 8% increase they will get a 3% increase and complain that they had to absorb a 5% cut, as an example.

[Paperback Writer]

I don't know the exact cuts, but it likely is only a cut to projected growth. So instead of an 8% increase they will get a 3% increase and complain that they had to absorb a 5% cut, as an example.

This is what I had suspected. It is no real cut, whatsoever.

[Peter1469]

It is base-line budgeting.

[Max Rockatansky]

I was under the impression that the cut to the defence budget is merely 1% (or something of a less-than-3%) reduction, am I incorrect?

Do you have any links? Depending on who is publishing the numbers, there are several ways to manipulate what percent of the budget is dedicated to national defense. There is total budget when people what to show that it is either small or that cuts are small, there is "mandatory" vs. discretionary spending for those who want to show the defense budget is very large and there is either adding in or subtracting out the VA budget and military pensions depending on the point the person generating the report is trying to make.

Personally, I always like the whole budget in order to see "the big picture".

http://www.aaas.org/sites/default/files/migrate/uploads/BudPie.png
http://www.aaas.org/news/2013/10/29/updated-fy-2014-budget-released

[Peter1469]

We won't know the real numbers until Congress approves the DoD proposed budget. But I think it is around $495B right now.