re: "Budget axe may kill our military’s edge"

McQ at Blackfive ("the paratrooper of love") explained why defense cuts are fraught with peril.

Money quote(s):

"One of the things that concerns me with all of the talk about huge budget cuts to defense is the distinct possibility that such cuts will take away the edge our military now has and has enjoyed for decades.

That edge, or advantage, is something that has helped make our military successful in every sort of combat imaginable. But developing and maintaining that edge are both time consuming and expensive. Research, development, testing, field and support don’t come cheap.

Yet that seems to be what is being demanded in an increasingly technologically advanced and dangerous world. The edge we’ve developed technologically over the years is what makes our military so exponentially lethal. We’ve provided combat multipliers to our warriors and they’ve used them expertly.

But to maintain such an edge, we must also be willing to spend the money necessary to do so.

There are numerous examples of cuts being considered that are dangerous. They will not only make our military much less capable, but also threaten our national security. Not only that, the cuts could end up actually costing us more than they save by sticking the military with outdated equipment that requires more maintenance, has more down time and will need continued parts and support."

That last might seem counterintuitive, but really isn't. To those with any military experience whatsoever (which exempts most of Congress), it's obvious. Older stuff breaks more often, is offline or "deadlined" longer, and requires replacement of broken or wornout parts with greater frequency. It's why military logisticians go with 150 percent "redundancy": in essence, if you need two trucks, you'd better have three because one is always going to be "down" for maintenance.

McQ concluded:

"These are the things that should concern us all as we watch a group of politicians with vested interests in other areas, many of whom look at defense spending cuts as a way to pay for other programs they are interested in, get ready to swing the budget axe.

Do we keep and improve the technological edge which has made our military the most powerful and predominant military in the world for decades? Or do we refuse to pay the price necessary to keep our military’s edge and continue to make it the most powerful and flexible force in the world and risk our national security?

No one knows how many wars and conflicts our military has been able to avoid simply because we’re as powerful as we are. But if history is a teacher, as soon as we’re perceived to be in decline militarily, there are those who will test us. This is one area of the national budget with which we must be very careful. Budgetary fat is always fair game, but the systems that will be the heart and soul of our national defense capability for decades to come should not be cut heedlessly. To do so would be a tragic mistake."

10/26

re: "Libya: Muslim law and secular dreams"

McQ at Blackfive ("the paratrooper of love") was unsurprised at anti-secular developments in Libya.

Money quote(s):

"If your hope for the latest version of “Arab Spring” to be found in Libya was a secular democratic state, you can quickly forget the secular part of the dream."

&

"I’d love to tell you this comes as a complete surprise, but then I’d be acting like some politicians I know.

I’m certainly not going to contend that keeping Gadhafi was the best thing we could do, but let’s be clear, what has happened darn sure doesn’t seem to be an outcome that we’d have hoped to see either. At least as it now seems to be shaking out.

In that area of the world, secular dreams seem to me to be the most foolish. How that particular dream manages to stay alive among the elite of the West is beyond me. It isn’t now nor has it ever been a probable outcome of any of these so-called “Arab Spring” revolutions. The revolutions are steeped in Islam because the governments being replaced were relatively secular for the area and the Islamic groups now rising were the ones being repressed."

Hope is still not a plan. (And it's not a very useful analytical tool either.)

10/24

re: "Fort Hood massacre nothing more than “workplace violence” per DoD"

McQ at Blackfive ("the paratrooper of love") disagrees with the premise.

Money quote(s):

"What happened at Ft. Hood wasn’t a case of “workplace violence”, it was a case of a radicalized Islamist going on a murderous rampage because of his radicalization. It was also a total failure of leaders to recognize the threat and act on it well before it ended in the death of 13 at the Texas military installation.

Why facing up to this seems to be such a chore for DoD and this administration remains the mystery."

Integrity. I'm sure that's a word that comes up at various times during the professional education of our top military leaders. That and oldies (but goodies) like "Loyalty Upwards and Downwards" and "Men first, Mission Always."


12/7

re: "Guns or butter? Saving food stamps at expense of national defense"

McQ at Blackfive ("the paratrooper of love") lays out some facts about cutting defense spending.

Money quote(s):

"(T)here’s a whole lot of military spending going on in the world, and we do most of it.

But we’ve known that for decades. What the chart doesn’t tell you, for instance, is how much China’s spending has increased. China’s defense budget for the past few years has seen double digit jumps, with the only year in single digits being 2010 when it only increased the budget by 7.5%. This year, it’s back in double digits at 12.7%. So that wedge you see in this static chart is a rapidly growing wedge. As China’s economy has heated up over the years, so has China’s military spending.

Russia too is increasing its spending on defense. It plans on spending $650 billion on its armed forces over the next 10 years.

France, on the other hand, has been cutting its level of military spending consistently over the years since 1988. But a country that isn’t cutting its spending and which now spends more of its GDP on the military than does France, is Iran.

The point, of course, is that while it is evident that we spend an inordinately larger amount than any other country on defense, we’ve done that because we’ve assumed an international role that others can’t fill or we don’t want them to fill.

And that’s an important point. One reason that we’ve generally seen a peaceful 50 or so years (with most wars being of the regional, not world wide, type) is because we’ve been the country which has shouldered the burden of keeping the peace. Peace through strength.

Obviously there is certainly an argument that can be made that we shouldn’t have to shoulder that burden and it’s time we gave it up. But as soon as you say something like that, you have to ask, “but who will fill the role”?

Certainly not the Third World Debating society known as the UN. They’re inept, corrupt and incompetent. And certainly not NATO – as Libya has proven, they can’t get out of their own way.

So who keeps Russia in its place and stands up to China as that country flexes its newly developed muscle? What about Iran? Or North Korea?

That’s the problem with being about the only country standing of any size after a world war. So we have to ask ourselves, is it in our best interest to back out of our pretty dominant role and cut back drastically in our spending in that area? If we answer yes, we have to ask who we trust to pick up that slack. I know my answer to that – no one. But rest assured that power vacuum will indeed be filled. A dilemma for sure."

One of the fun facts about Russia is that the millions of dollars we've given them in aid to clean up, secure, and demilitarize their older nuclear force freed them to spend their defense budget (remember: money is fungible!) on modernizing and upgrading their new nuclear forces.

"We lead the world in spending but do not have the largest military – not by a long shot. In fact, our entire military is just a bit smaller than the Chinese Army alone. Looking at that, and considering the spending chart, what would it tell you?

It would tell me we spend the majority of our money on technology. It costs money – and a lot of it – to maintain our level of superiority. We spend it on things like 5th generation fighters, state-of-the-art naval vessels, and the like. Programs that are designed not only to give us the technological edge on the battlefield, but also to deter would-be enemies from even trying, given their inability to match our capabilities. It is obviously an intangible – we can’t really measure how much this has saved us from brutal and even more costly wars – but with the budget battles and the fiscal crisis, we’re in a position where we certainly have to clearly state our priorities."

One can place domestic politics and policies, re-election concerns, and "transforming America" at the top of one's "to do" list, but that doesn't make the rest of the world go away.

"Defense spending is 4.7% of GDP and it is approximately 20% of the federal budget."

Just keep that part in mind. It's an important fact. Hmmm. If defense spending is twenty percent of the federal budget, what's the other eighty percent? Foreign aid? Not too likely, considering non-Defense "discretionary" spending is only nineteen percent of the federal budget.

(And according to the pie charts at Blackfive, Medicare & Medicaid are 23%, Social Security is 20%, other "mandatory" spending is 12%, and interest on federal debt is 6%.)

"And we’ve so overspent that we’re spending 6% on interest alone. So 62% of the budget – as designed by those brilliant legislators we’ve elected decade after decade – is untouchable by law. That leaves 39% that these yahoos want to “balance the budget” on. The elephant in the room is ignored to go after the dog. And only part of the dog." (Bold typeface added for emphasis. - CAA.)

"(U)ntouchable by law" means untouchable-until-the-law-is-changed. Entitlements and mandatory spending are labels used by politicians to convince the public that transfer-of-wealth payments used to redistribute income are God-given and Constitutionally-guaranteed rights.

(And they ain't.)

"Is it a core commitment of the government of the United States to protect and defend the citizens of the country as outlined in the Constitution of the United States, or is it a core commitment to take other people’s money and redistribute it?

Because that’s the choice we’re talking about here. Make the commitment to national security and, within reason, the cost that entails, or (snip) throw it under the bus in favor of redistribution of income instead." (Bold typeface in original text. - CAA.)

re: "Lawfare v. Warfare: Bin Laden family uses a little “Alinsky” on US and Obama"

McQ at Blackfive ("the paratrooper of love") understands the mental judo being attempted through lawfare.

Money quote(s):

"(T)he “bin Laden family” condemns the attack on their father and demands that there be a reckoning"

There was a reckoning. That was the whole point.

"They’re also threatening to take the case to the International Criminal Court which would be an interesting turn of events.

The hidden premise, of course, is OBL was a criminal, not an unlawful combatant and we violated the law."

Which "law" was that exactly?

International law, like the international community, is a fiction. It's a useful one, sometimes, but it's more aspiraational than real. The "World" has no court. The "World" has no policemen. Sovereign nations do, and sometimes let international organizations like the U.N. use them.

"The death of bin Laden is being described in some quarters as an “extrajudicial killing”. In fact, bin Laden was always considered to be an “unlawful combatant” by us and as such had no such protections. In warfare, the targeted killing of an enemy, in this case unlawful combatant, is quite legal.

So what you are seeing here are competing premises, one saying terrorism is simply a criminal act and therefore terrorists must be treated as common criminals would be treated as well as afforded various rights because of that status. The other says they are enemies who have declared war on the US, committed numerous acts of war and, in accordance with the Geneva Conventions, are “unlawful combatants” and enemies whose targeted killing is an accepted practice of warfare.

Lawfare vs. warfare.

I think we’ve been pretty clear since the beginning, with the AUMF (which the Obama administration ironically used as the legal basis for its raid into Pakistan), that we’re at war (and yes, I also accept the AUMF as a declaration of war) what we consider these terrorists."

While, as a traditionalist, I would prefer our declarations of war to have "DECLARATION OF WAR" printed in bold typeface at the top of a sheet of parchment, with heavy maroon wax seals in gilt skippets suspended by wide red ribbons, that's just not how congress rolls these days.

"This is not a criminal matter. It is a military matter and it was executed as such. The lesson it teaches other terrorists who’ve declared war on “the Great Satan” is we are relentless and remorseless. Those are two good messages to send." (Bold typeface added for emphasis. - CAA.)

re: "Libya: Military Science 101 at work"

McQ at Blackfive ("the paratrooper of love") shows how the enemy gets a vote in how the best-laid plans go aft agley. (We're not the only ones with a learning curve, after all.)

Money quote(s):

"I noted the other day to someone that once Gadhafi’s forces figured out how to adapt to the coalition presence and tactics, they’d probably begin to swing the momentum back to their side. Why? Because they’re better trained and equipped than the “rebels”. "

The Libyan rebels are, almost by definition, a "rag tag band." In other words, they're a "pick-up" team. No hard winter at Valley Forge drilling under Von Steuben for them. To their detriment.

"Think about it - what is the hardest thing to distinguish? Whether or not a civilian vehicle is occupied by good guys or bad guys – or neither. Make your side pretty much identical from the air to the other side or just regular civilians and it makes the job the coalition has undertaken much harder. That’s precisely what the Gadhafi troops have done."

The enemy gets a vote in how your plan (assuming you have a plan developed somewhat beyond the "Underpants Gnome" stage) and will be doing whatever they can manage to foul up and interfere with its successful implementation.

That why the call them "the enemy."

"I hear a lot of talk about the US (or others) arming the rebels and how that will make the difference. Nonsense. While not having the weaponry that the other side has is indeed a disadvantage, it isn’t the rebel alliance’s biggest problem. Their biggest problem is they’re an untrained and undisciplined rabble. And an untrained and undisciplined rabble confronting even marginally trained troops with at least a modicum of discipline are going to lose if all else is equal."

In political terms, this is why the odds favor the Muslim Brotherhood coming out on top of the tweeters and Facebookers in Egypt: the Ilkwan are organized and prepared for violence, just like the Bolsheviks and Khomeini's "revolutionaries" were.

re: "Is the military leadership “too white and too male?” Diversity gone wild ..."

McQ at Blackfive ("the paratrooper of love") has read an absurd report commissioned by Congress.

Money quote(s):

"We sort of have to stop and talk about some basic things when we see a report like this. And the first is “what is the purpose of the military – diversity or victory”? Playing this sort of numbers game is stupid in an all volunteer force which has the job of defending the country. We’re not talking the university campus or some corporate board.

What you want is the best leaders to rise to the top. That isn’t to say that always happens, but to pretend that there’s an “acceptable” mix of ethnicity, race and gender that will optimize that leadership and improve the military is simply silly.

I object to this report not because it says we should allow women to serve in combat units – that’s an entirely different argument. I object to it because of the stupidity of the premise that diversity is more important than effectiveness, especially in military matters."

This sort of attitude, that one can continue social-tinker (it doesn't merit the promotion of the term "social engineering") with the nation's defenses, even during time of war (that's often overlooked) and no matter what there's just so much military awesome-to-spare that no one can ever beat us, or even hurt us.

I don't know whether to feel flattered they think we're that good, to feel insulted because the think we don't really matter, or to feel frightened that they don't understand why the U.S. might actually need a military, after all, that is capable of defending the nation from its enemies. There are enemies, despite what the good people (sic) at Columbia U. may think.

"It isn’t the job of a military to “reflect [the] racial, ethnic and gender mix” of the nation in its leadership. Its job is to field the best military and military leadership it can, close with and destroy enemies of the US and protect and defend its citizens and way of life. So it must reflect the best leadership available for the job REGARDLESS of race, ethnicity or gender. On its face the report’s premise is just silly."

To many on the Left, the military sole use (to the extent it is seen as in any way useful) is as a social laboratory where pet theories can be decreed into reality. After all, the military are mindless automatons who can be ordered to do anything and being unthinking drones they'll blindly obey.

"The military is and must remain a meritocracy. And while I know that the very best don’t always rise to the top, a good enough portion of them do. And, shock of shocks, it all somehow works. That’s what we want to encourage and continue REGARDLESS of race, ethnicity or gender.

Playing diversity games just to have pleasing numbers in “leadership” is nonsense, especially if there is no real need for it."

I was privileged to serve with men and women in the U.S. Army and her sister services who were of every hue and came from all walks of American life. They don't need special treatment to succeed, they just need a fair shot and they'll go as far as they're able.

Recall that it takes 20-30 years to "grow" a military leader into the top ranks. They're not just excreted from a factory somewhere or talent-scouted from a rival firm (although that would be an interest premise for a science fiction novel). I expect that, should I still be alive to see it 20-30 years from now, I will see a somewhat less caucasian group of general officers grown from today's lieutenants serving in Iraq and Afghanistan.