Don't Mess With Def

Chengdu!

Sino speak for asymmetrical irony ala puissance - nicht wahr?

Great Satan's Def Sec's hello about China's massive opaque military bling bling gets greeted on touch down with a sad boring asset'd lecture about Taiwan. 

China's hot desire for a tiny tiny fun, free choice little sister democrazy (that hasn't ever bothered anyone) speaks volumes about the idea of messing with defense budgets.


Super daemoneoconic brain power a troi - betwixt Great Satan's vulcan PNAC enabler, Great Satan's undeniable indispensability XO and fully crunk madame l'nat'l sec' xpert of Heritage's Allison Center for FoPo - totally puts steel on target and lays it out in a totally easy (and fun to be with) kinda way that even the most risible offshore retreatists and immoral isolationists can hang.


"...Collective cuts have taken a huge toll on the military. Killing the Army’s Future Combat Systems program not only deprived the service of a new generation of ground combat vehicles — for the fifth time since the end of the Cold War — but threw a monkey wrench in an innovative plan to “network” the force (which means, roughly, bringing it from the age of the Atari to the age of the iPhone). 

"...Shrinking the Navy to fewer than 280 ships means the smallest fleet since World War I, when it shared the ruling of the world’s waves with the British Royal Navy.


"...The “Age of American Air Power” of the 1990s crashed with the 2009 termination of the F-22 Raptor. The Raptor had been the ultimate don’t-even-think-about-it message to potential adversaries; indeed, reports recently surfaced that North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il hid underground for over a week last year when the U.S. was hosting exercises in the region out of fear of attack from an F-22. 

"...And with the fate of the short-take-off version of the F-35 uncertain and the killing of the Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle, the Marine Corps’s future as a “forcible-entry” amphibious force — that is, the Marines as they’ve existed since World War II — is in serious doubt. In sum, Donald Rumsfeld’s idea to “skip a generation” of weapons modernization is being realized.


Way more more shock shock shocking than future and au courant weaponry shrinkage is the jarring idea of shrinking active duty combat capability - shrinking Army and Teufel Hunden to the tune of 47K  cats. 

"...This is especially jarring in light of the simultaneous announcement of an additional “surge” of 1,400 Marines into Afghanistan this month.


"...Indeed, if the post-9/11 wars have proved one thing, it is that the land forces of the United States are too small. The Bush administration refused to expand the Army and Marine Corps until the 2007 Iraq surge, arguing that by the time new units could be organized and trained, the fighting would be over. Determined to repeat the folly of strategy-by-end-strength, again limiting combat commanders’ choices by constraining the resources available.


"...The troop cuts aren’t supposed to take effect until 2015 — by which time the president has promised to be “out” of Iraq and all but out of Afghanistan — but they will begin to shape recruiting and retention almost immediately.


"...Gates once led the charge to “win the wars we’re in,” yet he works for a commander-in-chief who’s interested only in ending the war he’s in. Our armies were too small before 9/11. They’ve been too small to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan simultaneously — we have a “one surge at a time” force. Cutting land forces now can only make the “Long War” longer.

Pic - "America’s interests and role in the world require armed forces with unmatched capabilities"