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| Home Front: WoT |
| Reprogramming the Pentagon for a new age |
| 2008-12-09 |
| By Secretary of Defense, Robert M. Gates |
| Posted by:ryuge |
| #6 And the day of lavish earmarks are over. Hardly. It's just starting or as they say 'you ain't seen nothing yet'. The servicemembers will be starved of funding for basics, training, and maintenance while the politicians micro manage even more funding to their 'defense industry' front clientele who in turn will kindly dump more money into their reelection campaign funds. Its the Murtha way. It thrives. And the crooks keep getting reelected. |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2008-12-09 13:14 |
| #5 I seriously doubt that the days of lavish earmarks are over, I'd hazard a guess that it will be business as usual in DC. But you're right about the modern concept of warfare vis-a-vis the average person. They want quick and easy, and put it on CNN so they can watch. If it takes longer than Gulf War 1 its too long to captivate the attention of the average American. |
| Posted by: bigjim-ky 2008-12-09 13:05 |
| #4 We should be modest about what military force can accomplish and what technology can accomplish. The advances in precision, sensor, information, and satellite technologies have led to extraordinary gains in what the U.S. military can do. The Taliban were dispatched within three months; Saddam's regime was toppled in three weeks. A button can be pushed in Nevada, and seconds later a pickup truck will explode in Mosul. A bomb dropped from the sky can destroy a targeted house while leaving the one next to it intact. But no one should ever neglect the psychological, cultural, political, and human dimensions of warfare. War is inevitably tragic, inefficient, and uncertain, and it is important to be skeptical of systems analyses, computer models, game theories, or doctrines that suggest otherwise. We should look askance at idealistic, triumphalist, or ethnocentric notions of future conflict that aspire to transcend the immutable principles and ugly realities of war, that imagine it is possible to cow, shock, or awe an enemy into submission, instead of tracking enemies down hilltop by hilltop, house by house, block by bloody block. As General William Tecumseh Sherman said, "Every attempt to make war easy and safe will result in humiliation and disaster." I'm glad Obama is keeping Gates on--sounds like he really gets it. As much as I love the thought of running a war from an armchair in Nevada, with the ease of a video game, we cannot forget the vulnerabilities of electronics and computers. We may have to fight "blind" and "deaf". And the day of lavish earmarks are over. |
| Posted by: Thealing Borgia 122 2008-12-09 11:26 |
| #3 Rest assured, we could have had a great economy and The One would have cut military spending. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2008-12-09 11:00 |
| #2 The Obama budget cuts are going to eviscerate our conventional forces. The economy may not give any other choice. Ironic that the economy would force us to cut military spending, but also force us to spend a trillion dollars on lightbulbs and other pet projects. |
| Posted by: DoDo 2008-12-09 10:46 |
| #1 I have a great place for him to start. Use the South Korean model. Always strapped for cash, they put their emphasis on two things: small arms and training. The Obama budget cuts are going to eviscerate our conventional forces. The economy may not give any other choice. This means if we want to project force, it will mean less technology and more personnel. The days of standing off and slapping a country like Iraq with cruise missiles and air power will just be too expensive. This shifts the balance towards more land forces, and yes, higher casualties. In past I have suggested that it is time for the US to set up an American Foreign Legion, garrisoned offshore, and modeled after the French Foreign Legion. Highly trained light infantry from around the world, that is far less expensive than using our own forces, and can be sent to places we don't want to send our people. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2008-12-09 10:12 |