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Robert Gates’ newly announced plan to retire sometime in 2011 has set off a new round of adulatory and fawning press coverage. In a lengthy feature piece, for instance, Foreign Policy magazine’s Fred Kaplan extols Gates as “the transformer” and “the most revolutionary Pentagon leader since Robert McNamara.”
Newsweek’s Fareed Zakaria agrees. Gates, he argues, is “a genuine conservative in Eisenhower’s tradition.” He is courageously facing down the dreaded “military-industrial complex.”
By all accounts, Gates is a good and decent man and a dedicated public servant. But his reputation has been inflated and burnished by the media because the media mostly agree with him. Indeed, they like the fact that he has been trying to cut the defense budget and “reform” the Pentagon; and they like the fact that he is pushing to end “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” which prohibits openly gay military service.
Gates also benefits because his predecessor is conservative Donald Rumsfeld; and his likely successor will be a more liberal Obama political appointee.
Rumsfeld, of course, presided over the troubled Iraq War (pre-surge) and had strained relations with the military’s senior officer corps. Gates, by contrast, had the good fortune to preside over the surge and has fostered more cordial relations with the military leadership.
Thus, when compared to Rumsfeld, Gates looks very good. He looks more moderate and reasonable. And certainly, he’ll look more moderate and reasonable than his liberal political appointee successor.
But style points aside, a more objective assessment of Gates’ tenure as defense secretary is far less flattering than the media would have us believe. For the good that he has done has mostly not been his doing; but the bad that he has done bears his signature.
For example, prior to becoming defense secretary, Gates was a member of the Iraq Study Group, which opposed a surge in U.S. forces there, and which urged instead an American withdrawal from Iraq. Such was the conventional wisdom.
Of course, Bush defied the conventional wisdom. He ordered a surge of U.S. forces. The media vilified Bush for this decision, depicting him as stupidly stubborn. Nonetheless, the president stuck to his guns; and the rest, as they say, is history. Bush’s gamble worked; the surge succeeded; and Iraq was won.
Gates didn’t show any real leadership here; he simply was a good company man. He respected Bush’s decision and carried out his orders by administering the surge, which he had first opposed.
Much the same thing happened with the more recent surge in Afghanistan. Candidate Obama had promised to strengthen and invigorate the U.S. war effort there and was looking for a way to make good on his campaign pledge.
Meanwhile, the U.S. military, after fumbling around in Afghanistan for seven years, finally and belatedly realized that it had adopted the wrong strategy. It had foolishly adopted a more conventional military strategy in the face of a growing Afghan insurgency.
But buoyed by its success in Iraq, the U.S. military soon came to embrace counterinsurgency warfare instead; and it told the new president that therein lays victory. Gates and Obama agreed because, short of forfeiting the war, this really was the only option available to them. (And I predict that if they stay with it, both men ultimately will be hailed as the leaders of the successful war in Afghanistan.)
Similarly, Gates is hailed as someone who forced the Pentagon to focus less on potential military threats like China and more on current conflicts like Iraq and Afghanistan. This is true insofar as it goes; however, it really doesn’t go very far.
In fact, by the time Gates took over as defense secretary, the U.S. military recognized that it was involved in a “long war” that would not end anytime soon. It realized that it needed to do more and work faster for our deployed troops overseas. After all, urgent needs statements from in theater were filling Pentagon in-boxes and raising congressional concerns.
Gates recognized this development and gave it his formal imprimatur as defense secretary. He then reaped the public relations whirlwind for “forcing” the Pentagon to start doing more for our soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan.
In this sense, there was widespread support within the U.S. military to focus less on exotic weapon systems and more on gear and equipment that can help our soldiers and Marines today. That’s one reason you didn’t hear much of a hue and cry within the military when Gates canceled the F-22 fighter jet, which had never been used in either Iraq or Afghanistan.
But Gates erred by eliminating and cutting ground-force modernization programs like Future Combat Systems, vehicular upgrades, and soldier networking initiatives. At a time when America is immersed in two ground wars this makes no sense. It makes even less sense when you realize that future conflicts almost certainly will be ground-intensive and thus will require the presence of American soldiers and Marines.
Indeed, as the commander of the U.S. Central Command, Gen. James N. Mattis, told the Center for Strategic and International Studies in a June 1, 2009 speech:
“The idea that we are going to be able to fight future wars without having soldiers on the ground, or just having a few special forces — I think that’s a pipedream… High-performing small [ground combat] units,” Mattis declared, “are now a national imperative.”
Mattis is absolutely right. Unfortunately, the defense budget doesn’t reflect this reality, and the reason why is simple: Gates has agreed to an artificially constrained total defense budget, which is projected to decline to just three percent of the gross domestic product (GDP) — an historic low at a time of war.
Of course, to be fair, this is not Gates’ decision necessarily; it is Obama’s. And, truth be told, Republicans like Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham, have conspired with the president to cut the defense budget.
Still, Gates has used his enormous political clout and prestige to effect Obama’s defense cuts, and they are massive in scope: Indeed, according to Kaplan, “Gates’ office calculates that his cuts will have saved a [cumulative] $330 billion.”
Then, too, there is Gates’ elimination of Joint Forces Command to help save $100 billion in supposed “administrative overhead” within the next five years.
Each of these budget cuts can be justified individually perhaps; but taken together they point to the declining importance of the U.S. military and of military preparedness in the early 21st century. And these budgetary decisions will have profound and deleterious strategic and tactical consequences.
Strategically, the cuts will force the United States to be less assertive internationally. Our military, after all, won’t have the same reach and ability that it once did. And tactically, the cuts will force our soldiers and Marines to assume more operational risk — and therefore, more casualties if and when they are deployed in the future. But of course, policymakers will be less inclined to deploy our troops if they fear higher casualties.
All of this doesn’t make Bob Gates a bad man. It simply makes him a company man. An unusually good and popular company man.
You can follow John Guardiano on Twitter: @JohnRGuardiano
Of course, Bush defied the conventional wisdom. He ordered a surge of U.S. forces. The media vilified Bush for this decision, depicting him as stupidly stubborn. Nonetheless, the president stuck to his guns; and the rest, as they say, is history. Bush’s gamble worked; the surge succeeded; and Iraq was won.
OMG, the breathtaking stupidity of these sentences.
Anymore such great triumphs of presidential leadership and our nation will be bankrupt.
If we had left when Gates had wanted to, things would be different how? Well, except of course for the thousands fewer casualties and the billions fewer dollars wasted.
The entire purpose of the surge was to spare Bush and Cheney embarrassment. The Iraq War was a hideous mistake, and prolonging a mistake can never, under any circumstances, constitute a “victory”.
Was it your goal to insult our intelligence?
If so: Mission Accomplished.
Watusie: The entire purpose of the surge was to spare Bush and Cheney embarrassment.
Obama ordered a surge in Afghanistan too.
Is the purpose of the Afghanistan surge to spare Obama embarrassment?
Guardiano: Our military, after all, won’t have the same reach and ability that it once did.
If by that you mean we probably won’t bail out Europe a FIFTH time, you’re right.
And thank goodness.
When the Cold War ended, I said that the U.S. should get out of Europe, let the Europeans defend themselves, and concentrate on what looked to be the real vital interests of the 21st century: Asia and the Middle East.
Instead, Bill Clinton and Madeline Albright went to war in the Balkans, bombing Serbia with stealth bombers for 78 straight days.
About the only good thing to come out of that adventure, was it once again showed the Europeans up for the soft impotent wimps we conservatives always knew they were.
Of course, Bush defied the conventional wisdom. He ordered a surge of U.S. forces. The media vilified Bush for this decision, depicting him as stupidly stubborn. Nonetheless, the president stuck to his guns; and the rest, as they say, is history. Bush’s gamble worked; the surge succeeded; and Iraq was won.
Gates didn’t show any real leadership here; he simply was a good company man. He respected Bush’s decision and carried out his orders by administering the surge, which he had first opposed.
Nice revisionism. In this narrative, simply sending more troops into Iraq changed the game.
This wholly ignores the comprehensive counterinsurgency strategy that was implemented in Iraq under Gates – the alliance with and even support of Sunni warlords in order to dislodge and drive out Al Qaeda operatives. The putting of Petraeus in charge of Army promotion board, which opened the doors for Colonels with counterinsurgency experience to be promoted, displacing Generals with a primarily Cold War view of conflicts. Gates is the one who recognized, in his own words, that we were actually fighting 4 wars – “One is Shi’a on Shi’a, principally in the south; the second is sectarian conflict, principally in Baghdad, but not solely; third is the insurgency; and fourth is al Qaida, and al Qaida is attacking, at times, all of those targets.”
In short, in all likelihood pouring a surge of troops into Iraq under the Rumsfeld gameplan would have likely been a massive waste of men and materiel. Gates enabled Petraeus and helped change the game, and any success in Iraq has to be attributed as much to his new strategy as to just adding to the troop totals.
Of course, any defining of Iraq as a “victory” is dependent on some serious bar moving, imo. It means that America had to accept a government in Baghdad which will probably be one of Iran’s strongest allies in the region going forward. It meant that insurgents killers of American troops who we had been labelling as an “evil” to be wiped out instead had to be allied with and supported. And of course, in the big picture, it meant that America had to spend about a trillion dollars in the short term, and commit ourselves to a trillion more worth of spending in the long term, seriously damaging our economy and leaving us deeply in debt to China and Saudi Arabia.
But a “victory” is where you can claim one, I guess.
Sinz:
Obama ordered a surge in Afghanistan too.
Is the purpose of the Afghanistan surge to spare Obama embarrassment?
Sadly, probably yes.
About the only good thing to come out of that adventure, was it once again showed the Europeans up for the soft impotent wimps we conservatives always knew they were.
Do you wear a codpiece when you talk like that?
sinz, Obama ordered a surge in Afghanistan, the necessary war, because it had been woefully neglected in favor of Bush’s war of choice (and supreme folly) in Iraq.
So we won in Iraq? Does that mean we can come home? No? Then we haven’t in fact won it. The surge (along with the Sunni awakening as balcone points out) simply prevented the war from being completely lost and if Rummy had been allowed to stay surely would have been.
“It makes even less sense when you realize that future conflicts almost certainly will be ground-intensive and thus will require the presence of American soldiers and Marines.” You simply do not know this. The war in Serbia required no soldiers or Marines, and contrary to Sinz I believe was an essential and necessary NATO war. Or did he imagine millions of refugees flooding NATO countries was not an intrinsic threat to stability?
If you do a threat assessment you got North Korea falling apart or Iran going Nuclear on Israel, neither will mean large ground armies as Israel will annihilate Iran in return and lord knows how we will handle a chaotic North Korea, simply assuming a repeat of Iraq is also not logical.
Then you have an India-Pakistan conflagration, lord knows how that can play out and what our response should be.
Easton,
I appreciate your comment, but the scenarios you allude to all would require the deployment of ground troops. For example, if North Korea fell apart, the country would have to be policed and rebuilt — in large part by ground troops.
Ditto an Iran that was annihilated by Israel. The country could not simply be annihilated and left to rot. It would have to be policed and rebuilt — by ground troops.
I do not assume a repeat of Iraq. I simply recognize that the types of conflicts we will be immersed in for the foreseeable future will not be conventional wars in which armies, navies and air forces square off against each other.
Instead, they will be unconventional and irregular conflicts that involve rooting out terrorists and insurgents, aiding and abetting our allies, rebuilding countries, and assisting failed and failing states. And if we do not do this, then we ultimately will pay a horrific price.
Regards,
John
What sorted Iraq out was not a surge of troops but a surge of dollars transported by the pallet load to pay the warlords to stop killing our troops. It was and is a giant bribe.
A great deal of that money just disappeared. Billions of dollars just went who knows where. A great fu*k up with your and my tax dollars. Fiscal Conservatism at it’s best.
Canceling the F-22 was a terrible decision that will come back to haunt us in blood. We’re supposed to have a two-tier mix: top quality two engine no compromise fighters, and jack-of-all trades ground attack oriented single engine cheaper fighters. With the Russians and their customers and imitators, that’s been the Su-27 (to be replaced by the PAK-FA) and the MiG-29. With us, that’s been the F-15 and F-16, supposed to be replaced by the F-22 and F-35.
But now we’re told we won’t replace all our F-15s with F-22s, but will have to make do with older, non-stealthy, non-supercruise, non vectored thrust, non advanced avionics equipped F-15s instead, or with F-35s pressed into service “above their pay grade” that are shorter-ranged, non-vectored thrust, non-supercruise, and can’t carry as many long range fire and forget missiles. Bottom line is that F-35 or F-15 pilots will be outclassed and dying from SAM or air to air missile or dogfight, or we’ll be deterred from throwing our full might into a furball that we’ll lose men in and allow an enemy to challenge our air superiority, threaten our ground and sea forces, or we’ll have to pull out and disengage.
Short sighted. Penny wise, pound foolish. The same baying hounds and useful-to-our-enemies retired flag officer “reformers” that end up in peacenik think tanks, and are praising the F-15 now to kill the F-22, were attacking the F-15 in its day as a supposed boondoggle, and falsely claiming the F-4 could be used forever too.
And frankly, Rumsfeld’s decision to kill the XM-2001 Crusader howitzer and the RAH-66 Comanche were shortsighted for similar reasons.
Carney – talk about being above your pay grade. The F-22 wasn’t cancelled – Gates simply stopped the military industrial complex from forcing more units than is needed down the Air Force’s throat.
How many missions has the F-22 flown in Iraq and Afghanistan? Zero
The F-22 is designed for dogfights with an equal. How many countries have a fighter that can challenge the F-22? Zero.
Given those two facts, why do we need more F-22s, which will just be obsolesced by the F-35?
We have a massive budget deficit that needs to be fixed (thank you, George W. Bush). The F-22 is Exhibit A of good places to start.
Watusie, full funding and production of the F-22 was indeed canceled, interrupted, halted, before it could replace our F-15′s, as originally intended and planned.
Your “arguments” are disingenuous or ignorant.
Even if we had pressed what few F-22′s we have into service in Iraq and Afghanistan, would you suddenly change your mind about them, and support full funding, and full replacement of all our aging F-15′s with modern F-22′s? I didn’t think so. So your citing this issue is a red herring.
You advocate complacency because Afghanistan had no air force and we achieved air dominance against Iraq. But there’s no guarantee that all our enemies in future will have no air force again (and given our repeated history of being caught by surprise by enemies and their capabilities, assuming that we will is foolish). Furthermore, we achieved air dominance against Iraq by ignoring people like you in the past, and pressing ahead with modernization. If we had tried to take out Saddam’s air force and air defenses, either in 1991 or 2003, with only 1960s-era aircraft and equpiment, we’d have a lot more dead airmen.
The 5th generation F-22 is NOT designed for “fights with equals”. It is designed to dominate current 4th generation threat fighters that equal or exceed our 4th generation fighter, the F-15, such as the Su-27 and its many more advanced derivatives. If you’re genuinely patriotic and pro-America in a meaningful sense, rather than mere lip service, and thus want America to WIN ITS WARS, you WANT us to have an unfair advantage, to NOT let our potential enemies’ capabilities catch up to ours. Moreover, the Russian 5th generation fighter project, the PAK-FA, already is up and flying, and the Chinese are known to be working intently on their own, called the J-XX. Given current threat arrays and what we already know is coming, forcing our men to fly the aging F-15 and refusing to give them the best we have to offer, the F-22, is grossly irresponsible, at best.
Secondly, the F-35 does not obsolesce the F-22. Instead it is meant to replace the F-16.
The Australians are clamoring for the F-22 and are deeply unhappy about being fobbed off with the lower-class, lower-capability F-35 instead, especially because studies show that Russian-made Sukhoi fighters can defeat the F-35 by denying this short-range fighter tanker refueling.
The F-22 is stealthier and has a longer range than the F-35. Unlike the F-35, the F-22 can also achieve “supercruise” that, is supersonic speed, without engaging a fuel-depleting and range-reducing afterburner. Unlike the F-35, the F-22 has vectored thrust, enabling it to make extremely tight turns in dogfights. Unlike the F-35, the F-22 can carry six air to air missiles internally (the F-35 can carry only two).
This is not to bash the F-35. Its jump jet variant is desperately needed by the Marine Corps to replace the ancient Harrier (which can’t even go supersonic). The Navy needs the carrier version to replace the regular F-18 Hornets, and the Air Force needs it to replace the F-16. But to claim that it can take the place of the F-22 is just false.
Carney, it is simple – we have 187 F-22s and no enemy to turn them against. Yes, maybe someday in the future we will…and when that day comes we have 187 F-22s. And when the day after that comes, then we’ll have the F-35.
The Australians are clamoring for the F-22? Well, tough shit. I’m not going to approve further increases in our national debt on the back of your claim that some unnamed Aussie agrees with you the the F-22 is the coolest thing ever, man. But if the Australians are willing to bear the full cost of the program, I say let ‘em buy as many as they want – so long as they are paying top dollar, in cash.
We have 187 F-22s. Enough.
You want a name? The Australian Defence Minister, Joel Fitzgibbon, asked for it back in 2008. The issue has been a major one in Australian politics for years. Somehow I suspect that you and others who enjoy wringing your hands over how we’re “alienating our allies” are serenely indifferent on this issue. The Japanese would love the F-22 as well.
As for the numbers, we were supposed to have 750, to replace all our F-15s. It got cut and cut and cut and cut and cut, literally cut five times, to a piddling 183. Meaning we’ll have to make do with inferior aircraft, F-15s, in place of the F-22s they were supposed to be replaced by.
This is the usual game played by defense “reformers”: realizing perfectly well that development costs are sunk costs that cannot be recovered, ostenatiously announce procurement cuts because the program is supposedly unaffordable. Then express shock, shock, that the per-unit cost has risen (fewer planes to spread the development costs out onto), and label the program “troubled”, providing an excuse for more cuts. Then express more shock, shock, that the per-unit cost has risen again. Etc etc.
Carney:
First of all, we’re not going to war against China.
Most of the stuff sold in Wal-Mart is made in China.
So is the Schwinn elliptical trainer I just bought.
Secondly, in the long run, what counts is that certainly by 2030, Chinese GDP will have outstripped American GDP. And the nation with the superior economy and superior technology can always be the militarily superior nation as well, if it chooses to. Especially China, with its military draft and its population triple ours.
If you’re really worried about China, then let’s find ways to revitalize the American economy. The Soviet example showed that with a declining economy, a worldwide military force becomes economically unsustainable.
Carney – Joel Fitzgibbon resigned in disgrace. So, well done supplying a name, but I’m still not sufficiently impressed to approve the idea that we should continue blowing holes in our budget on the say-so of an Aussie. If Australia and Japan want the F-22 they can pay the full price for them (in cash) and I’m sure we’ll be happy to make them. However, if Australia and Japan want the F-22 and want my tax dollars to pay for them, they can hop off.
sinz, I’m fine with a revitatized economy, especially because it will help remove the excuses being used to hollow out our armed forces. As for no war with China, nothing will make one more likely than deliberately weakening ourselves in the face of their relentless modernization that is aimed squarely at us. Both World Wars were caused in large part by huge misunderstandings and false assumptions that those people over there would never fight over this because they care too much about money.
Watusie, you’d never heard of Fitzgibbon before I named him. Stop pretending you know what you’re talking about. You’ve also failed to acknowledge that I destroyed your point about not having used the F-22 in Afghan & Iraq, and that we should seek only to be “equal” to our potential enemies.
Carney, I’m happy to continue making the point that the opinions of little-known, ethically-challenged minor Australian politicians are not relevant to discussion of our need to sort out our extravagant defense spending.
Sorry that I “failed to acknowledge that I destroyed your point about not having used the F-22 in Afghan & Iraq”. Obviously, your feelings are hurt given that your brilliance is going uncommented upon. However, it is hard for me to acknowledge that which I cannot see.
We already have 187 F-22s and they have ZERO missions in Iraq and Afghanistan. So, I assume that they are unlikely to suddenly become relevant to our current conflicts. But, we have 187 of them to apply to some future conflict where they would be relevant. Professionals sitting in the Pentagon looking at all the data say that is enough. So – enough.
If what we have in Iraq is a victory, what does a defeat look like?
Is that the national security equivalent of Wall Street clowns and crooks booking a fat profit (and paying the commensurate fat bonuses) on a deal that won’t turn toxic and blow-up until all the crooks and clowns have retired to enjoy their ill-gotten gains?
Let’s hold off for another few years before we pat ourselves on the back for our shimmering success in Iraq.
Watusie, it’s gracious to acknowledge when someone else has refuted your point, or made a good point in response to your own. Given your history here, I’m not surprised such an impulse is utterly alien to you.
My point in bringing up Australia, as you know, was to refute your false claim that the F-35 is good enough to take the F-22′s place. It’s not. The Aussies were unhappy with only being given the F-35 when they wanted the F-22 instead. In fact, it was the more left of the two parties there that made the bigger fuss over the issue.
Simply repeating points you made that I already refuted is also unimpressive. As I mentioned, if we had used the F-22 in either theater, you would not have supported full production of the F-22 anyway. So stop pretending that was a compelling or decisive point with you. You do not debate in good faith.
Furthermore, as I mentioned, we achieved air superiority in Iraq because we wisely laid the groundwork for that decades beforehand with expensive, difficult modernization programs. Who anticipated in the 60s and 70s that we’d need to fight Saddam Hussein in 1991? The world is an unpredictable place.
Carney:
1) Why does the opinion of a disgraced former Australian defense minister outweigh that of the current American Secretary of Defense?
2) I’m sorry that “the Aussies were unhappy with only being given the F-35 when they wanted the F-22 instead”. However, in our current budgetary straights, we shouldn’t be giving anyone anything. If the Aussies want the F-22 and are willing to pay the full cost in cash, they can have it.
3) If we had used the F-22 in Iraq or Afghanistan probably Gates would be saying we need more than we currently have. But we didn’t. So we don’t. Your repeated counter-factual argument is irrelevant.
4) Yes, Carney, the future is an unpredictable place. And the people at the Pentagon who have all the data say that more F-22s then we already have are probably not going to help us respond to what it throws at us.
Watusie, I know you’re crowing that the political appointees of the Pentagon, and the career men they give orders to, have, as instructed, come up with the desired, cheaper conclusion that we foist off inferior and/or older planes on our fighting men rather than giving them the best we have available to offer. It’s fascinating that the only Pentagon decisions hailed by the Left are those that weaken our military, or divert its priorities into Political Correctness, environmentalism, etc. rather than winning wars.
And I wasn’t talking about giving the Aussies the F-22 for free, genius. My point was we won’t even let them buy it. You once again showcase your utter lack of knowledge.
We probably didn’t need the F-22 in Afghanistan, or today in Iraq (though it would have come in handy earlier when we had enemy fighters and air defenses to deal with). In any case, the failure of an anti-F-22 official to deploy the F-22 in theater, when absence in said theater is supposedly the linchpin justifying its existence, is hardly convincing.
Carney In any case, the failure of an anti-F-22 official to deploy the F-22 in theater, when absence in said theater is supposedly the linchpin justifying its existence, is hardly convincing.
I see – it is all part of a librul plot to destroy the nation?
However: Gates was appointed by Bush/Cheney, and he concluded we had enough F-22s and informed the Armed Services Committee of that conclusion when he was a member of the Bush/Cheney Administration.
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1710944,00.html
So I guess that it is a joint librul/conservative plot to destroy the nation.
One more thing: the F-22 was said to be fully operational in December, 2005:
“If we go to war tomorrow, the Raptor will go with us,” said Gen. Ronald E. Keys, commander of Air Combat Command.
That is from “the official website of the U.S. Air Force”, 12/15/2005.
http://www.af.mil/news/story.asp?storyID=123013572
Gates did not become Sec. Def until twelve months later. Your theory, quoted above, is that Gates blocked the use of the F-22 in Iraq in Afghanistan in order to justify not buying more.
But why didn’t Rummy use it during the 12 months it was available to him?
Is he in on the plot as well?
And I wasn’t talking about giving the Aussies the F-22 for free, genius. My point was we won’t even let them buy it.
Evidence please. Seriously, I am curious about this.
Watusie, if you were paying attention, I criticized Rumsfeld above for cancelling the Crusader artillery system and the stealthy Comanche scout helicopter. The Bush Administration made many bad decisions. And one of my biggest beefs with Cheney was his effort to kill the V-22 Osprey tiltrotor during Bush 41.
Bush 43, as a 2000 candidate, promised to “skip a generation of weapons” in a speech to the Citadel, trying to buy liberal love by proving he was a shiny forward thinking type, not a scary mean old supporter of major weapons programs that attract liberal enmity. Did him no good of course, and the promised “next generation after” vaporware weapons systems that we purportedly canceled the various programs for (“Metal Storm”, ARH-70) never actually materialized, extremely predictably.
Also, chortling over the spelling “librul” is not witty. Interesting how mimicking Ebonics, or a Latin American Spanish accent, is shocking and evil, but mocking Southern and Western rural accents is OK.
Carney, clearly you are a man who has never met a weapons system he didn’t like. How much are you willing to see your taxes raise to pay for all these toys for the boys? If neither the Right nor the Left is willing to build every system you want built, does that not suggest to you that maybe your amateur opinions just aren’t up to scratch?
Easton, Google “F-22 Australia” for overwhelming evidence of Australia’s interest.
There’s a think tank pushing for it: http://www.ausairpower.net/raptor.html
See also here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Martin_F-22_Raptor#Ban_on_exports
Watusie, I don’t automatically support all weapons programs (for example the Super Hornet is far inferior to the F-14 Tomcat it replaced), but in general I do.
I don’t consider weakening our military and cancelling superior weapons systems to be a “Right” action, but rather a Left action, no matter the political party of the person doing it.
No need to raise taxes; the government is hauling in more than ever. We need to slash discretionary and entitlement spending, which are exploding up far faster than inflation or population growth. America was not a poverty-stricken wasteland in 1990 or 1980; returning to those levels will help a lot. Also, let’s deport the 10 million plus illegal aliens.
Carney, conservatively, what would it cost to seize, process and transport 10 million people? Let’s say it is $10,000 per person (a figure which I think is extremely low). That is $100 billion dollars of expense. And it will leave economic havoc in its wake. So why not go the massively less expensive route of creating a path towards legalization which would be eagerly seized upon by the economically productive members of the illegal immigrant cohort?
Name the specific areas of discretionary and entitlement spending which you would see cut, and identify by how much and quantify the savings that will result.
BTW, your contention that when the Right does something you personally don’t agree with it temporarily becomes the Left is just nuts.
As I explained, Republicans can do liberal things (cut weapons programs), and Democrats can do conservative things (deregulate interstate trucking, reform welfare). Not everything a Republican does is conservative. Not everything an otherwise or generally conservative official does is automatically conservative either.
As for programs to cut, I don’t have a twelve point program to pull out of my rear-end. I remember years ago looking at a long list of government agencies, perhaps part of a “you balance the budget” excercise, and sorting them into “kill”, “keep”, and “examine further” categories. It’s astounding how many there are, and I remember putting many into the “kill section” from the Appalachian Regional Commission, to the National Endowment for the Arts.
I’d certainly eliminate the US Department of Education (over $60 billion in non-stimulus funding, and over $90 billion in stimulus funding.) That would pay for the illegals’ deportation right there, even assuming we’d have realized no savings by ridding ourselves of a group that costs us heavily as is.
The Heritage Foundation points out that simply returning to pre-stimulus spending levels we would balance the budget by 2019 without any tax increases.
That’s classic, Carney. Lockheed Martin gets a blank to check to build anything that you deem sufficiently cool, to be paid for by further lowering our educational standards.
Carney, this from the article you linked to: Japan was believed to be the only country possibly able to afford the Raptor, although even that was doubted within Washington. Rep. David Obey (Wis.), the top Democratic appropriator in the House, sponsored the original language years ago against foreign sales of the Raptor after the Pentagon argued for the fighter, in part because other U.S. fighters were sold abroad
Look, I am not privy to the intel that went to that decision, so I really don’t know if Congress made or didn’t make the correct decision.
And I gotta say I find amusing that whatever Republicans do that you like is Conservative, but whatever they do that you don’t like is Liberal. Look, I can agree that generally expansion of regulatory and programs are liberal, but the Patriot act wasn’t, and that was a great expansion of Government oversight into private lives.
And as to National Defense, please, Democrats have historically pushed up military spending far more than Republicans. This is undeniable (of course, it helped that Democrats controlled Congress for most of the cold war.)
easton: Democrats have historically pushed up military spending far more than Republicans. This is undeniable
That’s only because Democrats fought more wars.
Obviously, World War I (Wilson), World War II (FDR), Korean War (Truman), and Vietnam War (LBJ), each pushed up military spending dramatically.
But you left out the other side of the equation: Wars tend to use up personnel and materiel and equipment at a dramatically high rate.
So you and Carney are talking past each other. Carney isn’t talking about paying to create a huge army of millions of men, as both Wilson and FDR did to fight their respective wars. He’s talking about peacetime military procurement to keep our armed forces modernized, so that we’re ready for the next war which will inevitably come. (Sorry, liberals, the Age of Kumbaya you all yearn for while dancing around the maypole will just have to wait.)
And when you look at the times BETWEEN the Korean and Vietnam wars, it’s clear that the liberal Democrats were the most critical of military procurement and did their best to slash it sharply.
For example: In 1972, liberal Dem candidate for President George McGovern campaigned on a pledge to cut our Navy in half, reducing it to only six aircraft carriers.
Watusie, that bloated dumping ground of teacher-union lifers, radical-egalitarian lefties, rigor-sapping fad-boosters, and more is not much of an upholder of educational standards. Since 2000, federal spending on K-12 education has more than TRIPLED (making Dem whining that Bush underfunded it surreal). Has there been a remotely comparable increase in quality? Of course not.
easton, Obey is on the extreme left in Congress, and always opposes new weapons programs. No shocker he worked hard to hurt the F-22 in whatever way he could.
Like many posters here and elsewhere, you constantly equate conservatism with libertarianism, and thus berate conservatives as being somehow inconsistent for supporting tough on crime, strong national defense and domestic security, and traditional social conservative policies. But if conservatives were libertarians, we’d be libertarians, not conservatives.
And just as I don’t automatically label all Republican actions as conservative, I don’t automatically label all public policies I like as conservative either. For example, I favor major funding or market intervention in favor of science and health research, alternative energy (namely fusion power and alcohol fueled vehicles), mass transit, and passenger rail (especially intercity and high speed rail). I also favor a robust space program and mandatory lasting contraception for welfare recipients, which I do see as conservative but whose conservatism I’ll concede is debatable.
It’s stupid to just put a flat severe cap on military modernization. We should spend what we need to maintain a superior armed force capable of taking on all comers.
It’s also stupid to just okay the procurement of every weapon system there is. (Which never happens anyway; most of the early missile systems under development in the 1950s were never deployed. They were canceled.)
I was an engineer for some 25 years and I worked in the aerospace industry. Believe me, I saw some absolutely horrible military systems under development–solutions in search of a problem, systems with no definable requirements, money being spent while progress was nil. And on occasion, I recommended against further development–at considerable risk to my own career prospects.
On the other hand, I was fortunate enough to work on some wonderful systems, systems which enhanced the capability of our national defense, without soaring cost overruns or schedule slippages.
The reason why military procurement APPEARS to be so wasteful, is that there are fewer systems being built than in the commercial marketplace, and we taxpayers have to foot the bill for both the good ones and the bad ones.
In the commercial marketplace, less attention is paid to systems under development that were failures. (Take a look at all the failed attempts to develop competitors to the iPad this past year.) Everybody knows how Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak developed the Apple II personal computer in their garage. We don’t hear so much about all those other entrepreneurs and inventors who tried to invent something in their garages but failed. Mostly because all these entrepreneurs were working on their own nickel, not on our taxes.
The American Spectator : AmSpecBlog : Cutting Defense Doesn't Address Our Debt Problem and It Endangers America // Jul 8, 2011 at 11:44 am
[...] and careless talk about cutting "fat" in the defense budget. But Obama already has cut an estimated $330 billion from the defense budget. How much more can we cut before we start sacrificing actual warfighting [...]