It is a balanced package, the secretary said, because while some programs are eliminated or delayed, others are increased. The budget looks to re-shape the military to be more agile, quick and flexible that incorporates the lessons learned in 10 years of war, he added.
The big “lessons learned” from Operations: USELESS DIRT 1 and 2 is that we wasted a lot of time and resources that could have been spent to give the military enhanced defense capability to fight real threats to the nation.
The budget treats the reserve components very carefully, Panetta said. After a decade of being an integral part of America’s wars, the reserve components will not go back to being a strategic Cold War-era reserve. The reserves will be the nation’s hedge against the unexpected, the secretary said.
Only a decade? He must have missed all of the Reserve and Guard deployments from the end of the Cold War until 9/11. Go back to sleep Mr. Panetta. Since the end of the Cold War, Reserve and Guard resources have been doing work that should have been done by a properly manned active force. When you have repeat cycles of Reserve and Guard foreign deployments they are really no longer a Reserve or Guard.
The Navy will retire seven older cruisers and two amphibious ships early, and the Air Force will eliminate six tactical air squadrons.
Not a bad idea, but their capability will be replaced by the Littoral Combat Ship, a technologically risky new variant of the Burke and the fighters will be replaced by a poor idea known as the F-35. None of this is what you want in the Pacific Rim.
The F-35 joint strike fighter is key to maintaining domain superiority,
No it is not. And with its ill-health, it’s future is doubtful. It takes money away from other needy and valid defense communities.
The budget will maintain all legs of the nuclear triad -- bombers, ICBMs and submarines -- and will invest in significantly more capability in the cyber world, Panetta said.We need new nuclear weapons to replace the old stock. As long as Microsoft is used on prime DOD communities, the idea that one wants to fight a cyber war means there will be some unnecessarily messy battles.
“My hope is that when members understand the sacrifice involved in reducing the defense budget by half a trillion dollars, it will convince Congress to avoid sequestration, a further round of cuts that would inflict severe damage to our national defense for generations,” Panetta said.The reality is: this is an election year. And, there is a lot more dead-wood to be cut.
