Key words

Secretary of Defense Mr. Panetta, continues his work performing mistake-jet marketing for Lockheed Martin.

Words mean things.

"The F-35 represents, I believe, the future of tactical aviation for both of our armed services," Panetta said. "This advanced aircraft's air superiority, its precision strike capability will help ensure our dominance of the skies for years to come."

Emphasis added.

Hopefully not forgotten is this:

"Forgotten were the elementary rules of logic, that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence and that what can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence."

-Christopher Hitchens et al-

Panetta just isn't very bright

LOL...

Among the specific new weapons Mr. Panetta mentioned were the advanced fifth-generation aircraft known as the Joint Strike Fighter, the enhanced Virginia-class fast-attack submarine that can operate in shallow and deep waters, new electronic warfare and communications capabilities, and improved precision weapons.

Such weapons would give the United States the freedom to manoeuvre in areas where access was denied, Mr. Panetta said.

Leon Panetta's alternate F-35 reality

I wonder how the Senate Armed Services Committee would feel about the U.S. DOD boss Panetta going around telling fairy tales about F-35 progress?

For example, today, Panetta is happy to say to Italy that the F-35B just came off 'probation' due to progress.

The SASC wasn't convinced.

Panetta's canned talking points about the U.S. being "committed" to the F-35 program aren't credible.

This gives him the appearance of being an empty-suit when instead he should be showing concern about the hurt this program is putting on everyone. He is acting like a seller of the aircraft.

Useless.

Panetta continues to be clueless about the F-35--even in front of our allies

Panetta might be suffering from memory failure.

He is given poor advice about the F-35 program from the head of the USMC, General Amos and the head of the DOD F-35 program Admiral Venlet and lifts probation on the B model STOVL. Then Panetta gets spanked by the SASC.

OK, that didn't work out so well.

So, lets do it again. Yet one more damning report on the F-35 program comes out, then Panetta goes to Canada and says this nonsense (I will add some links to help him):

“As part of the defense strategy that the United States went through and has put in place, we have made very clear that we are 100 percent committed to the development of the F-35,” he said. “It’s a fifth-generation fighter, [and] we absolutely need it for the future.”

Acknowledging that the Defense Department has to be vigilant and provide as much oversight as possible as the aircraft continues to be developed, Panetta said Pentagon officials are confident that “this plane can do everything that it’s being asked to do in terms of performance.

“We’ve been testing it, and we continue to evaluate it as we proceed,” he continued. “And we’ve made very clear to the industries involved in its production that they have to keep it within the cross-confinements that we’ve provided with regards to this plane.”

Faith and platitude will not deliver a working combat aircraft.

DOD boss statement on DOD budgets

The DOD boss has spoken:

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.

A few ideas for Leon Panetta to consider

There are various publications making the rounds of what the next U.S. DOD boss Leon Panetta must do to move the Pentagon in the right direction. Here are a few of my ideas that the Panetta crew have to consider to keep American security interests strong. The major ground rule will be based on the premise that the U.S. DOD budget will suffer greatly.

1.Advise the President and Congress to reduce the forces in Afghanistan by a significant amount. This would be where special forces react to a variety of intel to stamp out threats and not just in Afghanistan.

2.This goes to the next point which is to advise the President and Congress that we cannot afford to use the military for nation building useless dirt locations around the world. This will allow the DOD to shed the billions of wasted dollars spent on Afghanistan contractor support.

3.Advise the President and Congress to significantly reduce the military footprint in Europe. This means closing bases wholesale. The only thing we need there are logistics hub setups. And we will still deploy there as needed for exercises.

4.Advise the President and Congress that the U.S. needs to invest more resources into facing potential threats from the South with the growing instability in Mexico. This may involve more Department of Homeland Security (DHS) resources than DOD but task force plans must be created and exercised to provide mission critical and rapid DOD backup against the increasing threat.

5.Advise the President and Congress to significantly reduce the size of the USMC. We do not need a second land army and a 3rd air arm.

6.Advise the President and Congress to end the USAF manned nuclear bomber mission. It is a waste of money.

7.Advise the President and Congress to reduce the size of the USAF in areas where it is doing jobs better done by the Army such as ground force security in a war theater.

8.End the largess at the DOD top office. No E-4B super corporate jet. Lead austerity by example.

9.Significantly reduce the number of flag rank officers in all services. One may be surprised how capable full-colonels are at doing a variety of tasks.

10.Advise the President and Congress to stop the Libya operation immediately. It is unsupportable because there is no strategy or national interest to back it up.

11.Advise the President and Congress that the U.S. Navy needs to embark on a program to field a nuclear escort (large destroyer) to support carrier battle groups. This will reduce carrier battlegroup dependence on fossil fuels for future wars that will most likely involve interests over natural resources. This can be funded by cancelling the Littoral Combat ship program and ending the Navy involvement in the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program.

12.Advise the President and Congress that the Navy needs to build a cheap, affordable, low technology Frigate for other-than-major war use. This can be funded by stopping all builds of the Burke-class destroyer and will involve a variety of ship-building resources so our ship-building industry stays healthy.

13.Advise the President and Congress that the USAF must have a long-range hyper-sonic air-to-ground missile to be launched from B-52s in order to help work against anti-access threats.

14.Advise the President and Congress that the USAF as an air arm must be significantly reduced to where a majority of flying resources are in Air National Guard units.

15.Advise the President and Congress that the USAF and Navy must start a new X-plane program that continuously and actively tests a variety of manned and unmanned flying technologies.

16.Advise the President and Congress that the USAF must adjust its requirement for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter down to a thin Group structure of 24 aircraft each for a total airframe requirement of 300 aircraft. The number may be allowed to rise from that requirement if the program shows true worth.

17.Advise the President and Congress that the USAF is to be directed to participate in fielding the UCAS-N aircraft in order to support joint strike and ISR operations with the U.S. Navy.