Not saying I told you so…

Posted on by August 1, 2014

BUT…

We’ve BEEN saying this for now at least two years…

An independent panel appointed by the Pentagon and Congress said Thursday that President Obama’s strategy for sizing the armed services is too weak for today’s global threats.

Read it and weep HERE…

This is what happens when all the money goes to entitlements to buy voters.

And before somebody starts, no military retirement is NOT an entitlement, we put our asses on the line for 20 or more years to defend this country… And we were the lucky ones that made it home.

Oh yeah, and BO wants to cut more military this year and next…

Comments

Not saying I told you so… — 26 Comments

  2. Too much wrong with this to dump in your comments. I will post on it further another time.

    1. This is just wrong.
    2. Congress decides how much money to give to the military, not the president. Money becomes force structure.
    3. The US military is twice as big as it needs to be.
    4. Making the military bigger and stronger will do nothing to mitigate a feckless foreign policy and a grossly incompetent presidency.

    • 1) I will wait for your defined answers.
      2) The CIC makes the request for personnel issues. The money issue held by congress is just that, money? Less tanks, less food, less ammo, less ships at sea, that is money. The CIC chooses people.
      3) I will wait your explanation, but do not agree.
      4) It is this feckless foriegn policy that will have us needing a larger military.(Or at least keep current numbers)

  3. There is an old saying that the US Government has only two jobs, guard the border and deliver the mail.

    It can’t even do those two now a days.

  4. He, BO, is indeed making us less safe and more open to attacks internally and externally.
    But I will back you up and say you said this 6 years ago, not just 2.

  5. Any military is only as good as the leadership that drives it.

    At the Battle of Gaugamela, the Persians had an excellent army, outnumbering the Greeks. By all measurements, the Persian Army should have annihilated the Macedonian/Greek alliance. However that’s not how it worked out.

  6. At what point does the military say “No, we mustn’t get any smaller” and refuse to play along?

    I don’t know whether this would actually happen, but the muttering is growing louder.

  7. Ed- Yep, and some folks are finally recognizing that…

    Prof- Everybody is entitled to their opinions…

    Danny- Yeah, been beating this drum for a while.

    Gerry- Sad ain’t it…

    LL- Oh yeah…

    Rev- You know they can’t do that… Not allowed… Dammit!

  8. I think being a senior military officer right now must be excruciating. Honor says resign in protest. Duty says embrace the suck, try to keep the core intact, and hope for a change in two years. If you choose duty, you know you will be lumped in with the political perfumed princes and princesses that see no difference in what is good for their careers and what is good for the service and country. Hard choice.

    • Unless you fully embrace the suck, you’re stopped at the bird. If you didn’t embrace it and had stars, they retired you. That’s the reality of the ObamaNation.

  9. This will blow up in our faces, as it has in the past. Professor Hale says, “The US military is twice as big as it needs to be.” We can debate that point, I suppose, but what is beyond debate, is that “needs” can change in the blink of an eye (see 12/07/1941 and 9/11/2001), while a military buildup takes years.

    “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
    -George Santayana

  10. Same goes for our good folks in law enforcement as well. As the domestic situation goes south, they will be forced to choose between their oath to the constitution and their badge.

  11. I’m not a vet, so I won’t be offended if you guys jump all over me for my opinion. You earned that right. 🙂
    For me, it’s not a money issue. The issue IS what the money is spent on. Instead of throwing billions or trillions down the rat hole for littoral ships that can’t fight or a fighter that we can only afford a few of, or a rifle right out of duck rogers, etc., let’s spend the money on keeping more divisions battle ready. And let’s build more transport ships to get the troops wherever, faster. Same for transport aircraft; fire up the assembly line for C-141 or C-5’s! Or how about upgrading current air platforms to remain competitive in a dog fight? Maybe design a “new” super Hornet and fire up the production line: use them for Air Force AND Navy. The research has been done. We know this stuff works. The philosophy that we always MUST have the latest tech is just crazy.
    I could see China field 1001 inexpensive fighters to go against our 100 super duper fighters…and even if the ratio was 10-1 in our favor we’d still lose because we’d be out of super-duper fighters while China still had the 1.
    But sad to say, the reality is that the defense industry will continue to get billions and trillions for stuff that isn’t cost effective because politicians (both parties) get donations and general staff need “jobs” when they retire.
    One question that someone here may be able to answer: how many Super Hornets could be built for the cost of 1, just 1, F-35???? Even if it’s just 2, wouldn’t those 2 Super Hornets be a more effective as a team than 1 F-35? Or am I way out of line?

  12. Sadly, military retirement pensions and disability checks ARE entitlements, at least as the term is used in Congress. It’s every dang thing that’s funded without Congress voting on it.

    I’m not pleased by it being so, but I’m not going to deny it.

  13. WSF/LL- You are BOTH correct… Friends ‘inside’ have said the same…

    John D- Concur!

    RHT- Couldn’t agree more…

    LCB- You’re not wrong at all… And actually a LOT more right than you know. The few leaders we have left don’t ‘want’ the shiny new toys it will take 10 years to get, they want proven, works today stuff… DDG-51 instead of LCS for example (and damn near the same cost). Re the F-18 vs F-35, you can buy 2.5 F-18s for one F-35.

    McThag- I know…But just because the congresscritters use those terms doesn’t make it right, it’s STILL earned by those that served (Which most of them didn’t do).

  14. Hey Old NFO;

    BO doesn’t like the military, they tend to vote conservative. Also to him, it is part of our imperialism that he likes to rail about. Our military is what makes us a superpower. He views us as one among many, not the exceptional place we really are. I am not defending him by no stretch of the imagination. He is the peter principle writ large and that is what happens when ignorant people vote.
    As far as the money goes, we lose combat power, not headquarter staffing. How many generals/admirals are running around with their staffs while the war fighters get cut?
    Don’t even get me on the F35 “White Elephant”. The AF is committed to buying this super,dooper, swissarmyknife fighter, and they don’t care that they will bleed the budget dry. The focus seems to be on procurement/political power versus what the shooters really need. I am an army guy, I make no bones on it and anything that makes “my job” easier, I am for it. We Army guys love the A-10, the B-52 and other tried and true systems that put a hurt on the bad guys. They are phasing out the OH-58 scout helicopter and will use the Apache in that same role. Not designed for that but they will plug it in and hope it works.
    The Navy is committed to its carrier force, nothing wrong with that, but they don’t have the surface fleet to support the carrier force. it has been cut to fund the littoral combat ships whose fighting ability is suspect.
    Don’t even get me on the social engineering that has been going on..I thought Clinton was bad, Obama has done far worse to the readiness of the Military.

  16. “BO wants to cut more military this year and next.”

    Of course he wants to cut the military. He wants to get rid of them all and leave internal security to his personal Praetorian Guard.

  18. Senior told me about the cuts today..all those majors losing their jobs. So sad

  20. Of the four wars in my lifetime, none came about because the U.S. was too strong.

    Ronald Reagan

  21. I’m okay with cutting the budget where it makes sense. Like LCB says, we don’t necessarily need the newest shiniest tech. But that’s not where the cuts are happening. They’re cutting where it hurts because it hurts. It’s like the death of a 1000 cuts. I damn near told Spock to get out this year. I am sick of “playing” with Tricare, for one. And who knows what retirement is going to look like once we finally get there. Sigh. One more year down.