And so it begins…

Posted on by March 9, 2023

The fight over the military portion of the budget is off to the races…

U.S. Indo-Pacific Command has outlined new spending requirements to boost deterrence against China, including billions of dollars in new weapons, new construction and closer military-to-military collaboration with America’s allies in the region.

The command’s congressionally-ordered assessment delivered Wednesday calls for more than $87 billion in spending between 2024 and 2028; with $15.4 billion for fiscal year 2024 alone. That represents a significant jump from last year’s $9 billion request for FY23 and five-year projected spend of $77 billion.

Full article, HERE from Defense News.

Admiral Harris tried to do some of these, but was shot down. Admiral Aquilino is a former commander of Seventh Fleet and very familiar with the AOR…

I can hear the Army and Air Force screaming over these plus ups, and they will be doing everything they can to carve these away and get money for ‘their’ wish list…

Sigh… I HATE infighting, especially when the administration is against the military anyway…

Comments

And so it begins… — 13 Comments

  1. While I am not a fan of carte blanche military spending, the concept of “What’s the cheapest way I can defend our country” reminds me of Lester’s Ammunition. “It usually works”.
    But why would this administration think that we are under threat from their best friend and “financier”?

  2. What’s that line about the most wasted money in the world is spent to get the second-best military?
    I couldn’t tell from the article, but are there adequate funds allocated to make sure we have enough trained bodies? And, are there plenty of spare parts, so MANY spare parts that “we have to hide most of these because the IG is coming”?
    This continues to have a personal impact; my Kenneth graduates in 11 weeks, and will immediately leave for Fort Lost in the Woods, in the state of Misery, for his combat engineer AIT. (That’s Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri, to the uninitiated.)

    • Sorry to hear about your Kenneth. My son is currently serving. It’s not the Army it was 20 years ago. Wokeness is the rule. Gays, trannies, women and blacks rule over all, rank and position be damned. The modern Army can’t even deliver the mail or reliably feed the troops in garrison.

      • Sadly, there are actually colors in the Army. Used to be everyone was a shade of green, but no more.

        My nephew tells me drugs are back big time in the barracks. We have returned to the mid 70s era of military incompetence and illegality on bases.

        Hopefully we’ll get another Reagan-like Commander in Chief soon.

  4. And all that is BEFORE we talk about replacing all the ammo and equipment sent to Ukraine. The production of artillery, manpads, anti-armor, and MRLS projectiles should be running 24/7/365 to replace what has been sold/given.

    Maybe I haven’t looked in the right places, but I haven’t seen anything about a sense of urgency to replenish those stocks.

    • The “West” has plenty of potential manufacturing capacity, and a lot of redundant systems, some of which are hitting their use-by date.
      As you say, there is a certain degree of bureaucratic and political inertia, but I hear that a number of production facilities are being ramped up, and some entirely new ones in the pipeline.
      Problem is that the manufacturing technology involved is not the sort of thing that can be bought “off the shelf”.

      There are reports that the US is sitting on something like 4 million 155mm artillery cluster-munition rounds. The administration has plans to dispose of them as cluster-munitions are somewhat “on-the-nose”…. but Russia is dropping their own version on Ukrainian positions.

      You may find this of interest, coming from one of the more astute private, non-NATO analysts in the social media space. https://youtu.be/Qj9HD8MdAFs

  7. Anyone who believes anyting that Progressive Blogger spews is an Ignorant fool.

  8. Hey Old NFO;

    And the cynic in me will wonder how much of the Military budget will be “diverted” to cover DIE requirements and “Climate Change” rather than the best bang for the buck. or am I expecting too much from the Xiden administration and the congresscritters……