The New U.S. Military Strategy Is Really Not New

President Barack Obama briefs the press on a new defense strategy as Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta and Army Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, prepare to offer remarks at the Pentagon, Jan. 5, 2012. Deputy Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter, members of the Joint Chiefs and service secretaries participated in the briefing. DOD photo by Erin A. Kirk-Cuomo

America's High Tech Global War Machine: U.S. Military Strategy – Is It Really New? -- Andrei Akulov, Global Research

The idea of having an agile, high-technology, ready-to-move on short notice force is not new. It has been the same concept in force before the protracted land operations in Iraq and Afghanistan started. Correspondingly, the army’s strength grew by 65 thousand. So it’s mainly about going back to before the 9/11 numbers. The same thing applies to the Marine Corps. An increase in the size of special forces of all the services, the army in particular, is not new too. It’s a long-established tendency to boost first strike, intelligence and reconnaissance capabilities.

In fact, this reduction is quite moderate compared to prior defense drawdowns in US history. President Dwight Eisenhower, for example, cut the defense budget by 27 percent after the Korean War. President Nixon cut it by about 30% percent after Vietnam, and defense spending was reduced by a whopping 35 percent after the end of the Cold War, though still remaining a heavy burden on the shoulders of American taxpayers that was hard enough to justify. Then defense expenditure skyrocketed by nearly 70 percent under the Bush administration.

Even with $500 billion in reductions, the United States will continue to spend more on defense each year in the next decade than it did during the height of the Cold War and more than the next 10 countries combined.

Read more ....

My Comment: A critical assessment on the new U.S. military strategy.