Tuesday, January 10, 2012

Repeating History With Defense Budgets Cuts

President Barack Obama walks with Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta and Army Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to brief the press at the Pentagon, Jan. 5, 2012. Obama and Panetta delivered remarks on a new defense strategy for the Defense Department going forward. Deputy Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter and the members of the Joint Chiefs and service secretaries joined them at the briefing. DOD photo by Erin A. Kirk-Cuomo

Obama’s war plan pins hopes on peace -- Rowan Scarborough, The Washington Times

Hawks cite risks, point to history

In dumping the Pentagon’s two-war strategy, President Obama is reversing a doctrine adopted by Republican and Democratic presidents, including himself.

His 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review, a congressionally mandated document that lists the armed forces’ major missions and required forces, stated that the U.S. is “maintaining the ability to prevail against two capable nation-state aggressors” in “overlapping time frames.”

But Mr. Obama’s revised strategy, on which he put his personal imprint by announcing it at the Pentagon on Thursday, discards talk of prevailing in two wars.

In fact, it says that upcoming cuts in Army and Marine Corps land forces will mean the standing army will be able to fight only one small war for a limited time. The Pentagon would have to mobilize reserves for a protracted conflict, such as the one in Afghanistan.

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My Comment: Everyone quoted in this article are of the same mind .... this military strategy is dictated by budgetary concerns and the debt crisis. What's my take .... they are right.

1 comment:

VICKERSS said...

Seldom has so much PR hype been given to anything as meaningless as Obama’s US Defense Review. There will be no drop in US military spending, just a smaller increase than previously proposed. The move to less grunts and more zapping from drones and eventually satellites has been underway for years and is simple continuation of technological development for the benefit of the most infamous White House Murder INC, in the Levant and Worldwide since 2000.... The doctrine of a “right” to intervene anywhere in the World has not changed. The rhetoric is stepped up on a new – and totally pointless – Cold War with IRAN, MENA and China that will keep the military-industrial complex in its dominant position to exploit US society for the next half century. In short, nothing has changed.....