U.S. service members scramble for a personnel mission on Camp Bastion, Afghanistan, Dec. 29, 2011. The service members are assigned to the 26th and the 46th Expeditionary Rescue squadrons. From initial notification, the units have 15 minutes to be airborne and must have a patient to Camp Bastion within an hour. U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. David Carbajal
Will The World Pay For A Slimmed Down US Military? -- Sean McLain, The National
Barack Obama claimed on Thursday to have seen the future of combat. He announced a new strategic vision for the US military. America will shed its "outdated Cold War-era systems", he said, and create a "leaner" fighting force that is "agile, flexible and ready for the full range of contingencies and threats".
There is just one problem: Mr Obama didn't have a choice.
He made these remarks shortly after signing the Congressional Budget Control Act, which requires large government spending cuts. Like the US defence budget, the US military is about to become smaller out of necessity, more than because of Mr Obama's vision of the future.
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My Comment: The size and effectiveness of the US military has had a pronounced impact on the military plans and strategies of other countries. As the former Soviet Union learned .... you cannot win an arms race against a country like the United States with it's enormous resources and manufacturing base. The better alternative is to find some accommodation and understanding, and to not focus on resolving conflicts with military actions.
But with the U.S. budget crisis now forcing the U.S. to downgrade it's military .... other countries are now positioning themselves to revamp their own military strategies and foreign policy goals with more monies and resources. So .... will the world end up paying for a slimmed down military? You betcha .... in fact .... we are now seeing many minor arms races in certain hot spots in the world already. (Korean peninsula, Pakistan-India, India-China, Gulf States against Iran, etc.).
1 comment:
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.....
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