Outstanding Quote
February 25, 2009
Surprisingly, this is from Barack Obama, in last night’s address to Congress:
We’ll … reform our defense budget so that we’re not paying for Cold War-era weapons systems we don’t use.
Don’t agree with the President often, but this is LONG overdue. Can’t help but wonder if he will let himself be sidetracked, like Rumsfeld and Bush, who also came in with a reform agenda. That should have been an opportunity for real change, back in 2001. War is a time to take stock with your priorities, not continue BUSINESS AS USUAL!
More-And if only he would show such thriftiness in the rest of the Budget!
Advertisement
2 Comments
leave one →
Sure didn’t sound like a vote of confidence for more F-22′s, did it?
But think about something… how many new weapons programs in the pipeline are Cold War leftovers? Only the F-22. The B-2 productions line shuttered long ago. So did the Seawolf. So did the M1 tank. Of all of the “new” weapons programs we have, only the F-22 and V-22 and C-17 can be considered Cold-War holdovers. The only truly brand new, post-Cold War system I’d consider wasteful-in-the-Cold-War-way is the P-8 Poseidon, which basically rehashes the P-3 Orion’s Cold War mission.
So… I read those comments as being not only a swipe at the Raptor and Osprey, but an attack on all new weapons procurement programs. I bet that remark was cover for “lets just cut the Pentagon across the board, regardless of whether the programs are good or bad”.
The Super Hornet was a post-Cold War program to get relatively cheap fighters on deck by modifying an older design… something actually smart considering post-CW budgets. The Super Bug is the only way to affordably keep airplanes on carrier decks. I bet it gets cut back, at least.
The Virginia class was a compromise after the expense of the Seawolf fiasco. They’re designed for both blue water and littoral ops, including SEAL delivery. But they’re now actually more expensive than the Seawolfs themselves. I bet they get cut at 10 or 11 subs.
The Army’s FCS is the very picture of NextWarItis. Goodbye, sayonarra, so long. It’s definitely doomed.
The DDG-1000 should be canceled. Seven Billion apiece for a destroyer? That’s more than the new Ford Class carrier. That’s beyond obscene and stupid. That’s criminal. You’d think the Obama Admin would cut it… hell, I wouldn’t even build the two Zumwalt’s they’ve already authorized… but various powerful Democratic Congress Critters (including The Swimmer) support it because of jobs in their states, so perversely, this abomination will probably survive the consume to rest of the Navy’s shipbuilding budget.
The Joint Strike Fighter… the quintessential post-CW “cheap” weapons program… is now becoming as expensive as the F-22 it was supposed to supplement. Again, good sense would dictate closing it down, but like the Zumwalt, it has powerful friends both here and overseas, and, I’m convinced, that Lockheed Martin has blackmail photos on some members of Congress. It’s the only rational explanation for supporting a plane with an initial cost of $200 million apiece, that’s less capable in most ways than the F-16′s they’re replacing.
The P-8… OK, no tears if they cancel this. And USAF should be doing land based, long range aerial patrol over sea lanes anyway, and only around the continental United States. Subs, Destroyers, and anti-sub choppers can do it at sea. I’d be just fine if we chopped this program. Coincidentally, despite criticism of it, one mission that would actually be perfect for the V-22 would be anti-sub ops. It would make an awesome replacement for the S-3 Viking. The Osprey has both fast, long range fixed wing patrol capabilities, with the ability to stop and hunt subs in hover like a chopper. This is one area where you could justify a $100 million price tag, as 8 or so of these birds could do both the S-3′s old anti-sub job, and the carrier’s traditional helo squadron job (light cargo, pilot rescue, etc). Special Ops and S-3 replacement are the only really justifiable missions for the Osprey because of its cost.
Wonder what Obama will do about the LCS, though… it can’t be considered CW, but is getting increasingly expensive (with very little combat capability)… but it has a lot of defenders in Congress. I still say that we should dispense with the whole dedicate LCS nonsense, and adapt the current designs to traditional roles. We’ve always operated in littorals, with existing ships, and don’t seem to have a problem doing so. But the Freedom would make a nice fast frigate replacement for the aging Perrys, and the Independence is picture perfect as a helo-carrying anti-sub platform… look at that flight deck. Just stick the new SPY-1F’s on them (the mini-Aegis systems we’re selling to Span for their corvettes and frigates), and give ‘em some Harpoon canisters. Surely you could also stick a small VLS box in both of them if you had too. They’re already half a billion apiece. Lets dispense with the nonsense and make them real warships if we’re going to spend that.
Well there go our B-52s, SSBNs and ground launched ICBMs…
Mayhaps nuclear deterrance and MAD are just passe, if not ancient history to the latte and brie crowd expecting to direct the DOD budget.